5 Minutes With... Jack Daly

Jack Daly started six businesses in his more than 20 years as an entrepreneur. In 1998, he and his partners were recognized as “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Ernst & Young, and the firm they owned ranked #10 on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing firms nationwide. Today, Daly speaks to audiences worldwide about the sales strategies that helped him succeed. Recently, managing editor Daria Meoli spoke with Daly about the most common sales management mistakes that business owners make.

Daria Meoli: What is the most common sales management mistake business owners make?

Jack Daly: One of the worst mistakes is when the CEO or owner also is the sales manager. The problem with that is these are both full-time positions in their own right; so effectively, you’re doing both of those jobs part time. If you look at the key spots in any organization, there’s somebody in charge of sales, somebody in charge of the operations side of the business, and somebody in charge of the money side of the business.

Most companies I visit have a full-time person in operations, and a full-time person paying the bills and getting the receivables. But neither one of those two areas of the business would have anything to do without sales. To me, the most important position in the organization is the sales position, and it doesn’t make any sense to do the most important job part time.

A lot of owners and CEOs are actually really good at the sales manager position and really like it. My advice to those people is to take that position yourself, and hire someone else as a CEO/generalist. You’ll be a lot happier, and your company will grow bigger and better.

DM: Aside from being your own sales manager, are there any other dont’s?

JD: Taking the best salesperson on the team and making him or her the sales manager is another mistake. Often, the best sales people put a lot of pressure on you to promote them, but they don’t really want the job, just the perks and base salary increase that come  with it. Remember, you can always give those people the perks without giving them the jobs.

The biggest thing missing with the conversion of the sales pro into a sales manager is the immediate gratification of getting a sale. What makes a good salesperson good is not what makes a good sales manager good. The skill sets are very different. A good salesperson gains and grows customers.

A good sales manager recruits, trains, and grows good salespeople. A third mistake, and this is probably the worst, is when you take the best sales guy, make him the sales manager, and let him keep his stable of customers. Now, you’ve got a sales manager selling when he’s supposed to be managing a sales force.

If you ask these guys how they spend their time, they’ll say “50/50.” That’s not true, because if you look at how they get paid—how much they get paid from selling and how much they get from sales management—most of their pay comes from making sales. Therefore, that’s how they spend most of their time, and occasionally, they do a little sales management.