Insights
Managing vs. Coaching: Why Most Sales Managers Only Get Trained for Half the Job
Managing and coaching are different skills. Most sales managers learn how to inspect activity and hold people accountable—and never learn how to develop judgment.
By Kevin Brown ·
Managing people and coaching people are different jobs, and most sales managers only get trained for the first one.
They learn how to set expectations, inspect activity, review pipeline, and hold people accountable. Those are necessary responsibilities.
Coaching requires another set of skills: observing how someone sells, understanding where they're struggling, and helping them develop the judgment to handle it better next time.
Consider a rep who says a deal is stalled because of price.
A manager can review the opportunity, approve a discount, and help get the deal moving. That may solve the immediate problem.
Coaching means examining how the rep reached that point. How did they establish value? Whose priorities did they uncover? What evidence tells them price is actually the obstacle?
Then the manager and rep can choose something specific to practice before the next customer conversation.
That takes time, curiosity, and the ability to give useful feedback. It also requires a manager to resist stepping in with the answer every time a rep gets stuck.
We often promote strong sellers and expect them to make that transition naturally. But knowing how to sell and knowing how to develop another person's selling ability are different capabilities.
If we want managers to coach, we need to develop them for that responsibility and give it space in their workload.
Look at your last few rep conversations. What did the rep learn that they could use without you on the next deal?