How manager enablement can boost sales rep performance

The concept of manager enablement has been creating a buzz in the sales enablement landscape. The approach seeks to improve the capabilities of sales managers with the ultimate goal of improving overall sales team performance.

By providing training and support to managers, enablers can entrust some of the coaching and training of sales reps to these empowered managers.

What is manager enablement?

Manager enablement is the process of providing managers with the training, tools, and resources they need to be successful coaches and leaders within your organization.

This training program allows managers to be more successful at building relationships with their direct reports and builds their soft skills in coaching, providing feedback, and empathetic problem-solving.

Oftentimes, HR or the people function will provide managers with generic training, leaving sales managers without the sales-specific training skills they need.

That’s why more and more sales enablement teams are turning their attention to manager enablement as part of their wider enablement strategies.

Why is manager enablement important?

There are a ton of benefits to implementing a manager enablement program in your organization, let’s discuss some of the key benefits.

Effective use of resources

As enablement budgets get tighter, teams must find ways to do more with less, and manager enablement is a great way to rapidly increase sales rep productivity and success with one small program.

By focusing efforts on sales managers, enablement teams can train their managers to become influential sales coaches and advocates for training programs, while improving their communication skills.

Sales teams get:

More effective managers who have the confidence to coach their direct reports and encourage them to undertake training.
Sales reps with more support and feedback from their managers, meaning they can improve their skills and productivity regularly (without enablement-led training).

This leads to continued improvements in sales performance and frees up time and resources for the enablement team to work on new initiatives.

Train accidental managers

How many sales reps get promoted to leadership simply because they’re good at selling? A lot, right?

These managers are classed as “accidental” managers as they were promoted due to excellent performance as an individual contributor, and not necessarily because they have strong leadership skills.

This is fine in theory, but if you don’t equip that manager with the tools necessary to lead and coach effectively, they might not become the great leader you imagined.

Manager enablement programs can help bridge this skills gap between individual contributors and managers in your team to ensure your new managers are supported and successful.

Molly Sestak, Business Transformation Lead at Sedna, puts it best:

“Most managers are high-performing reps who got promoted, so many of them don’t know what they need to do to be effective managers. Making sure there are clear expectations on how much time they are spending on coaching and training, 121s, etc. is crucial.”

Improved sales productivity

With increased support and better performance management tools, sales managers can spend more time guiding their teams, approving terms, or working towards their own quotas.

Meanwhile, sales reps will receive an increased level of support and guidance from their supervisors, meaning they are better equipped to generate leads, talk to prospects, and win deals.

Increased employee satisfaction

It’s not rocket science, when sales managers and sales reps are more supported they’re more likely to enjoy their jobs, thrive in their careers, and be satisfied with your organization.

Plus, research shows happy employees are up to 17% more productive and five times more likely to stay with their current employer.

9 ways to enable sales managers

Without any further ado, let’s explore some ways you can implement manager enablement in your organization.

1. Set clear expectations

Becoming a first-time manager is an exciting and challenging jump in a salesperson’s career. First-time managers will have had a range of experiences with their direct managers in the past, so they may have some sense of what good or bad leadership looks like, but they’ll need guidance on what’s expected of them in their new role.

That’s why it’s important to set clear expectations with new managers, so they can thrive, and coach their direct reports to success.

Things that may seem obvious to you or more experienced managers, may not be to a newly-appointed manager, breakdown:

How long 121s should be
What training and coaching is expected
How to use performance management technology
How performance reviews work and what’s expected
How to raise a concern further up the chain

Molly also suggests “providing them with frameworks on how team meetings and 121s should be run.”

2. Design a training program

An important element of manager enablement is creating a structured training program that can be tailored to the managers on your sales team.

This should be a similar process to designing a training program for sales reps. You’ll need to:

Select a goal your program will achieve
Decide on the audience for your program (eg. new managers, mid-level managers, or experienced managers)
Create the syllabus and resources for the course
Decide the timeline and method of training
Gather feedback and refine the program

While designing a manager training program it’s important to keep in mind how the needs of a manager differ from a sales rep. For example, instead of teaching sales skills, you might instead teach managers how to coach sales skills to their reps.

3. Craft lessons and resources

Another way to enable managers is to provide them with resources and content they can use to improve their leadership and streamline their admin tasks.

These might be templates for performance reviews, guides for onboarding, or as Molly suggests, “providing them with grab-and-go lesson plans and games for coaching and training.”

Again, it’s important to think about what a manager needs to be successful, and what elements of admin or coaching might take up the most time. Then you can create templates, guides, and resources that target those areas.

Think about it: If a sales manager has to plan out coaching sessions alongside selling their own deals, they’ll be less likely to effectively coach their direct reports.

By providing the frameworks and structure of these tasks, you’ll streamline the process and incentivize managers to support their reps.

4. Remove blockers

“When managers say they don’t have time to coach/train, ask them what’s blocking them from having the time, and remove those blockers.” – Molly Sestak

Removing blockers from sales managers is a huge element of effective manager enablement. You can provide as much training and resources as you like, but if your managers don’t have time to spare, they can’t provide sufficient coaching to reps.

Don’t run in and start “unblocking” things on a whim. Take some time to talk to your managers, empathize with them, and identify shared challenges.

Try this three-pronged approach to get a wide overview of the problems:

Use an anonymous survey to gather everyone’s pain points in a way that feels safe.
Gather the common themes and present them as a discussion point at a sales manager meeting. Hopefully, this brings up a deeper insight into the challenges.
Then speak to a few managers one-on-one to learn more about the challenges and how they’d suggest resolving them.

After this research, you should have a few ideas of where to remove blockers in the sales management process.

5. Listen and empathize

Even with all the interviews and research you’ve done so far, your sales managers may still not feel heard.

Sometimes it’s not all about solve, solve, solve – your managers may just need someone to listen and empathize with them.

Maybe you could set up a peer support group, where managers are allocated a ‘buddy’ where they can check in with each other, let out frustrations, and feel seen without judgment.

Or maybe you could regularly check in with the sales managers and see if they’re okay. A simple check-in and offer of support can go a long way.

6. Utilize technology

New managers will be using new tools to help them manage their new responsibilities, such as performance management software. This means they’ll need training on the best practices of this tool and support to fully adopt it into their new workflows.

If the technology at your organization is outdated or inefficient your sales managers will be unlikely to adopt it, even if it’d make their lives easier in the long run.

While this aspect of your organization’s tech stack may not be within sales enablement’s control, it’s still important to flag to HR or leadership if it’s causing problems.

Your team can also explore how automation and AI could support managers with repetitive or time-consuming tasks.

7. Run skills workshops

To increase new sales managers’ confidence you can run leadership skills workshops with practical activities and even some guest lectures on leadership.

These practical skills workshops may cover some key elements of leading reps, such as practice coaching scenarios, discussing how to provide constructive feedback, and how to handle performance review conversations.

You may even run a session on how to inspire and motivate sales reps through effective leadership.

These sessions may be used as part of a new manager onboarding program, as standalone workshops, or as part of your annual SKO.

8. Find their leadership style

Every manager has their unique approach to leadership, often referred to as their leadership style.

Helping your managers find their style and explore different ways they can lead will bolster their confidence.

Harvard Business Review outlines six styles of leadership:

Coercive leadership style, which entails demanding immediate compliance.
Authoritative leadership style, which is about mobilizing people toward a vision.
Pacesetting leadership style, which involves expecting excellence and self-direction.
Affiliative leadership style, which centers around building emotional bonds.
Democratic leadership style, which involves creating consensus.
Coaching leadership style, which focuses on developing people for the future.

Each with its own pros and cons, depending on the situation. Educating your sales managers on these leadership styles will allow them to select the right approach to a situation while maintaining their individual style.

As Molly says, “You should teach managers about leadership styles, help them find theirs, and how to improve or adjust depending on their reports’ needs.”

Finally, let sales managers coach and learn from each other – at the end of the day you’re not a sales manager, so they might not always trust your advice.

By facilitating a way sales managers can talk to each other, share wins and challenges, and brainstorm solutions you can empower your leaders with very little input.

This could look like:

Setting up a regular sales management meeting to discuss being a manager (rather than quotas and forecasts)
Creating a Slack channel for managers to share ideas and collaborate
Networking or social events for the sales managers (virtual or in-person)

If one manager has a problem, there’s a good chance at least one other manager has faced that challenge in the past – making collaboration so important for effective management teams.

“Find the examples of good and showcase them.

“I've found sales managers like to hear from each other vs only enablement. We can facilitate, but it's sometimes more impactful getting them to share ideas.”

– Annabel Hosking, Sales Enablement Manager at LexisNexis Risk Solutions

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