Dear SaaStr: Is It Easier Being a Sales Manager — Or An Account Executive?
It’s easier to be mediocre at being a sales manager — as you can have everyone else do the work.
It’s harder to be great at being a sales manager, especially as go up to VP level and beyond, as the bar goes up each and every quarter.
I’ve seen this a lot lately. Many sales folks I know are tired of selling themselves and want to get into management … so they don’t actually have to sell. So they can tell other people to sell, and sell more.
You can’t be a great Manager, Director, or VP of Sales just telling others to sell. You have to be in all the tough deals. You have to work through the stuck ones. You have to maybe even be in more deals that as an IC. If … you want to be great.
But if you find a place you can sort of partially phone it in, it can be a lot easier to manage sales folks … than sell yourself. You just won’t perform all that well if you aren’t selling just as hard as you used it. Or harder.
And CEOs and founders? I highly, highly recommend you not hire sales managers that don’t want to sell themselves. Many don’t.
They won’t perform at any startup, from $1m-$200m ARR at least. And probably not after that, either.
