Time Management

sales manager cadence

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Build Your Sales Manager Cadence (& Save Time and Stress)

Sales Management is the busiest, most overwhelming job in the world (right?!) And that was before most of us went remote.

It’s no wonder so many new managers hit a wall and ask themselves, “Did I make a mistake getting into management?” Trust me, you’re not alone.

But it doesn’t have to be this hard. One of the biggest game-changers for managers is building a cadence, or a system, for how and when you engage your team. Like sellers need a sales process, managers need a management process. This is how you take back control of your day, stop fighting fires, and get back to why you took this job in the first place: to develop and lead people.

Here are 5 things to help you take back control of your day (and learn to love being in management!) Let’s dig in.

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No More Whack-A-Mole

If your day feels like playing whack-a-mole with Slack pings, rep questions, and customer escalations, you’re not alone. These are what I call “jello days”, days that feel messy, unstructured, and impossible to control.

Picture trying to nail jello to a wall. That’s how sales managers often describe their days. No matter how hard you try to stick to your plan, something always slips, shifts, or melts away. It’s reactive chaos. You’re busy all day, but not moving anything forward. You’re putting out fires, answering questions, jumping into calls, but not doing the proactive work that actually drives results.

It’s exhausting. And it’s not why you got into leadership.

Most of us became managers because we love seeing others win. But when you’re stuck in jello days, that purpose gets buried under a pile of “got a sec?” interruptions and endless meetings.

So what’s the fix? A structured cadence. Organizing your week around proactive touchpoints like coaching, huddles, and strategy sessions helps you take back your time and lead with intention.

Here’s the difference between reactive and proactive tasks:

Reactive:

  • Reading your email
  • Tending to the line at your desk
  • Helping reps with questions and issues
  • Creating reports for the boss

Proactive:

  • Calling a morning huddle
  • Planning the team meeting
  • Pulling a rep into a strategy meeting
  • Coaching!

Want your life back? Prioritize the proactive.

READ: How to Run Successful Sales Rep 1:1 Meetings

Plan Ahead

I literally pull out a Post-it each day and write down the one thing I must do. I don’t leave until that’s done. It’s simple but powerful.

The magic formula:

  • Identify your top priorities
  • Build them into your calendar
  • Do your one thing first before opening your inbox

This discipline is what separates high-performing managers from the rest. The best don’t just exceed team goals. They get more of their team to quota, reduce attrition, and consistently coach. That doesn’t happen by accident.

READ: The Best Sales Coaching Questions Ever

Create a Cadence

Let’s break the myth. You don’t need to cover everything in one meeting. It doesn’t work. Instead, you need a sales manager cadence, a system of regular, focused meetings that make everything more efficient and effective.

Here’s the cadence I teach:

  1. 1:1 Meetings (Monthly) – Focus on performance. What happened last month? What’s the plan this month? How are we tracking? Then shift gears. This is also your chance to connect and coach.
  2. Call Coaching (2x/month) – Small groups (no more than 3). This is real coaching. Feedback on call execution, not just listening together.
  3. Sales Huddles (2x/week) – Stand-ups with energy. Talk goals, wins, contests, and questions. Keep it short.
  4. Pipeline Meetings (2x/month) – Stop doing these 1:1. Make them group sessions. It builds accountability and saves you hours.
  5. Sales Strategy Sessions (Ad hoc) – When someone’s behind, this is your chance to step in and help with deal, territory, or lead strategy.
  6. Team Meetings (1x/month) – Focus on culture, recognition, and updates. Make them worth showing up for.
  7. Quarterly Career Reviews (1x/quarter) – Go deep on development. Celebrate progress, talk about career goals, and lay the foundation for retention.
Calendar It or Forget It

Now, make it real. Start with a blank calendar and schedule your cadence:

  • Block quarterly reviews
  • Add monthly 1:1s and team meetings
  • Layer in weekly huddles and coaching
  • Leave half your day open for the inevitable reactive stuff

Don’t over-schedule. Try to keep your total meetings under four hours a day. The other half of your day will get eaten by the unexpected, so plan for it.

Once it’s on your calendar, protect it. This is your new system. If you move meetings around, your team will too. When your reps know when they’ll get your attention, the “drive-bys” stop, and they’ll start saving their questions for the right time.

Send out the invites. Include prep expectations and agendas so everyone shows up ready. And if they don’t? Don’t let it slide. Your calendar only works if your team respects it — and they’ll follow your lead.

DOWNLOAD: Successful Sales Manager Meetings

They Aren’t All Fires

You don’t have to answer every rep question in the moment. In fact, doing that all day is exactly what’s keeping you in firefighting mode. Start redirecting those interruptions into your existing cadence.

Try phrases like:

“I did hear your call. Nice job. Let’s break it down during coaching.”

 “Can we talk about that in tomorrow’s huddle?”

 “I’d love to help, but I only have three minutes right now. Can you bring this to our 1:1?”

Reps will always take the path of least resistance. If you make yourself available 24/7, they’ll keep coming. But if you push conversations into the right meetings, they’ll start to respect your time—and even come more prepared.

Lauren calls this “guarding your time.” The requests won’t stop, so you have to stop them.

This is where the Eisenhower Matrix comes in. It helps you quickly sort out what’s:

  • Urgent and important (you handle it)
  • Important but not urgent (you schedule it)
  • Urgent but not important (you delegate it)
  • Neither (you trash it)

Urgent usually means there’s a time-sensitive deadline. Important means it impacts results or revenue. Just because something feels urgent to someone else doesn’t mean it is.

Building the muscle to decide what gets your time is one of the most critical skills a manager can learn.

Eisenhower

Building your sales manager cadence will give you back your day and maybe even your life. It creates structure, accountability, and clarity for your team. And it lets you do the thing you wanted to do when you took this job: lead.

Try the cadence. Try it for one month. I’ve gotten hugs around the world for this structure, and I hope it helps you too.

And if you’re not sure where to start? We’ve got cheat sheets, templates, and a full class in The Sales Bar to help you Own Your Day and run every meeting like a pro.

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time-saving tips

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4 Time-Saving Tips for Sales Managers

I’m writing this blog at 9 am tucked into bed with the flu. I started to write it at 7:15 am, but decided on OJ and an episode of American Housewife instead. 

In the 45 minutes I procrastinated, I received 74 emails. WHAT?!

Please be clear that I counted the new emails, scanned briefly, and then shut Outlook. Why? Because if I didn’t this article wouldn’t get written this morning – probably not even by end of day. And because if someone really needed me there are at least 3 faster ways they can get a hold of me.

Email is the new snail mail. It’s where un-urgent requests, FYIs, and sales pitches belong, and if you aren’t treating it that way you and your organization could be wasting precious time. Yes, you get enough emails to keep you busy 4-6 hours/day, and if you ignore them all the time they will pile up (you make good points my dear sweet email lover). Alternatively, answering other people’s requests is probably not the most important part of your job, is it? 

Our completely normal instinct to deal with something simple that’s in our line of sight is prioritizing other people’s to-do lists over our own. 

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Here are a few best practices and time-saving tips to take back your day:

  1. Get rid of email alerts. Immediately. If we can agree that email is NOT where urgent items live (read: it has an imminent deadline), then quit interrupting your current screen with them. Every time the pop-up happens, a part of your brain goes down the rabbit hole until it finally just can’t resist a quick alt-tab to email to take care of it. It only takes a minute, right? Sure! Until you see the next one and the next one…it’s like trying to eat just one handful of popcorn at the movies. Impossible. If we could resist we wouldn’t be in our inbox right now. Kill the alerts. Be present in your current task instead.
  2. Designate a time for email. There, that may feel better to my GMail addicted friends. 🙂 I do email once a day at the end of the day. True, my assistant cleans it out for me in the morning, so I’m cheating just a little bit. Carve out two hours/day, put it on your calendar, and be strong. It only hurts for a couple of days. You’re not ignoring. You’re prioritizing. You were hired to coach, strategize, lead…not to type.
  3. Set communication expectations with your team. Have a conversation about what you consider urgent and important tasks and requests. Agree on what task/topic requires an instant message, text, phone, call, drop by, or email. Help team members know when you want to be CC’ed and when you don’t (there’s 50 less per day for you) and help them understand that if they email, they can expect a reply in 2-3 business days. If you choose to reprimand them for “bumping their email to the top” and sending you emails about their emails, that one is up to you. It may also be a great time to let them know when you’ll be doing meetings, coaching, and other activities that may not be interrupted with a minor customer issue or system question.
  4. Assess in a week. Getting more done? Finding times where you wonder what you should be doing? Getting more rep coaching done? These are good signs. If you find you’ve chewed off your nails and you’re staying at work late to do all the email, your addiction is more serious and I’m sorry for recommending this cold turkey. Try some of these gentler adjustments instead:
    1. Start the day by cleaning out emails – just book your first meeting within an hour so it doesn’t go long
    2. Try an email cleaner like Unroll.me that will aggregate your junk mail
    3. Consider delegating – if you’re on email alerts, groups, etc. for leads or training, perhaps someone on your team could monitor these and bring hot topics to a team meeting
    4. Eat lunch at your desk once or twice a week and take the extra hour to respond during that time
    5. Find one email/day your can unsubscribe or junk

I cordially invite you to try several of these time-saving tips and join me in the sweet, sweet freedom of being released from email jail. Looking for more ways to get sales management tasks done in less time? This was one of over twenty hacks in our top-rated sales manager course “Own Your Day”, which is now available on-demand at The Sales Bar.

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best time management tip

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#1 Best Time Management Tip for Sales Managers

I’ve got a quick time management tip for all of you super-busy frontline sales managers.

At 23, in my first sales management job, I was buried by everything my team needed and all the things I didn’t know how to help with. Sound familiar?

Here’s the best time management tip that you can learn that we teach in our quick and easy time management course for sales managers (it’s called Own Your Day)

It’s all about getting out of the reactive mode and into the proactive mode.

READ: 4 Time-Saving Tips for Sales Managers

And here is the most fun and hardest part of what we’re teaching.

You’ve got to learn to say NO. Why?

Because that team of 8 to 15, new, experienced reps that you’re there to lead, serve, motivate, and nurture, will suck you dry.

I’m telling you, it will happen.

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Because we’re all in the business of making money and doing it as fast and as easy as possible.

That makes you the go-to for all their questions.

And my goodness, they’re going to keep asking until you teach them to fish, which takes longer.

So it is a vicious, vicious cycle. 

READ: Top 8 Sales Management Productivity Hacks

One of the most important skills that we teach new managers (who literally hug me afterward) is what to focus on first, second, third, and fourth, what to get rid of, what to delegate, what to do immediately, what to schedule for later, etc.

But here’s the crux of the skill: it’s saying NO to the rep request that’s coming at you right now.

You know the ones—people telling you about the call they just had, the deal they closed, or asking a product question. And all of that hits you before 9 am.

But here’s how to say no without being a jerk:

Scheduled meetings. When you build a sales management cadence, you’re not saying no, you’re saying, “This is so important, let’s talk about it in our scheduled call coaching,” or, “Bring that story to the huddle.” That way, you’re acknowledging their need but pushing it into the cadence.

This is probably the #1 best time management skill you’ll learn to take back your day and stop working before it’s dark (winter excluded 😉). You’re welcome.

Don’t have a cadence yet? Or a way to manage the requests? We’ve got you covered. Join our certification program, Own Your Sales Manager Role.

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Sales Management Productivity Tips

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Top 8 Sales Management Productivity Hacks

Fact: Sales management is the busiest job in the world. Okay, maybe that’s not a real fact, but if you’re a sales manager, you probably feel like it is. Chances are, you’ve got a pretty tremendous and stressful workload. According to the American Institute of Stress, 39% of stress reported amongst employees in the US is caused by an overwhelming amount of work.

So, what happens when you can’t get it all done? For starters: you go home later, you feel less satisfied with your accomplishments, and you add an extra level of anxiety to your plate. Let’s get some of that time back in your day.

Here are our top 8 sales management productivity tips:

1. Make Proactivity the Goal

Start by leaving your reactive self in the past. How? First, we need to identify your priorities. I get it, you received 100 emails just in the time you are reading this blog. But you were not hired to write emails. So, let’s take a closer look at what you were hired to do and what your priority should be. Next, set your daily goal to hit that priority. Setting (and hitting) that goal will make you feel a lot more productive and will make it easier for you to stay on track. Finally, we need to learn how to recognize whether the new things that come our way each day are proactive versus reactive. This will help you say “no” at the right times and help you prioritize the things that you really NEED to get accomplished.

Hint: Reading emails = Reactive. Helping reps with questions that pop up = Reactive. Calling a strategy meeting to help a rep hit their goal = Proactive! Creating a new KPI report = Proactive!


2. Rethink Meetings

Your meeting cadence is the process that organizes your team’s regular interactions. When scheduled properly, the cadence will prevent you from handling a series of reactive “fires” every day. Create the cadence that works best for you and your team. We’ve taken a bit of time to dive into the 8 essential sales manager meetings. Check out this deep dive and learn which meetings are short, which are long, which are 1:1, and which should be done in a group. Read more here: 8 Essential Manager Meetings. While you’re working on your meeting cadence you can also perfect your 1:1 meetings.

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3. Live in the Matrix

Have you used the Eisenhower Matrix before? If not, it all starts by asking yourself 2 critical questions. Is it urgent? Is it important? From there we break things down into 4 groups.

  1. Is this a Fire Drill?
  2. An item to Schedule?
  3. An item to Delegate?
  4. Or an item to Trash?

Eisenhower

Let’s dive in a little deeper to see how these questions help us categorize each task. First are the urgent items. Urgent means time-sensitive and goal-related. Maybe the customer is on the phone and needs an answer to close the deal, or maybe the contract department is reviewing your deal in 1 hour and you need to tie up a few loose ends first.

Next are the important items. Important means it is critical to the mission but it is not time-sensitive. These important things can be scheduled out. This might be mapping out a strategy for a certain campaign, or reviewing the team\’s numbers to ensure they will hit goal.

Now, let’s see how the two questions help us categorize our tasks

  1. Important + Urgent = Fire Drill – do it ASAP
  2. Important + Not Urgent = Schedule – put some time on your calendar to complete the task
  3. Not Important + Urgent = Delegate – find the right member of your team to handle this task
  4. Not Important + Not Urgent = Trash – remove it from your plate

 

4. Start Saying “No.” A LOT

Spoiler alert: You’re about to find out that 3 out of 4 requests aren’t urgent OR important. Oftentimes, they’re actually something your rep can figure out on their own. So, we need to get REALLY good at pushing pop-up requests to meetings, delegating to others, and taking them off your plate!

Here’s how we’ll do it:

  1. Identify the proactive tasks
  2. Categorize tasks according to urgency and importance
  3. Properly respond to requests. It looks something like this…

“Hey, (Rep) this sounds AWESOME! But I’m late on a deadline right now, could you bring the story and the call recording to our call coaching session next week?”

OR

 “Whoa, (Rep), I need to stop you a moment. This sounds important and I want to give it the time it deserves. Please put it on the agenda for our 1:1 next week?”

If you’re on Slack, it could sound like this…

  • Manager: What’s up?
  • Rep: Got a minute?
  • Manager: I have 30 seconds right now, or 15 minutes at 2pm. Hit me back then if you still need help?
    • Here we are putting the action item back on them. You’re not saying you will call them at 2pm, you’re saying call me if you can’t figure out a solution to your problem.

OR

  • Rep: Got a minute?
  • Manager: Sorry, in a meeting. Can you reach out to Bob, please?
    • Here we are delegating to someone else to help the rep.

5. Get COACHN℠

I probably spent 3 hours preparing for my first team meeting. From the scheduling, to figuring out what to say, to deciding what I needed, to realizing I forgot really important things, it was draining, to say the least. What I realized is that if I streamlined the process and prepared for each meeting the same way, I could save myself HOURS of previously wasted time (I only say wasted because those hours were not helping my team reach goal).

Through that painful process, we developed the COACHN Model™. This acronym is about to make your meeting preparation SO MUCH EASIER!

COACHN℠ stands for:

C: Clarify Expectations – This sets the tone for the meeting. “Last time you decided to work on your intros and I know we have a few calls scored. Let’s see how you’re improving.” 

O: Observed Behavior – You start first, lay out facts, and list your observations before you…

A: Ask Questions – Great leaders talk in questions. Have them prepared before your meeting.

C: Commit to Actions – Your number of action items should be 0-1, their action items can be anywhere from 1-4

H: How Can I Help – This helps the rep learn to trust you. Growth is good, but we cannot grow unless we can admit that we need help!

N: Next Steps – We are agreeing at the end. “You own this, I own that, we’re going to meet again ______. Will you (rep) please send the invite!”

6. Have One Source of Truth Within the Organization

Use a standard coaching form. Define what “good” is across the company. If people move or shift, you don’t need to retrain or redefine these elements. If you need a place to start, you can grab our Call Coaching Activities here to help you prioritize and plan your coaching sessions.


7. Stop Proving, Start Delegating

It’s time to put your reps in charge. I get it, you want to help them. But you need to stop giving the fish away. Stop solving all of the problems and owning all of the actions. It’s time to teach those reps to fish instead!

Here are 6 easy things you can delegate TODAY:

  1. Grading their own call recordings and creating a list of skills to improve
  2. Sales huddles – Not all of them, but maybe 1 per week
  3. Notes from all meetings (actions, decisions, and deliverables)
  4. Their PIP actions and check-ins
  5. Scheduling follow-up meetings
  6. Team meeting training
    1. This one will require a bit more guidance, but instead of running every training session, let\’s open up a few for peer training. You will need to double-check their work beforehand (no one wants a 2-hour “look at me” session). But if you have a top rep that is CRUSHING prospecting or brush-offs, let them show the rest of the team how they do it.
8. You Cannot Control How Much Other People Care

This was a tough one for me to really wrap my head around in the beginning. But the truth is that there is a reason that you were promoted to manager. There is a reason that other people will remain as a rep. You cannot control how much other people care. When you care more about their job than they do, it will cause numerous problems.

Let me tell you a little story. Back at the beginning of my sales career, I had a rep, let’s call him “George.” Well, George just could not seem to get himself to work on time. I got one excuse after another. There was a part of me that felt guilty that I didn’t have car trouble and that I could afford a new alarm clock, etc. One Thursday during lunch I left work to go across the street to buy George a new alarm clock (I know, I know). That was when it hit me. What the hell was I doing? If George didn’t care enough to figure out how to get an alarm clock on his phone or borrow a buddy’s clock, or heck, go to Goodwill and buy a used one, then why did I care so much? That was my “ah-ha” moment. I was caring more than George and no amount of new alarm clocks was going to force him to care more.

You need to stay within your span of control. You can control your schedule, your reactions to things, and your time. You don’t control your team, you can’t control a pricing increase, you don’t control what the customer’s going to say, you just don’t. You can influence your team’s skill level, activity, and focus, but you can’t control it. There are a lot of things under your concern, but that you can’t control. There is very little you can actually control. So, stop spinning your wheels and stressing out about it. You can provide coaching and help when appropriate, but “George” is either going to make it or he’s not.

BONUS!
  1. Kill all of your notifications! All of those Instagram posts and text messages can wait until your lunch break. These notifications will only distract you and make completing your tasks take much longer.
  2. Time block goal actions on your calendar. Block out checking your email, your phone messages, etc.
  3. Keep tasks in the same place. Your meetings and your time-blocked tasks are on your calendar. But I’m betting you also have a bunch of other things to do. Compile all of those to-dos into one list. Whether it’s an app or a paper list, keep everything in the same place so nothing slips through the cracks.
  4. Set a time for similar actions and tasks. If you have 3 tasks on your to-do list that require emails, complete those tasks during your time block to check emails. If you need to go pick something up, do it at the same time you need to go to the post office. By grouping similar tasks together, your mind will be able to focus more efficiently and complete those tasks faster.

I know this was A LOT of information and your inbox has probably increased by 200 emails now, but if you take the time to start implementing at least some of these sales management productivity hacks that we talked about here, it will make a difference: in both your success and your happiness! You will feel and be more productive. It will just take a little practice!

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time management tips

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Quick Time Management Tips for Sales Managers

One of the hardest parts about being a manager is mastering the art of time management and being able to carve out time for everyone – for yourself, for your team, for your boss, for your career. How much? How often? Who’s first?

All too often the answer is us last. We’re so focused on proving ourselves to our team and our peers (and yes, to our boss, and maybe most of all to ourselves). We go in early, we log on late, we try to answer questions immediately and if we can’t we vow to get the answer and we do it.

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Spoiler alert: this isn’t the answer. This is what made you an amazing rep. Your customers and prospects were your team and you made commitments and kept them. Like so many top rep skills, they won’t make you a top manager.

Tip #1: The goal is to get to the end of a workday with as little on your list as possible. That’s right leaders of leaders, managers, or superstars, You. Don’t. Own. it. And if you do, you shouldn’t.

Here’s my favorite line for busy front-line leaders: 

Rep: Hey boss, got a second, I need to tell you about…

You: Sure. I have 2 minutes right now or 30 minutes in our 1:1 next week.

Tip #2: Top managers have a set cadence of rep interactions. They’re never longer than a week away from a pre-planned interaction to talk about performance, pipeline, strategy, or career. And all the interruptions in between? Neatly pushed into a meeting or delegated away. 

Can you picture it? Like a duck gliding on the water – because all the hard work’s been done setting up the pond. My metaphors are getting a bit ridiculous, so let’s cut to the chase. 

If you’re thinking of sales management or ready to soar to the next level, you have to take one of our online sales manager training courses or programs to get these essential time management skills.

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Top Time Management Tips for Sales Reps

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5 Time Management Tips for Sales Reps

Being in sales is the busiest job in the world – hands down. 

If you’re a leader, you’ve got a ton on your shoulders between leading your team and establishing a strong company culture. Managers – you’re constantly battling fire drills and balancing your own daily tasks, all while coaching your reps. And reps – say no more! You’re on the phone for hours at a time, making hundreds of calls a week in between various other tasks.

Unfortunately, 66% of those ‘other tasks’ are statistically useless. Meaning, that time is devoted to non-revenue-generating activities. 

But the good news is: you can gain back hours of your day by following at least one of these time management tips. Lucky for you, I’ve got 5! 

READ: Top 8 Sales Management Productivity Hacks

Protect Your Time

Guess what: YOU own your time. You get to make the choice what to prioritize and how to handle what comes your way. The best thing you can do is PROTECT IT! 

Block your calendar, get comfortable saying ‘no’ to things that interrupt your workflow or cut into call time. Set boundaries and stick to them. Guard your time, communicate expectations, and get to work.

The other day I had a rep reach out for a meeting and she wanted to give up her time block to schedule our meeting. You know what I said? NO! BIG MISTAKE! I made sure she honored her calendar and let her fit me in somewhere else. 

Remember: there are lots of things in the day as a rep that you just can’t control. You can’t force someone to pick up the phone, you can’t make a lengthy conversation go faster to hop onto your next call, you can’t control if you get a call back. 

But what can you do? Stick to your schedule! 

READ: 4 Time-Saving Prospecting Strategies

Create A Master Plan

Sounds simple, but think about the calls you’re making and what your schedule looks like. Does Client A work night shift? Do they work on the east coast and you’re west? Are they in another country altogether? 

Mapping out your day is going to SAVE you time down the line. You’ll want to categorize your to-do list by the following: 

  • Morning Only Tasks
  • Afternoon Only Tasks
  • Both (can be done either morning and afternoon) 
  • Anytime (can be done morning, noon, or late)

(Note: Don’t forget to plan around time zones!) 

DOWNLOAD: Virtual Selling Cheat Sheet

Set 1 Daily Goal

Set it and actually DO it. Make that your main mission, your top priority, the thing you sit down to do first and accomplish. Consistency is key here to make sure it actually sticks! Do this every day and it REALLY helps. 

Don’t go on autopilot and sit down to check your Slacks, emails, or get into your morning routine. And while you’re at it…                                        

Silence Notifications

Remember what I said about 80% of your day being wasted on non-sales items? That’s probably because your phone is blowing up with a phone call from mom, texts from your college buddy, social media notifications, Slack messages, etc. etc. 

Put your phone on silent, turn off notifications, and focus on what’s in front of you. The ONLY thing you should be working off of is your calendar (or task list) – it will dictate who you need to talk to and when. 

This is going to help you make sure you’re getting to all those calls in a day without the distractions. 

Touch It Once

If you’ve been pushing the same email to the bottom of the pile for the last two weeks, chances are it isn’t that much of a priority. When you’ve got a task at hand – DO something with it. Either respond and finish it so you can put it away, schedule it to a time you can actually take care of it, or delete it if it’s unimportant. 

Whatever you do – don’t just leave it and keep pushing it off. You’re wasting time revisiting the same old piece 3x instead of just touching it once.

READ MORE: 10 Tips for Sales Success from A High Performer

Don’t overcomplicate it. You’ve got a busy enough day, but by adding in a little bit of effort and strategy, you can take back that 19% and get to what you do best: selling! 

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People Walking At Airport

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5 Tips For Sales Manager’s To Improve Time Management

One of my go-to “truisims” when speaking about inside sales is that frontline sales management is THE busiest job in the world. I find myself saying this over and over because “Give it to the Sales Managers” seems to be a go-to phrase in leadership, but sadly is oh-so-wrong. Why?

Managing a team of 10-15 front-line sellers requires an above-average proficiency in interviewing, coaching, problem-solving, team building, customer service, motivation, babysitting, and juggling.

If you’re new to sales management or coaching those who are, here are my top five tips to get your house in order fast:

Create your cadence 

We’re all familiar with a sales process, but not many have a set management process. The management cadence is your series of meetings and touchpoints with your team. It consists of sales huddles, performance reviews, pipeline meetings, team meetings, call coaching and more. If we don’t proactively decide what we’re covering in each meeting, who attends, how often they happen, and the prep required from all parties, then we wind up covering all of this information 1:1 and reactively. What’s wrong with reactive management? Two things:

  1. The line at your desk
  2. The people waiting for you at home

A management cadence helps you get control of your own day and stop firefighting. It remains the number one favorite class Factor 8 teaches and has held this position for over five years. Make your plan, inform your team, get it into outlook, and then hold on to the plan for dear life. Why? Because it will seem that your entire team of reps, your peers, and your director are conspiring against you in your first two weeks it’s in place. Great segue to the next tip…

Teach them to fish

That line at your desk? It’s full of customer issues, product questions, sales stories (we all have the rep who needs to tell you the complete blow by blow, right?) and more. And EVERYONE thinks their request is urgent, right? So it’s up to you to teach them when you will be handling these requests (hint, it’s NOT right now). For example:

Rep: Help! I have Janet at Bensley Co on the line and she said that she tried to use the discount code and it didn’t work…

Manager: I know that’s important to her – and a good customer of yours. The procedure is to get customer success on the line with her and walk through. . .

You have to teach your team how to work with you. What should be brought to a meeting? What can be delegated to another department or team member? What should the Rep solve themself? Salespeople are like water. We will ALWAYS travel the path of least resistance. 

Sales people are like water. We will ALWAYS travel the path of least resistance. 

If you have a line at your desk, it isn’t because you’re the best manager on the floor. It might mean you’re being a bigger pushover than the others. Teach them to fish…and be vigilant with when you hand out fish to protect your cadence – and your sanity.

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Team go-to sheets

If you’re new on the job, there’s a LOT you don’t know yet. And unfortunately, most companies don’t budget for new sales manager training. So quit going it alone. Work with your team to develop your internal areas of expertise and list them out! 

The story goes like this. I was 23, the new manager of a B2B Outbound Enterprise Sales Team in the Tech Industry. I was hired from outside the company and received no new hire training. This means I didn’t know the product, systems, people, processes…NOTHING. (wondering now why they hired me). So every request that came to my desk was met with, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” I ran myself into the ground. I cried driving home. I drank a LOT of wine. Enter team go-to sheets.

Sean was incredible and getting decision makers to call him back

Randy could configure the solutions

Melissa knew the people in product management to get specs

Pat knew the folks in operations to get deals invoiced

Tammy knew the CRM inside out

I invite you to do a better job naming your reference sheets & also to do some team building around it. Create a team name! Do this offsite with some beer! The outcome was amazing. We felt less helpless, we bonded together, and when one of us was going to miss quota, we all worked together to get them there. It’s good for the team AND for you.

Don’t treat requests equally

Everyone’s favorite class in #GirlsClub was “Own Your Day.” It’s time management for sales managers and all about carving out more time to be proactive with your strategy and less time being reactive. The foundation of this course is the Urgent vs. Important matrix (often called the Eisenhower Box). For every request, ask yourself:

  1. Is there a deadline associated with this? (Urgent)
  2. Does this activity lead to revenue? (Important) 

Your questions may vary slightly, but you get the gist. 

If it’s urgent AND important, you do it now. 

If it’s urgent but not important (e.g. customer complaint), you try to delegate it. 

If it’s not urgent but important, you schedule it (e.g. rep coaching)

If it’s not urgent and not important, you delete it (e.g. watching the cat video Larry sent you)

It takes some practice, but I now attack every to-do list this way. How do I decide what requests to take and meetings to reschedule? Is there a deadline (could be a monthly target) and what will help me meet goals the fastest. 

A clean pipeline is important

We all have pipelines full of crap. Why? Because cleaning them out is neither urgent nor important (see what I did there)? But my tip for new manager is to establish that it IS important to you. When we let the pipeline get out of control, we stunt our upward mobility as sales leaders. Why? Because you can’t forecast the number and you don’t know what levers to pull when you get behind. The very best sales managers are consistent sales managers who have their business managed within an inch of it’s life. If you’re hitting your numbers but didn’t know what deals saved you, you have some work to do here because hope is not a good long-term strategy. How to do it?

  1. Move your pipeline meetings to team meetings. Use the team tension to show who’s doing it well and who is messy. They’ll clean it up fast!
  2. Do 5 spot checks a week on deals. Pull it up, check the close date, check the stage, and call them out.
  3. Start every performance 1:1 with a pipeline cleanliness review
  4. Quiz the team during huddles. Give the situation and have them tell you the stage. Then reward the team member who did it right. If your culture can handle it, also call out the one who didn’t. 

Word will spread fast that you expect the stages to be decided on consistently, all deals to be updated, and each member to know his or her business. 

Now, your pipeline can be a management tool/resource for you. Where are deals getting stuck? Who is having the most trouble closing in stage two? Where do you need some marketing coverage? Where do you need coaching and training? And when is it time to pull in the performance improvement engine or the sales contest engine to hit the number. With a clean pipeline, you can analyze and make smart decisions – before it’s too late!

Like these tips? You might also like our step-by-step guide to better intros. Grab it here.

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