How to manage a sales team: five steps, without micromanaging

You manage a sales team by running the same week, well, over and over. Each rep knows their number. The team meets once, briefly. You sit down with every rep on their own. You check the numbers midweek while there's still time to change them, and you look back on Friday.

Most advice on this topic lists values: be transparent, be inspiring, celebrate wins. They're fine, and none of them tells you what to do at 9am on Monday. This post is the process instead, for a team of 4 to 20 where the manager still knows every rep's deals by name.

If you're newly promoted, the sales manager skills post covers the skills behind this week. This one covers the calendar.

A team target split evenly across reps is the fastest way to lose half the team. The new rep can't hit it and stops trying. The top rep hits it by the 20th and coasts.

Set the number per rep, from three things: what they sold last year, how far along they are (a rep in month two isn't a rep in year three), and how many deals are already in their pipeline. Then turn the monthly number into a weekly one they can act on: calls, first meetings, proposals. A rep can't do anything with "S$40,000 this month" at 9am. They can do something with "12 conversations and 3 first meetings this week".

Sit down with each rep and agree the weekly numbers together, because a number they helped set is one they'll own when they miss it. The sales accountability guide goes deeper on commitments reps set from their own numbers.

This is the whole management process on one page. Put it in your calendar as recurring events so it survives a busy month.

The Monday meeting stays short if the numbers go out before it, so nobody reads them aloud. The sales meeting agenda guide has a 30-minute agenda to copy.

The 1:1 is where the management actually happens. Keep the same shape every time: what they promised last week, the numbers, one stuck deal, one skill, and what they'll do next week. The 1 on 1 meeting template is built on that shape.

Wednesday is the check most teams skip, and it's the day a slow week can still be saved. A rep who's at four conversations out of twelve on Wednesday has two days left to book a call block, while on Friday all they can do is explain.

Friday's check-in is five lines from each rep: the numbers, what went well, what got in the way, and one thing to change. You read them before the weekend, and next week's 1:1s start from them.

Closed deals tell you what happened a month or three ago. By the time a rep's revenue drops, the drop in calls and meetings that caused it is weeks old.

So watch the counts that come before a sale, each week, per rep. Five is plenty:

1. Calls or conversations
2. First meetings booked
3. Proposals sent
4. Deals won
5. Win rate from proposal to signed

Read them as a chain. Lots of calls and few first meetings is an opening problem. Plenty of meetings and few proposals is a discovery problem. When proposals don't close, look at price, timing and whether the deal was ever qualified. Each one needs a different conversation in the 1:1. The sales KPIs guide has the formulas and how to set targets from your own numbers.

One rule keeps the counts honest: reps log the work the same day, and it has to take seconds. A log filled in on Friday from memory is a guess.

Coaching is the part of the job that makes reps better, and the first thing to go when you're busy.

Pick one skill per rep, the one that costs them the most deals according to the chain above. Work on only that until it moves, usually over a month or two. Listen to one real call a week, or ride along once a month, and talk about that skill and nothing else.

Ask before you tell. "What would you do differently on that call?" gets a better answer than your list of six notes, and the rep remembers their own answer. Save the long list for yourself.

A seat that sits empty for three months costs the team a quarter of that rep's number. A bad hire costs more.

Keep a short list of people you'd hire even when no seat is open. Before you interview, write down what the first 90 days of the job need, and test for it: a short role-play of a first call, and a question about how they'd plan their first month. When the new rep starts, sales rep onboarding covers the first 30 days.

• Don't close your reps' deals. It works once, then the team learns that hard deals go to you. Prep them before the call and debrief after.
• Don't manage by the monthly total alone. By the end of the month it's too late to help.
• Don't ask for updates by message three times a day. It interrupts the selling you're trying to count, and it tells the team you don't trust the log.
• Don't cancel 1:1s when a deal gets busy. The rep hears that they come second, and the middle of the team quietly drifts.
• Don't add numbers. Every new metric you ask for is a minute of logging. Five is enough.
• Don't copy the old manager. Keep what worked on you, drop what didn't.

If this is all new, start with three things this week. Book a recurring 1:1 with every rep. Put a 15-minute Wednesday check in your calendar. Ask each rep for a five-line Friday check-in. Leave the targets, coaching and hiring for next month, when the rhythm is running and you can see the numbers.