Coaching sales managers means a sales leader working with a first-line manager on one coaching behavior at a time, using that manager's own coaching sessions and their team's calls as evidence, until the behavior changes. The subject of the session is the manager's coaching, and the manager's numbers are the context.
This guide is for directors, VPs of sales and enablement leads who own a team of managers. It covers why managers need coaching, what to coach, how to run the session, how often, how to measure it and where it goes wrong. If you want the foundation first, start with the guide to sales coaching, then come back to coach the people who do it.
What is coaching for sales managers?
Coaching for sales managers is the same routine a manager uses with a seller, moved one level up. The leader picks one behavior, looks at real examples of it, agrees on what to try differently and checks whether it changed. The difference is the behavior: how the manager coaches.
| Coaching a seller | Coaching a sales manager | |
|---|---|---|
| Coach | The first-line manager | A director, VP or enablement lead |
| Evidence | A recorded sales call | A recorded coaching 1:1, plus the calls behind it |
| Behavior | "Asks what the problem costs the buyer" | "Asks the seller what they noticed before telling" |
| Result looks like | A step shows up on later calls | The manager's sessions change, then the team's calls change |
The second column is why this work is hard to start. A manager's coaching happens in a 1:1, so the leader above rarely hears it. Most leaders see the manager's forecast and the team's numbers, and coach on those. That turns the session into a deal review of the manager, which is the thing the manager is trying to stop doing with their own team.
Why do sales managers need coaching themselves?
Most sales managers were promoted because they sold well, and selling well does not teach you to coach. The research on how managers spend their time points to the same gap: managers say they coach, and the sessions are mostly about deals.
- Coaching turns into results talk. Frank Cespedes wrote in Harvard Business Review that most sales managers overestimate how much time they spend coaching, and that even when they make time, their conversations are typically limited to discussing results and pending deals (HBR, December 16, 2021, read November 3, 2026).
- Time is thin. Objective Management Group, which assesses sales teams, reported that managers spend under 18% of their time coaching, about 7.2 hours in a 40-hour week. The figure comes from the roughly 250,000 managers in its own database, so take it as an estimate (Dave Kurlan, November 7, 2022, read November 3, 2026).
- Unprepared managers do not improve with more hours. The authors of the CSO Insights 2017 manager report wrote that when managers are not prepared, spending more time on what they see as coaching is not going to improve results, and could do the opposite (2017 Sales Manager Enablement Report, page 25, read November 3, 2026).
None of this proves that coaching the managers lifts results. It does show where the weak link usually is: the manager has the time and the intent, and lacks a method and someone to practice it with. The post on activity coaching and win rate reads more of this research.
What should you coach sales managers on?
Coach the behaviors that make a manager's coaching work, and keep the list short. Five cover most of what we see go wrong.
| Behavior | What it sounds like in a good 1:1 | What to listen for |
|---|---|---|
| Picks a call, not a deal | "Let's listen to the discovery call from Tuesday." | The session opens with a call or a CRM record? |
| Names one behavior | "The step is: asks what happens if nothing changes." | One step, or a list of three? |
| Asks before telling | "What did you hear when the buyer said that?" | Who talks more in the first five minutes? |
| Practices it out loud | "Say the question to me once." | Does the seller rehearse, or just agree? |
| Checks the next calls | "I will look at your next three discovery calls on Friday." | Is there a date and a step to check? |
Add two more when the team is large or the manager is new: how the manager decides which calls to hear, and how the manager scores a call against the written steps. Two managers who score the same call differently give their people different coaching, and nobody notices until you compare.
The behaviors map to the cycle in the main guide, so the manager and the leader use the same words. If the manager scores calls, the guide to sales call scoring has the scorecards to start from.
How do you run a coaching session with a sales manager?
Run it like the manager should run theirs: look at a real session, pick one behavior, practice it and set a check. The leader needs evidence of the manager's coaching, which means hearing a recorded 1:1 or sitting in on one.
Get the evidence
A recorded 1:1 of the manager's, or a session you sat in on.
Mark the moments
Two or three points where the manager told instead of asked.
Coach the coach
Play one moment, ask what they noticed, agree on the words to try.
Practice and check
Rehearse the question once, then look at the next sessions.
Here is how it goes at Northwind, a fictional software company. Priya is a director with five managers. She has a recording of Marcus's 1:1 with Tomas, a seller who has missed his number for two months.
1. Get the evidence. Priya listens to the 1:1 and to the discovery call it was about. She does not look at Marcus's pipeline in this session. The pipeline is a different meeting.
2. Mark the moments. In 25 minutes of the 1:1, Marcus talks for 17. Three times he tells Tomas what to say on the next call. Twice Tomas starts to answer a question about the call, and Marcus fills the gap. She writes down the timestamps.
3. Coach the coach. Priya asks Marcus how the 1:1 went. He says Tomas "got it." She plays the 40 seconds where Tomas begins to explain what he heard on the call and Marcus cuts in. "What do you think happened there?" Marcus hears it himself and says he was in a hurry to give the fix. They agree on one line to try: after playing the call, Marcus waits for Tomas to say what he noticed, even through a long silence.
4. Practice and check. Priya plays Tomas for two minutes and Marcus practices the pause. She puts a date on the calendar to listen to Marcus's next two 1:1s and check one thing: who talks first after the call plays.
One behavior, one moment of evidence, one thing to check. The same structure that works for a seller works for a manager.
How often should you coach sales managers?
Coach each manager every week or every other week on one behavior, and look at the pattern across all managers once a month. Weekly sounds like a lot when you also run a team, so the first thing to cut is the number of topics, and not the frequency.
Weekly or biweekly
- 25 minute 1:1 on one coaching behavior
- One recorded manager 1:1 or a call they scored
Monthly
- Compare how managers score the same call
- Pick the behavior most managers miss
Quarterly
- Manager workshop on the shared behavior
- Review what changed in team calls
The monthly step does a job the weekly one cannot. If four of five managers skip the practice step, five separate sessions will not fix it. A short workshop or a clearer agenda will. The session How to Become a Great Sales Coach works as a shared starting point for that workshop.
How do you coach a new sales manager?
A new manager needs the routine first and the theory later. The first 90 days decide whether coaching becomes a habit or a good intention, so give the manager a small, specific set of coaching tasks for each month. The guide to a 30-60-90 day plan for a sales manager lays out the full plan; here is the coaching part of it.
| Period | Coaching task for the new manager | Your role |
|---|---|---|
| Days 1 to 30 | Listen to calls from every person and run one 1:1 on one call type | Sit in on two 1:1s and give feedback |
| Days 31 to 60 | Run weekly 1:1s with a written agenda and one step each | Review one recorded 1:1 a week |
| Days 61 to 90 | Check whether each step shows up in later calls and pick the next | Compare their scoring with yours on a call |
Do not hand a new manager a team and a deal review calendar and wait to see what happens. The deal review fills every slot, and coaching never starts.
How do you measure whether coaching managers works?
Measure the manager's coaching behavior first, the team's call behavior second and results last. Results take a full sales cycle and have many causes, so they are the slowest signal.
- The manager's routine. Did the manager hold the 1:1s, play a call in each and set a check? You can read this from the calendar and the call library.
- The coaching quality. On a recorded 1:1, score the five behaviors above as met, partly met or missed. Use the same list every time.
- The team's calls. After a manager coaches a step, does the step show up more often in that team's calls of the same type?
- The team's results. Follow the number the step should move, such as booked next steps or stage conversion, over a full cycle.
Look at the team's calls alongside the manager's. If a manager's coaching score goes up and the team's calls stay flat, the coaching may be polite and unfocused, which is a finding worth bringing to the next session.
Keep the manager's coaching score out of compensation and out of a public ranking. A manager who is ranked on coaching quality will pick the sessions they send you, and you will lose the evidence you need.
What goes wrong when you coach sales managers?
Most failures repeat the ones a manager makes with a seller, one level up.
- The session turns into a pipeline review. You ask about the forecast, the manager brings deals, and nobody looks at coaching. Fix: a separate meeting, opened with a recorded 1:1.
- You coach from the manager's description. "It went fine" is the manager's read and tells you little. Fix: hear the 1:1 or a call.
- Too many behaviors. Three things to change in one session means none gets changed. Fix: one behavior, written down.
- You tell the manager what to do with each seller. Then the manager learns to wait for your answer. Fix: ask which seller and which call, then ask what they would try.
- No practice. A manager who has only heard the idea falls back on the old habit in the 1:1. Fix: rehearse the question once with you.
- Coaching only the weak managers. The strong ones have the habits the others need. Fix: have them explain a move to the group and record it.
How does software help coach sales managers?
Software helps most with evidence: it shows you which calls a manager reviewed, how their team scores on each step and where the team's calls differ from other teams. You still hold the conversation and pick the behavior. The guide to AI sales coaching covers the category, and AI sales coaching vs traditional coaching shows what the manager keeps.
Three things matter when you compare tools for this job, and the post on sales coaching software goes through them:
- Scoring against your own steps. A score only helps coaching when the steps are the ones your team coaches.
- Visibility above the manager. A leader should be able to see coaching activity and call patterns for each team, without asking each manager for a report.
- A path from a score to the moment. The manager and you should be able to jump from a low score to the 30 seconds of audio behind it.
The manager's own view of this work is in the post on sales manager coaching.
Where should you start?
Start with one manager and one behavior this week. Pick the manager with the most coachable pattern, ask for a recorded 1:1, mark two moments and run the four steps above. Put the date for the check in the calendar before you leave the session. Then widen to the rest of your managers, and use the monthly review to decide what the whole group needs.
Weeks two and three are the test. If the manager's next sessions show the change, the routine works and you can add managers. If they do not, look at the wording of the behavior and the practice before you decide the manager cannot do it. For the full routine a manager runs with each seller, see the guide to sales coaching.