How to Hire an Effective Sales Team Leader

One of the first things organizations do when looking to uplevel, grow, or build their sales team is appoint a capable leader.

It’s a good instinct. A sales team, especially a growing or not-yet established one, needs a point person. They need somebody to provide structure to the team, make judgment calls, assign leads and work, assess challenges for team members, and help the group grow as individuals and as a selling organization.

They are the primary resource for the sales team, which makes hiring the right one high stakes.

One of the Most Common Mistakes.

For many organizations with a superstar on the sales team, the solution to finding a sales leader seems obvious: promote the star.

They’ll be able to share their wisdom and their tricks and create a team full of their clones who are similarly gifted at selling. Right?

More often than not, no. Being good at selling and being good at management don’t typically require the same skills or interests. In fact, a sales superstar might have no interest in managing people, or might not enjoy the day-to-day aspects of managing a team.

Not to mention, your sales superstar is bringing in business and growing it. When you transition them into a manager role, you’re adding a significant number of responsibilities to their plate and reducing how much time they have to do what they do best.

You’re taking your best player off the court to see if they’d make a good coach, or even enjoy being a coach, when a much more reliable solution is to hire somebody who knows how to lead.

The Right Type of Candidate.

So, if a sales superstar isn’t usually the right candidate, then who is?

The answer is simple: somebody who knows how to motivate and uplift salespeople and understands how sales organizations should function to be effective.

There may be somebody on your team - in sales or an adjacent function - who fits the bill. There also may not be. The right candidate may come from within your organization, but, depending on how your team functions and who is available, interested, and qualified to step into a leadership role, looking for a fresh face may be the best course of action.

A fractional sales team leader is also the right solution sometimes. Based on the needs and size of your company and your team, you might not need a full-time person to lead them. A seasoned veteran that knows how to motivate and lead at a fractional level can go a long way in decreasing the financial risk of bringing on a new sales leader and creating a lot of value for the team.

This especially comes into play when a team is looking to build their organization and add processes, but fractionals can also help to lead your team without requiring your organization to make a full-time hire.

It all depends on what your team needs.

You Need to Understand Where Your Team Stands.

What process does your team currently have in place? What needs to be developed? Does your team need some fine tuning and day-to-day management, or is the entire selling organization being built from the ground up?

In short, do you need somebody to lead the processes and teams that are already there, or are you looking for someone to help you develop the entire system and team?

Just as some salespeople are great at hunting and some are great at farming, some leaders are great builders and others are great operators.

A great builder is skilled at taking a very small or nonexistent sales organization and building one. They get to know your organization, your current team, what has worked in the past, and what challenges you have. They take the time to understand where it is you’re looking to go in the future. Then they create a team structure, processes, and protocols to help you get there. They don’t just hire a team - they create everything it needs to run.

Meanwhile, a great operator takes a fully built machine and keeps it running at maximum capacity. As your team grows, they’ll likely find some opportunities for improvement and make minor changes. They’ll fill roles as needed, work to develop the skills of individual team members, and make sure everybody is given the tools they need to reach their goals and potential.

Both of these types of leaders are incredibly beneficial to the teams they serve, but only when they’re in the right role.

The best operator in the world will be set up to fail if you’re expecting them to develop the entire selling organization. As for a great builder doing an operator’s role… have you ever heard the phrase, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it?” a builder will have trouble working within somebody else’s vision which could lead to unnecessary (and costly) overhauls of a system that really just needs to be managed and facilitated.

That’s why, before you hire a sales leader, it’s important to understand what you need.

Pro Tip: If you want to know how to build the foundation for a great sales organization, check out Set Up to Win. The book shares three frameworks to help you leverage the power of your team to stabilize and grow your company’s revenue long term.

Promoting From Within the Organization.

Even though turning your sales star into a manager is typically a mistake, there are times when somebody on your sales team does have the potential to be a great leader.

These are typically team members who have solid sales, but are more notably known for being dedicated members of their team. They’re always engaged, are willing to be a resource for others, are happy to answer questions, and always eager to learn. Even without a managerial title, they’re happy to take on leadership responsibilities and find themselves being the “go-to” person that people look to for help and advice.

Of course, hiring from within your company can work only if you have the right person on your team, and when personal bias clouds your judgement, it can be tricky to tell. Here’s how you can make sure your internal candidate is actually a good fit for the job:

• Create a job description, just as you would if you were primarily looking at external candidates. Do this as authentically and honestly as possible, without anybody in mind. List the skills, attributes, and experience you’d want the ideal candidate to have.
• Cross reference the description with the people on your team to see if anyone matches it.
• If somebody aligns very closely, figure what gaps there are, if any, and see if they’re areas where they could reasonably grow fairly quickly.
• Come up with a plan containing defined steps and milestones.
• Determine if those milestones can be achieved in a time frame that works for your goals.

If it turns out that nobody on your team fits the bill, that’s okay, too! Now you already have the job description ready to go and know what you’re looking for from an external hire, too.


Hiring a sales leader is one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your sales team. As the person who crafts or executes the vision for the future of the team and is responsible for the growth of your business, they’re instrumental in not only their team’s success, but the success of the entire organization. Before you jump into the hiring process, make sure you know what your organization really needs from a sales leader in order to be successful.

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A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in our book  Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us.