Table of Contents

Individual’s Transformation

Higher Position Requires Different Skills

Pretext:

How you can make yourself fit for your job…I learnt it through jolt at a very young age but it opened up the entire picture in front of me. I never had to look back and made myself fit for the next level of job. You can learn it here and can make you fit for the same and next level proactively.

I can recall, that when I was promoted to the position of Regional Service Manager from Service Engineer, I started leading several engineers and was supposed to manage service operation for the region. I was as before highly engaged in giving direct field services to the customers.  Whenever I was getting calls (not so frequent) from the National Service Manager I was more enthusiastic to tell him what good repair or installation jobs, I did. Nothing wrong as I was a passionate engineer. One day my manager told me over the phone, “Subrata, I know you are a good engineer. However, that has little value to me now. It is more important that how efficiently you are managing the service operation, and how you can achieve an overall high service reputation. How are your engineers doing? What are challenges”.

Usually, a small hint is enough for me and I understand that I need a major transformation. I need to perform on my objective which has changed a lot with the promotion. I started working on these soft skills and gathering knowledge.

I believe, most of you experienced this in your professional career. The basic nature of people is to live in their comfort zone where he/she has core competency. However, the role’s demands may be completely different.  Let me try to explain it by based on my own thought process. You can accept as a whole or part discounting it.

Levels and Competency Impacts:

Let me take a general example of a career move. From a fresher to a CEO, the steps and the expected competency level and Impact.

Levels –

Fresher, Sales Executive, Sales Manager, RM/NSM, Director/GM, CEO/VP.

Competency Impacts –

Basic Knowledge (learn from college), Product Knowledge, Sales Knowledge/Skills, Communication Skills, Presentation Skills, Relation Building, Leadership Skills, Strategy, and Vision.

When I shall discuss the ‘Competency Impact’, it is that knowledge or skill has a higher impact on performing his/her job as such to achieve the personal goal and the goal of the business organisation. Do not misunderstand that when I keep the ‘sales knowledge’ or ‘relation building’ low for CEO than a sales executive or sales manager, I want to mean they crossed the level and are probably experts but for them, the more important factor and impact is strategy and vision. Where Sales Executive and Sales Manager’s success is highly dependent on relationship-building with customers. It may CEO need to use this skill at his level to give shape to his vision, so it has a moderate impact on his job I considered. Do not say everything is important as here the discussion is in relative form and not absolute form.

Specific Competency Impact:

Let me to discuss a little more specific to each level.

Fresher

The organisation’s expectation is low. Organisation coach & train the person to be fit in his position. Where his acquired subject knowledge/ basic knowledge has a high impact on learning and get matured with other competency expectation fast.

Sales Executive

Now the person needs to perform. He/she is the person who needs to keep contact with customers and bring orders. To do this he/she needs higher Product Knowledge, sales skills and relationship-building capabilities. His basic knowledge no more has a good impact on his job but specific knowledge.

Sales manager

Relation Building and Sales Skills are most important. Because his juniors are supposed to do the basic things like sharing product information and setting specifications to some extent. The sales manager needs to incline the customer toward his/her own organisation, convince him about the benefits etc.

RM/NSM

Relation, Leadership skills, and Communication skills start playing a key role at this stage. Did you notice (picture below) that the centre of gravity of the bar graph started moving right? At this point, strategic thought plays a significant role as he/she needs to plan not for the present year but for few years down the line. Leadership skills play a vital role indeed as they lead a larger team.

I purposefully did not mention ethics and honesty in the chart as these are not skills, not to learn much but imbibe in character (can study in detail in my post ‘10Ps’ in this blog. Link- https://salesskills.co.in/10-ps-of-sales ). However, I am mentioning here as in this level lot many people follow him/her and he/she needs to lead by example. People do not see what someone says but how someone acts in the same situation.

The same thing is applied for patience, empathy, stability in decision making etc. Time management is very important at all levels even from school days. It starts with prioritization and you may find in more in other posts in this blog.  So, not included as an impact factor at different levels. Time is limited for everyone and out of anyone’s control, so equal impact for all positions.

If RM/NSM is good at it, he/she creates a good team and contributes to the personal development of many people. At this point and at higher hierarchies it is one of the most important aspects all senior managers should be aware of and maintain.

Director/GM

My blog is not for people already reached this level. Unless some promotee managers who reached this level without fulfilling many of the qualities I mentioned above. And it is not unusual to find such people in many organisations.

However, the chart is well explained which you can follow, which shall help you to be a competent and efficient manager.

For example, relation-building capability is good but not having the skill of strategy building or vision, the skill cannot help the organisation to progress much and merely doing a sales manager job. Leadership, strategy, and vision play vital roles for the individual and for the organisation.

CEO/VP

I have given maximum weightage to writing skill besides vision and strategy. Why? The reason is at this stage the person is the face of the organisation. Society, community and fraternity expect he/she to contribute beyond a particular organisation level. He/She needs to write in newspapers, magazines and give talks in several places. Also, to communicate with the team with full clarity.

Here I need to clarify a little more.  Writing is not writing correct language. Here writing skill is too some extent ornamental, artistic writing skill, and storytelling capability. Most of the people after writing technical English for decades fail to understand that transformation is very important.

For better understanding, I created one Two-Dimensional bar graph and one Three-Dimensional graph.  It clearly shows the phase shift and is easy to understand.

Exceptions:

It is needless to mention that without some of the skills but with the help of some super skills some people do really well for the organisation. If someone has a super skill he/she is fortunate but people on an average do not have that. So, it is better to learn and apply whatever the demands of your position to deliver your objectives. Equally, all need not to reach to the highest level but whatever way one can contribute to best to the organisation should do that. Here you can read my article in this blog “Customer Satisfaction Part-II” about Jeo Girard who was awarded as the best salesman in the world for years and recorded in the Greenese Book of World Records (link – https://salesskills.co.in/customer-satisfaction-stories/ )

Sachin did not have inclination towards leadership but more confident on his batting skill which made him one of the greatest cricketers ever. Where Saurav and Mahi was not that great batsman like Sachin but each of them was one of the all-time best captains of India.

Needless to mention that these are my thoughts. You may agree and disagree on some points. It would be better if you could write your thoughts, agree, disagree etc that will make the article more acceptable and richer.

—.—

SalesSkills.co.in