Sales Manager

Your pipeline is probably two-thirds fiction, and every Monday you find out which third is real.

Every Monday it walks each open deal against the stage it claims to be in and tests it: is there a next step with a date on it, has anyone spoken to the person who signs, when did the customer last actually do something, has this close date already moved three times. Deals that pass are real. Deals that fail come back to the rep with one question each, and the deal that fails three weeks running gets named for what it is.

You get a forecast with the last one's score attached. Commit, best case, and what would have to happen. If the pipeline cannot produce the target, it says so in week two rather than at the end of the quarter, and it says how many deals short you are rather than how many dollars.

Discounts stop being decided in hallways. Set the limit you are comfortable with and this seat decides everything inside it, takes something back for every concession, and writes down what it gave and why. Anything above your limit comes to you on one page with a recommendation and the date the customer is waiting on.

Each rep gets coached from the record, not from a hunch. Twice a month it looks at where that person's deals actually die, compares them to their own last month rather than to the loudest person on the team, and sends one private note naming the single thing to change.

It never touches a deal itself. The moment a manager starts closing deals, the team stops growing, so this seat inspects, decides, and coaches, and hands everything else back to the person whose job it is.