COURSE OUTLINE

MODULE 1: The Seller-to-Leader Transition

·      Why top sellers struggle as sales leaders: the identity shift

·      From personal quota to team results: redefining what “winning” means

·      What to stop doing: heroic deal rescues, competing with your own team

·      What to start doing: making the whole team better, not just closing their deals

·      Where a leader’s time creates the most impact

o  Exercise: Time audit — participants map where their time actually goes versus where a sales leader’s time should go.

MODULE 2: Running the Week: Pipeline Reviews, Forecasts & Cadence

·      The weekly, monthly, and quarterly cadence: what gets inspected when

·      Pipeline reviews that coach instead of interrogate

·      Forecast discipline: commit, best case, and pipeline hygiene

·      Distinguishing pipeline inspection from deal inspection

·      Meeting hygiene: agendas, pre-reads, and decisions vs. status updates

o  Exercise: Participants redesign their current pipeline review agenda.

MODULE 3: Coaching Sellers, Not Closing for Them

·      Three coaching conversations leaders conflate: deal, skill, and career coaching

·      Deal coaching: questions that move deals without taking them over

·      Skill coaching: observation-based feedback through ride-alongs and call reviews

·      Coaching the middle 60%: where the real revenue lift lives

·      Common coaching traps: advice-giving, rescuing, and coaching only the stars

·      Building a coaching cadence that survives a busy quarter

o  Role-Play: A deal-review coaching conversation using a real stuck deal from the participant’s pipeline.

MODULE 4: Performance Management with a Number Attached

·      Leading vs. lagging indicators: activity → pipeline → conversion → revenue

·      Diagnosing why someone misses: effort, skill, territory, or fit

·      Matching the intervention to the diagnosis

·      Having the hard conversation early — not at quarter-end

·      Documenting performance conversations fairly and consistently

·      When to coach, when to reassign, when to exit

o  Exercise: Case diagnosis — participants classify anonymized performance scenarios and select the right intervention.

MODULE 5: Motivation, Culture & Retention in Sales Teams

·      What actually retains sellers beyond compensation

·      Recognition rhythms: public wins, private coaching

·      Protecting the team: removing internal friction so sellers can sell

·      Managing energy through slumps, lost deals, and long quarters

·      Early warning signs of disengagement and flight risk

o  Discussion: Each participant identifies one friction point they will remove for their team.

MODULE 6: Commitment Plan

·      One cadence change to implement within 30 days

·      One coaching commitment: who, what conversation, by when

·      One performance conversation to initiate in the next 30 days

·      Accountability pairing: peer check-in structure post-training

o  Output: Written 30-day commitment plan shared with an accountability partner.

OPTIONAL EXTENSION MODULES (DAY 2)

For organizations that want to go beyond the Day 1 core, this optional second day extends the program into four advanced modules covering the structural and cross-functional dimensions of sales leadership. The same practice-heavy design applies: every exercise works on the participant’s real territories, hiring plans, stakeholders, and change situations.

MODULE 7: Territory & Quota Design: Fairness, Coverage & Stretch

·      Principles of territory design: coverage, account potential, and workload balance

·      Quota setting that stretches without breaking: top-down targets vs. bottom-up capacity

·      Diagnosing whether a miss is a seller problem or a territory problem

·      Handling quota disputes and perceived unfairness without eroding trust

·      Mid-year adjustments: when to rebalance and when to hold the line

o  Exercise: Territory pressure test — participants assess one of their own territories or quotas against fairness, coverage, and stretch criteria and identify one design flaw to correct.

MODULE 8: Hiring & Onboarding Sellers Who Ramp Fast

·      Defining the hiring profile: what actually predicts success on your team

·      Interviewing for coachability, drive, and resilience — not just past quota attainment

·      Structured interview scorecards: reducing gut-feel hiring mistakes

·      Designing a 30-60-90 ramp plan with clear milestones and early checkpoints

·      Spotting a mis-hire early — and acting decisively inside the evaluation window

o  Exercise: Participants draft a 30-60-90 ramp plan for their next hire, with milestones both the new seller and the manager commit to.

MODULE 9: Cross-Functional Influence: Marketing, Finance & Delivery

·      Why sales leaders fail cross-functionally: demanding instead of contracting

·      Working with marketing: lead-quality feedback loops and shared funnel definitions

·      Working with finance: discounting discipline, deal desk, and forecast credibility

·      Working with delivery and operations: handoffs that protect the customer promise

·      Building influence without authority: shared metrics, reciprocity, and escalation discipline

o  Exercise: Stakeholder map — participants map their most strained cross-functional relationship and plan one contracting conversation to reset it.

MODULE 10: Leading the Team Through Change

·      Why sales teams resist change: quota risk, habit, and identity

·      Launching new products or segments: enablement, early wins, and message discipline

·      Compensation plan changes: communicating the “why” before the math

·      Protecting the number during transition: keeping the core safe while building the new

·      The leader’s role in uncertainty: absorbing ambiguity without hiding reality

o  Role-Play: Participants deliver a live change announcement (new comp plan or new segment) and handle objections raised by the “team.”