We initially employed AJ on full-time hours to learn the products and processes in the business before cutting him back to part-time hours. To our great satisfaction, AJ turned out to be so good that we couldn’t cut his hours back. He was producing great sales numbers, and we kept receiving positive feedback from our clients about him. We kept him on full-time.
Several years later, our manager decided to move to the warmer climate of Queensland, and we therefore had an opening for a new manager. I thought about hiring a new manager, but we were so impressed with the sales AJ produced that we decided to offer him the job as manager.
He acknowledged that he was young, but it would be silly for him to knock back the opportunity to manage the business, so he grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t realise that his great sales skills would not lead into great management skills. He didn’t grasp the concept of stock control, he didn’t enjoy managing other employees, and he didn’t know how to read a profit and loss chart. In short, he wasn’t a manager. The arrangement only lasted six months before he left. It would have been a backward step to go back into sales, so AJ had no alternative (in his mind) but to leave.
The worst part from our business perspective was that we really lost two employees. We lost AJ as a manager, and we lost AJ as a gun salesperson. The organisation then had to replace a manager and had to find someone else who could sell as well as AJ. All because I assumed a great salesperson would make a great manager.