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You might be selling yourself short. You say you are not good at sales but in our profession no one makes a cold call and gets a 3m bucks project. Sales comes by continually demonstrating that you can provide good service - and then lots of luck that your client looking for what you are selling. I would sit here and say 'I'm not good at sales - but I think I can safely say that I play at least a small part in my clients being happy with our service and not switching auditors. I've also 'won' engagements because client contacts have moved elsewhere and brought us in. I think that is why you have to do both. Talk to your partners and I'm sure they'll say the same
If you are not too excited about sales, they might ask you to take the ED route. For partner you need to be good at sales.
Because great resources leave and we are left with aggressive sales'y SMs who are shit to work with
OP, I completely agree with you. I am a SM in Tax, and it blows my mind that I would have to leave the firm in a couple of years because I have no interest of selling. Even to become ED, you need to bring a few mlns a year in our group, so not happening for me and they no longer keep SMs in our group over 5-6 years. I get great reviews on technical stuff and my clients are happy but all they care at round tables what was my BD involvement during the year...
But i am not too excited about sales
There's more than 2 specializations really but the end path and compensation varies.
Bc they have a big enough population of people who do both, so why break it out like that, complicate things, and bloat headcount with people who only do one?
SMR generate sales through their expertise .
EY3 - I just went through the ED promotion process. Sales is not as important (in the ED-Subject Matter Expert role) as "managed revenue/book of business." Put differently, if you are managing (at the Sr Mgr level) a couple of very significant tax engagements that recur each year (e.g., tax return or tax provision or Transfer Pricing etc.) and it's expected that upon your promotion the existing EP will hand the reins over to you, those engagements become your book of business and count towards your promotion eligibility. Having said that, it obviously is more impressive to manage accounts AND bring in new work. But that's really expected from Partners more than EDs. So dont assume you will be counseled out by Sr Mgr 5 rank. Make sure everyone you report to knows what your area of expertise and that you are recognized for such expertise. That's your personal "brand" that will get you promoted. Good luck!