Sales managers are the single greatest lever to improve the success for your sales teams. They can make the difference in converting new hires to productive reps and shifting low to middle performers to high performers. But as a sales leader, how can you actually make this happen? When we interviewed 40+ sales leaders we…
Fact: There’s a gap between the reality of who and where sales managers actually spend their time versus who and where sales leaders believe time should be spent. In the most recent blog post in our benchmark study series, we noted that while it might be more enjoyable in the short-term to focus energy on…
Picture this: Mike is a tenured sales rep who has been exceeding his quota year after year. His sales manager Jennifer is happy with Mike’s achievements and relies on him to take on higher quotas. Jennifer is confident spending time with Mike is a good idea. Another sales rep, Laura, has been at the company…
Across a 2 month study, we asked sales leadership who’s ultimately responsible for the productivity of individual reps — and it wasn’t surprising to hear that the buck stops with sales managers. When we zeroed in on the perennial issues that sales leaders care about, two constants emerged: Increasing new-hire time to productivity Shifting low…
Welcome to the final chapter in our series on data-driven sales coaching, aimed at arming sales leaders with the advice they need to effectively direct coaching efforts and realize a strong ROI. If you’re new to the series, start here. Tuesday, 10:43 am Adam is a second-year rep who is a moderate performer — he’s…
Welcome to part three in our series on data-driven sales coaching, aimed at arming sales leaders with the advice they need to effectively direct coaching efforts and realize a strong ROI. If you’re new to the series, start here. It’s 10:15 on a Monday morning and Jennifer — a new but promising rep — is…
Pick your favorite hobby. Whether you are learning to play an instrument or a sport, your learning curve accelerates by how frequently you practice that skill and coaching is no different. Managers who consistently coach are better coaches…not because they necessarily were built that way but because they practiced the craft consistently and got better.…
Which sales management metrics matter? The most progressive sales organizations understand that the mark of a highly-effective sales manager is not whether they make their number, but the percentage of reps they get to theirs. But what managerial activities drive those results? It may not be obvious to your leaders who manage frontline managers, but…
(Part 4 of our COVID-19 Management series.) By now, your sales teams have settled into life during these strange times — they have their work-from-home routine down, and you’ve adjusted your revenue expectations on the year to account for a new normal. However, adjusting messaging and overall communications with prospects and customers during the pandemic…
No matter what you call it — “the new normal” or “the next normal”— the COVID-19 pandemic has caused dramatic shifts in the B2B sales landscape, and many organizations are struggling to adapt. While some teams have moved beyond the constant firefighting that marked the early days of the crisis, many organizations and the industries…
Agility has always been a key component of a successful sales strategy, and the current upheavals are only accelerating the rate of change for many sales organizations. In a time when buyer journeys are increasingly fragmented, face-to-face meetings are no longer an option, and business planning remains uncertain, teams have made the leap to digital…
With June nearly over and the initial shock of the COVID-19 crisis behind us, sales management teams are focusing on building a plan to come out stronger on the other side. But in this environment, it can be difficult to act proactively. With states and cities reopening at different rates and cases rising in some…
I’m providing depth and insight to each of Gartner’s four manager profiles. Start here to learn why this research suggests an evolution in our approach to employee development. The last manager profile I’m covering has been mentioned throughout our dialogue in this series. In fact, if you’re familiar with our product or resources, you already…
I’m providing depth and insight to each of Gartner’s four manager profiles. Start here to learn why this research suggests an evolution in our approach to employee development. Who is the Cheerleader Manager? Alongside the Teacher Manager in the middle of the pack stands the Cheerleader Manager. On its face, the Cheerleader Manager is…
I’m providing depth and insight to each of Gartner’s four manager profiles. Start here to learn why this research suggests an evolution in our approach to employee development. Who is the Teacher Manager? Teacher and Cheerleader Managers stand in the middle of the profile pack, making up half of managers today. These manager types…
I’m providing depth and insight to each of Gartner’s four manager profiles. Start here to learn why this research suggests an evolution in our approach to employee development. I’d like to start with the manager who causes the most strain on the individual seller and the team and actually degrades seller performance by 8%, on…
New realities have brought new urgency to seller skill development, and increasingly, it all comes down to managers. Recent research by Gartner suggests that an evolution in the way we see the frontline sales manager role is in order. Gartner identified four manager profiles, or ways in which managers approach employee development. Gartner’s Four Sales…
Having been a frontline sales manager at Gartner years ago, this article is written to all of those currently in the role and hopefully reflects the sentiment and experience from all 2nd, 3rd, and beyond-line managers. Let me get right to the point, while most frontline sales managers may academically know the difference between…
Fundamental #5 – Align and Contribute to Company Goals, is part of our series, The Making of a Highly Effective Sales Manager. I’m stepping through each of the 5 Fundamentals of a Highly Effective Sales Manager, offering depth around what each means to me. Catch up on posts 1, 2, 3 and 4. A…
Fundamental #4 – Reconciles Prior Commits, Tracks and Measures Progress, is part of our series, The Making of a Highly Effective Sales Manager. I’m stepping through each of the 5 Fundamentals of a Highly Effective Sales Manager, offering depth around what each means to me. Catch up on posts 1, 2, and 3. As…
Fundamental #3 – Practices Guiding versus Telling, is part of our series, The Making of a Highly Effective Sales Manager. I’m stepping through each of the 5 Fundamentals of a Highly Effective Sales Manager, offering depth around what each means to me. Catch up here and here. Be it a deal or an opinion,…
Fundamental #2 – Understands the key behaviors to successful selling and how to coach others, is part of our series, The Making of a Highly Effective Sales Manager I’m stepping through each of the 5 Fundamentals of a Highly Effective Sales Manager, offering depth around what each means to me. You can catch up…
Fundamental #1 – Build Trust and Teamwork, is part of our series, The Making of a Highly Effective Sales Manager The best avenue toward another person having trust in you is for you to trust them. If you already struggle with trusting others, this will be an exercise that feels more personal than team-oriented. And…
We can probably all agree that a great sales manager is one whose team consistently reaches or exceeds its revenue goals. Conversely, not-so-great managers may rely on their star performers or feel compelled to close business themselves, leading to more inconsistent results. Why do some managers have repeated success at reaching goal, while others repeatedly…
We’ve reached the final post in our series on 2019 CommercialTribe Coach customer QBRs. If you need to catch up, here’s where we’ve been so far: Part 1: Why customers implement Coach across their sales teams Part 2: Results from using Coach for 90 days Based on the assessments managers populated in Coach, we now…
In my last post, I introduced this series as an opportunity to share insights from our 2019 Customer QBRs. Read that first to see if your mindset around sales coaching is in line with that of our customers. Retrospectives can be hard but important. Our goal is to help each customer make better decisions about…
Q2 is an important time to take stock on your plan for the year. With Q1 in the books, there’s a data set you can look at objectively to understand whether or not the adjustments you made going into the new year are working. If not, you need to pivot now, because tweaking in the…
This is the third article of a three-part series on sales manager productivity. Before reading on, catch up on Part 1 and Part 2: Part 1: Where and why most organizations don’t actually know who their B and C sales managers are, and the hidden cost they bring to organizational performance Part 2: How to…
This is the second article of a three-part series on sales manager productivity. In Part I, I shared where and why most organizations don’t actually know who their B and C sales managers are, and illuminated the hidden cost they bring to organizational performance. Coaching Is Every Sales Manager’s Power Play Let’s define the…
Google “sales rep productivity” and you’ll find no shortage of information. I’ll save you the effort: It’s all about the numbers: How many calls, how many opportunities created, how many deals won, average selling price, etc. But what about the sales manager? What do we do to make sure we’re enabling them to be productive…