Our head of outbound sales is great at hitting his personal numbers, but as our Sales Manager, his seat requires him to train and manage others. He is failing to build a team. How do we split his seat on the Accountability Chart into a rainmaker seat and a sales manager seat without destroying his compensation or ego?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic dilemma. Your top individual producer is promoted to a management seat because it seems like the natural next step, but selling and managing require completely different skill sets. Management requires patience, training, and coaching, while a rainmaker thrives on personal execution and closing deals. On your Accountability Chart, these are two distinct seats. To resolve this, you must split the combined seat into a Sales Manager seat and an Individual Contributor or Rainmaker seat. Present this change to him not as a demotion, but as a strategic alignment of his strengths with the needs of the business. Show him that his true value to the company is his ability to generate revenue, and that the management tasks are actually distracting him from doing what he loves and what makes him the most money. To protect his compensation, restructure his package so he is heavily incentivized on the deals he personally closes or the strategic accounts he manages, ensuring his earning potential remains high. Meanwhile, place someone in the Sales Manager seat who has the GWC to lead, manage, and hold the sales team accountable. This structural change frees your top producer to do what he does best while giving the rest of your sales team the management they need to hit their targets.