Spreadsheet Sales Management

At what point did sales managers start managing by spreadsheet?

At what point did sales management forget the fact that their job was to help other people become profit centres? That their job was to lead, support and manage the efforts of their team members to generate focused activity and effective client engagement.

I know why it happened. We've had years of transactional or process-focused selling because it was easy - people were buying without us having to find them - and the guys who were good at this got promoted. Now the need is for a different kind of selling - transformational or people focused - and the managers just haven't the background. Hence the spreadsheets.

I know why - I just don't know when. Maybe when the tough times hit and the beancounters started managing the costs and not the people.