The Sales Management Puzzle

How first line sales managers stay focused on what really drives performance.

First line sales management is one of the most rewarding and demanding roles in any organisation. Your targets are fixed. Everything else is fluid. Your team and their requirements, the market, competitors, the economy, your clients and their challenges, and even your own organisation all shift constantly.

If you are a first line sales manager – get good at these core disciplines and your team,

and your career, will thank you. If you are leader; help your managers excel here.

These disciplines sit in the centre of the Sales Management Puzzle – the simple model designed to help managers stay anchored to what truly moves performance.

And the word discipline is chosen very intentionally.

Peter Drucker famously said that leadership is doing the right things while management is doing things right. In sales, the two blur. Managers must both lead and manage.

Yet the discipline of management – the cadence, inspection, coaching, system leverage and clarity that drive predictable performance – is often undervalued or inconsistently applied.

The model helps maintain those fundamentals as a focus. Let’s run through the eight disciplines in turn:

Pipeline Obsession

A healthy pipeline is the heartbeat of a successful team. High performing managers know their team’s pipeline at both a macro and individual level:

• Does it make sense: dates, stages, velocity, qualification maturity?

• What has changed, and why?

• What are the trends?

• Is there enough coverage (based on data, not a rudimentary 3x), and in the right places?

• What signals does the data give about risk, opportunity or coaching needs?

Pipeline obsession is not about pressure. It is about truth-seeking. It creates clarity on where to focus and how to support each seller effectively beyond a quarter or two.

Coaching Deals & People

Coaching is not a task. It is a mindset. It should be a default behaviour. Great managers learn a repeatable coaching model and apply it across situations:

• Coaching for performance

• Coaching to build skills

• Direct coaching to drive change

• Micro-coaching conversations

• Group coaching

• Deal coaching

The best managers shift fluidly between these modes. They understand that every conversation is a chance to lift capability and confidence and help individuals GROW and develop.

Team Cadence

High performing teams operate on a clear, intentional rhythm. The weekly, monthly and quarterly touchpoints create the structure that drives:

• Focus on the right actions

• Accountability to commitments

• Capability uplift through repetition and reinforcement

• Energy, momentum and a sense of shared purpose

Cadence shapes culture. The forums you run, the tone you set and the standards you hold become the behavioural operating system of the team. Your shadow as a leader defines how the team shows up, collaborates and executes.

Make meetings efficient and effective - good use of people’s time (better for being there).

Mojo & Methods

This part of the puzzle blends two equally important elements: the energy your team brings to work and the methods they use to deliver it.

Mojo is the confidence, optimism and resilience. How you fuel your teams through the highs and lows of the role. Methods are the sales processes, tools and ways of working that create consistency and reduce friction (help make them simple and enabling).

Great managers protect and elevate both, they:

• Reinforce the mindset, habits and behaviours that build healthy sales energy

• Ensure the sales process is lived, understood and coached in real deals

• Help the team leverage tech, tools and methodology to work smarter

• Remove noise and blockers so sellers can stay in value-creating activities

When mojo and methods are aligned, teams become more composed, more consistent and more capable of delivering high performance.

Performance Improvement

Performance is not static. People evolve. Context shifts. One approach never fits all. It’s not about plans for low performers. As in a star-studded football team, everyone is on a performance plan to help focus and drive performance:

• Regularly assess performance using a structured lens (skill/will or performance-based matrices)

• Identify what each person needs now (and how to support them)

• Set relevant non-financial objectives

• Follow up with consistency

Performance improvement is continuous, personalised and anchored rather than assumptions. Do you have a game plan for your team members. As a manager you achieve your number through your team.

Metrics, Data & Insight

Every sales manager must know their business inside out. That includes what the data says at both team and individual levels.

The goal is not to drown in detail. It is to extract insight:

• What patterns matter?

• What small changes would create marginal gains?

• Where are opportunities being lost?

• Where should coaching and support be focused?

Managers who can translate data into action outperform those who simply report it. What are the data and insights telling you, and what should you be proactively doing about it.

Forecasting & Reporting

Forecasting is a challenge for many, but mastery is non-negotiable. Effective managers:

• Know “what must be true” for a deal to enter the forecast zone

• Use qualification rigorously

• Report beyond the numbers – narrating successes, risks and required changes

• Invite input rather than broadcasting updates

Forecast accuracy builds credibility up the chain. It also builds trust sideways and downward.

Cross Team Collaboration

Sales cannot win alone. The ecosystem matters – marketing, product, customer success, finance, legal and lead generation functions all shape outcomes.

Your role as a manager is to help your team engage with other functions efficiently and effectively. Remove bottlenecks and handle bandwidth issues to:

• Remove blockers

• Increase the value of interactions

• Protect your team’s time

• Create shared rhythms and joint accountability around customer impact

Collaboration is a performance lever, not an administrative one.

The Sales Management Puzzle is simple by design. It reflects what the best first line managers do consistently, regardless of sector, size, maturity or market conditions. It works because it anchors leaders to the controllable.