Sales manager hires usually fail for one of five reasons: the company promotes its best seller instead of its best potential coach, hires the candidate who interviewed best, never defines what the role actually is, skips onboarding, or pays the manager for the wrong thing. Most of these are set up before the new manager's first day.
Ash here, and I'll start with my own. Years ago I was a sales manager carrying a team quota built purely on total revenue. So I did what the plan paid me to do. I micromanaged, chased the fast, easy re-orders and quietly stopped coaching and building new customers. Within about six months most of my team had quit, sales declined, and I moved on. The company had to rebuild. I wasn't a bad person. I was a manager in a role designed to fail.
Why does promoting the top performer so often backfire?
Because selling and managing are different jobs, and the skills don't transfer as neatly as we'd like.
The best evidence comes from a study by Benson, Li and Shue published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2019. They followed sales workers across more than 100 US firms and found that companies heavily favoured top sellers for promotion into management. In the 2018 working-paper version, doubling a rep's sales raised their chance of promotion by 14.3% relative to the base rate.
Then came the problem. In the same working paper, doubling a new manager's sales before promotion was associated with a 7.5% decline in the sales performance of the people they then managed. The researchers also found that experience collaborating with others predicted how good someone would be as a manager, yet companies didn't consistently promote on it.
Your top rep may still be a great manager. The point is that their sales numbers won't tell you.
Why do impressive candidates turn into weak managers?
Because a sales manager interview is exactly the kind of situation a strong salesperson is built to win. Confident, warm, quick with a story. Those are useful traits, but they're not evidence of coaching, forecasting or hiring well.
A 2022 review of hiring methods in the Journal of Applied Psychology by Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens found structured interviews were the strongest single predictor of job performance. A casual conversation over lunch is not that. If you're judging a sales manager on how the interview felt, you're mostly measuring their ability to sell themselves.
Gallup, which sells manager assessments, reports that managers commonly say they were hired because of success in a previous non-managerial role or their tenure. That's vendor research, but it matches what we see: companies hire sales managers for their past as sellers, not their potential as leaders.
What happens when the role isn't clearly defined?
The new manager fills the gap with whatever they're best at, which is usually selling. They become a super-rep with a bigger title, closing deals themselves while the team drifts.
Research on new hires backs up how much clarity matters. A 2007 meta-analysis by Bauer and colleagues, covering 70 samples of newcomers, found that role clarity, confidence and social acceptance were key links between how people were brought in and how well they performed and stayed. If nobody tells a new manager what success looks like, they'll define it themselves.
Before you hire, write down what the role is for: coaching, hiring, forecasting, building a process, opening new markets. Pick the two or three that matter most in year one.
Why does onboarding matter so much for a sales manager?
Because new managers struggle more than they admit. A 2023 Gartner survey of about 3,200 managers found 40% of managers with two years or less of experience struggled to support their team. That's company research, but it matches what we see.
A new sales manager needs a 90-day plan, regular time with whoever they report to, and early, specific feedback. "Let me know if you need anything" is not onboarding.
How can the compensation plan sink a new manager?
By paying them for something other than building the team. My own story above is the clearest example I have. A manager paid only on total revenue will protect this quarter's number, even if that means burning out the reps who would have produced next year's.
I made a related mistake from the other side, too. To land a strong sales manager who only wanted to be paid on results, I agreed against my better judgment to a plan based purely on top-line revenue. A deal the previous manager had nurtured for about eighteen months closed unexpectedly, and the new manager hit the full year's bonus on work they'd barely touched. I paid it. The plan did exactly what it said, and it rewarded the wrong thing.
If you want a manager to coach, hire and develop accounts, the plan has to pay for some of that. We've written about when a commission plan backfires and the behaviour you're buying with a bonus.
How do you get the next sales manager hire right?
Hiring a sales manager well comes down to a few disciplined steps:
- Define the role before you look at anyone. Two or three outcomes for year one, in writing.
- Assess management, not sales. Ask about coaching, hiring and handling a struggling rep, with the same structured questions for every candidate.
- Check the evidence. Testing, references from people they managed, and a realistic scenario from your business.
- Plan the first 90 days with clear check-ins.
- Build a compensation plan that pays for the job you actually want done.
- If the seat is empty, don't rush to fill it. A few more weeks without a manager costs far less than a year with the wrong one.
One more thing. When a sales manager hire fails, the instinct is to blame the person. Sometimes that's fair. More often, the role, the plan or the process gave them very little chance. If I'd had a better-designed role all those years ago, my team might still be together.
If you're hiring your first manager, start with when to hire your first sales manager.
Work with us. Ashley Wesley, MA, CHRL, CIM, and our team are based in Guelph, Ontario. When you're down to your last few candidates for a sales leadership role, our Final Candidate Review helps you pick the right one. Our handshake guarantee: if it doesn't help, you don't pay.
In short
Sales manager hires usually fail because the company promotes its best seller, hires the best interviewer, leaves the role undefined, skips onboarding or pays for the wrong results. A study of sales workers at more than 100 US firms found that the best salespeople were the most likely to be promoted, yet doubling a new manager's prior sales was linked to a 7.5% drop in their team's sales. Define the role first, assess management skills with a structured process, plan the first 90 days and align the compensation plan with the job.
Key takeaways
- Doubling a new sales manager's pre-promotion sales was associated with a 7.5% decline in their team's sales (Benson, Li and Shue, 2018 working paper).
- Collaboration experience predicted managerial performance but wasn't consistently rewarded with promotion (Benson, Li and Shue).
- Structured interviews were the strongest single predictor of job performance in a 2022 review (Sackett et al.).
- Role clarity was a key link between onboarding and newcomer performance in a meta-analysis of 70 samples (Bauer et al., 2007).
- 40% of managers with two years or less of experience struggled to support their team (Gartner, 2023 survey of about 3,200 managers).
Frequently asked questions
Should I promote my best salesperson to sales manager?
Only if they show the skills of a manager, not just a seller. A 2019 study found top sellers were promoted most often but tended to lead weaker teams. Look for evidence of coaching, collaboration and helping others succeed.
What is the most common reason a new sales manager fails?
In our experience, it's an undefined role. Without clear goals, a new manager falls back on selling, becoming a super-rep while the team drifts. Write down two or three outcomes for year one before you hire.
How long does it take a new sales manager to succeed?
There's no reliable published figure for sales managers specifically. Plan at least 90 days of structured onboarding, and judge early progress on team behaviours like coaching and pipeline quality, not just the quarter's revenue.
How should a sales manager be paid?
In a way that rewards building the team, not only short-term revenue. Plans based purely on top-line sales can push managers to chase easy deals and neglect coaching. Mix team results with measures tied to the outcomes you actually want.
References
Bauer, T. N., Bodner, T., Erdogan, B., Truxillo, D. M., & Tucker, J. S. (2007). Newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization: A meta-analytic review of antecedents, outcomes, and methods. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(3), 707-721. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/busadmin_fac/27
Beck, R. J., & Harter, J. (2014, updated 2026). Why great managers are so rare. Gallup. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231593/why-great-managers-are-so-rare.aspx
Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2019). Promotions and the Peter principle. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(4), 2085-2134. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz022
Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2018). Promotions and the Peter principle (NBER Working Paper No. 24343). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w24343
Gartner. (2023, October 23). Q&A: Three steps to support first-time managers. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-10-23-gartner-reimagine-orlando-q-a-support-first-time-managers
Sackett, P. R., Zhang, C., Berry, C. M., & Lievens, F. (2022). Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection: Addressing systematic overcorrection for restriction of range. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(11), 2040-2068. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000994
Disclaimer: This article provides general HR and business information, not legal advice. Employment law turns on the specific facts and changes over time. Before acting on anything here, confirm it with an Ontario employment lawyer.
