[Q&A] Should you go into sales management and how do you manage people older with more experience?

Welcome to a new segment that we have for the podcast where we are going to answer questions from our listeners. And so we have a question here today that somebody asked us directly. And if you want to get your question answered, go to Succession Bio Podcast and there's a link right there on the page where you can fill out a quick form, you can do as many times as you want, ask us as many questions as you want. What we're going to do is take a few of those each week and just get them answered here on the podcast. So fill it out, ask us your questions and maybe we'll feature you on one of these episodes. All right, so let's dive in. So the question we have today is what advice would you give to experienced individual contributors wanting to move up into people management and biotech sales? Any special considerations if you're not the most experienced in terms of age and willing to manage direct reports who are older than you? All right, Nick, so what are your first initial thoughts on this?

This is a great one. My first initial thoughts are I love the new format of answering questions from our listeners, mainly because I don't have to give space to someone else as a guest to talk and it can be all about me. Other than that, on the actual question, I think that both you and I have had a bit, quite a bit of experience in this and I've often been managing people older than me or with more experience than me. The first thing I'd say is to sort of check yourself and why this feels like a concern to you because I've managed amazing reps with years, years, even decade more experience than me, but they have no interest in being a manager. Right. It's a different skill set, it's a different job. Some people love being an individual contributor. So first of all, you need to check whether you're just believing everyone wants the same path as you or whether, because that will also help you manage them in the right way. Because there's no point giving them opportunities to progress into management if they have no interest in that. You're going to lose staff that love the job and do it well. So I think that's probably the first point I'd make.

Yeah. I think the other piece that I'd even dig into is are you sure that you want to go into management? I think there are, to your point, there are different paths, right? There are reps that you can be a rep for a long time, work global accounts, big deals, you know, find these big companies where you're making tons of money and actually make more money as a rep, a high performing rep, than you will as a manager. I think that's a common misconception, is that managers make more money than reps. Maybe in some cases, but in a lot of cases high performing sales reps will get paid the most. The other thing to consider when you want to go into management is do you want to deal with everybody else's problems? You now are going to be the problem solver and the therapist for everybody on your team, everybody that you're managing. When you're a rep, all you have to deal with is closing deals and making money. And that is your role. And you have a lot more flexibility, I would say, as an individual contributor than you will as a manager. I mean, those are just a couple considerations, like should you even go into management in the first place?

Yeah, I'd agree with that. And I've often been in a scenario where it comes to the end of quarter and it's time to pay out bonuses and I'm signing off checks that are bigger than the own one. My own one I'm going to receive.

For my individual all the time. And you're just like, damn, why did I do this again?

Yeah, what am I doing? Often your base will be higher, so you get more security in that way. But also the buck stops for you. So there's a lot of considerations there. However, I really enjoy it because I enjoy mentoring and training and helping people achieve what they're after. So if that's something you like, then you'll get a lot of. You'll feel a lot very rewarding. So. And also if you have to manage people that are more senior than you, I think it's a good thing to sit there and not more senior. You, sorry, more experience than you in an area or older than you. Because age I see as unimportant.

Right.

And if they do, then make them one of your champions, make them one of your key people that help you drive your goals, see them as an ally in what you're doing and show them that they are worth a lot to you and you need them. And I think they will respect that. Rather than coming in and going, hey, I'm the manager, I know what I'm doing, so you do what I say. Right. I don't like that I employ people to tell me what to do. I think is the old adage, because.

It'S better at what they do than what you are. That's the whole point. Right. I think the. You made a good point there which is you don't have to know everything as a manager. Right. If you're thinking of managing as this, I'm going to tell you what to do and then monitor your daily activities and make sure like you're doing everything I said that is a completely different form of management than what is mostly required in, you know, especially in life science sales. And so the other way to think about it is how can you empower those people to be your champion to your point and even learn from them? Right. They've probably had lots of other managers in the past that they like and didn't like. Ask them, figure out how they like to be managed, how they like to work with a manager. Maybe we can just get rid of this term manager because I think it sucks because it's like you're not managing people, right? You're ideally, you're just helping them get unstuck. You're training them, making them, making sure that they're successful. Obviously part of it is like quote unquote management, but, you know, the main thing is you're just trying to make your team as successful as possible.

I, I have two analogies of management and they're kind of very. They're opposite but for different reasons. And one was, I'm not a religious person, but you may have heard the story of like the shepherd and the, the analogy is a shepherd leads from behind and the flock out, go in front and you're just helping and navigate them. Right. You're not, you're not out in front, like with me.

Follow me, follow me into battle.

Yeah, yeah. Is that's kind of one analogy I like because you're there behind and you're sort of orchestrating and helping guide. And the other one I like is like you're more like a. Have you ever seen those big ships in the Arctic that are out in front breaking ice?

Yeah, the icebreakers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Icebreakers, basically.

Yeah. You do both of those. Yeah, you have to do both of.

Them because you, you're, you've got to make it easy for them to sell. Your job is to get all of the out of their way so they can do their job. And if you do that well and then you support well, I think you can. You got all the ingredients to be a great manager.

Yeah. 100. Yeah. I would, I guess if we were to kind of break down what we're talking about here, it would be one just really make sure that you want to get into management. It is going to be a completely different path going forward. I Think we had an episode with Jeff Chamberlain. You can go back to and listen where he actually talks about the transition from individual contributor to becoming a manager to then going back to individual contributors. So you don't have to think of this as like a life changing decision. You can always go back, it's not an issue. And so, you know, just do make sure though that it is something that you want to get into. And so I'd say first step, just go talk to people, like talk to your manager, talk to other people that are managing different sales teams, get input from other people, people to figure out is this the right role that I want to get into and then if so, you know, leverage that network to either build your case internally to get promoted or to find a company that is going to, to help you put you on that path.

I, yeah, I personally love the player manager role. I really like weightbreaks. I get to do a bit of account management still and I get to manage and guide a team because I think it keeps me close to the, close to the battle to understand what they're going through. Then I think that's something you should always find a way to do.

Yeah, absolutely. Don't be a spreadsheet manager. Get your hands dirty, get in there with the team.

Yeah, I don't have the ability, so there's no danger.

But yeah, that's good. And then I think touching on the last point is don't worry about age. I mean, I managed people substantially older than me for my whole career, so I wouldn't even worry about it. I think it's something that is more of a mental block on your end. As long as you're helping provide value and you're not trying to pretend that you know everything, you'll be just fine again. It's just some people aren't set out to be managers. They don't want to do it. And so it's okay for them to be managed by somebody younger, less experienced.

Than them and the only time that will be. I think it's more of an excuse. If it's ever used as a reason for why you're not good, there's probably another reason, a bit like in a discovery call, if someone's saying too young to be a manager, actually you're probably doing something they don't like and they're throwing the age up because it seems as an obvious like pain point for them. Whereas actually if you're doing a great job and you're helping them make bank, they don't care how old you are right.

Exactly. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Awesome. All right, well, I think we did a good job answering this one, so thank you all. If you guys have questions that you want to get us to answer, remember, go to Succession Bio Podcast, click the link, and fill out the form. All right, we'll see you on the next one.

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