Now, we were in a pickle. Our top salesperson for last year, $450,000 in gross sales, was on the chopping block to be fired.

In January, he had been promoted to sales manager, moved to a guaranteed salary equal to last year’s total comp, and now he was failing. Relieved of all, but the most critical accounts, he was supposed to be leading the sales group, holding meetings, inspiring, helping others to set targets and holding them accountable. As a salesperson, he was great, as a sales manager, he was the pits.

This is the classic mistake. Take your best producer, whether it is in sales, production or research and make them the manager. Management requires a totally different skill-set, miles apart from producing technical work.

Once done, tough to get undone. No one likes to move backwards or have their guaranteed paycheck moved back to at-risk. Most importantly, whose fault was it? -TF