How to Sell More: Tools and Techniques from Harvard Business Review

Think Twice before Promoting Your Best Salesperson

By Andris A. Zoltners, PK Sinha, and Sally E. Lorimer

Andris A. Zoltners is a professor emeritus of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He and PK Sinha are cofounders of ZS Associates. Together with Sally Lorimer, they are the authors of Building a Winning Sales Management Team: The Force Behind the Sales Force.

 Do the best salespeople make the best sales managers? Almost unanimously, when we ask sales leaders this question, the answer is “no.” Yet paradoxically, and too often, sales leaders look for candidates among the sales ranks and select the best salesperson for the manager job. They assume that because an individual was successful in sales, ...