Why Manager Accountability Matters More Than Having Great Reps

Imagine this, CRO.

The quarter ends and you’re reviewing the teams that hit or missed quota. 

Upon digging in, you see Manager Daniel hit his team number and Manager Julia missed. 

On Daniel’s team, Hero Mike went 350% of his number, carrying Daniel’s team over the line. Of eight reps, Daniel had three exceed. 

Meanwhile, Julia had five of eight hit their individual quota, but she missed her overall team quota.

Looking deeper than quota hits and misses

When you dig deeper, you see Julia coaches her team regularly through 1:1s, call reviews, pipeline reviews and sales methodology adherence. She is running the plays that enablement recommends, but we also discover she has four sellers with less than a year tenure.

Julia is an Active Coach…with a young team.

While Daniel….has Mike. 

In many orgs, Daniel is celebrated and goes to President’s Club! And Julia is lost in the shuffle because, “At the end of the day, all I care about is hitting the number.”

For decades, Revenue Operations and sales leaders have obsessed over seller accountability. We’ve done everything we can to make seller performance as binary as possible. Did you hit? Or did you miss?

But when it comes to manager accountability, that delineation is not as simple…and represents a huge opportunity.

Active coaching vs. high-performing reps 

Now, fast forward two quarters and you switch Daniel and Julia’s teams.

Guess who hits? Julia! Because not only does she have Hero Mike, but now six of her eight hit because she is actively coaching them.

The point is manager accountability requires additional levels of analysis. And the best managers actively coach their teams!

Regardless of Hero Mike or a new hire, they actively coach.

The frontline manager factor

An Ambition customer recently shared a story of two managers who missed their quarterly number. When the VP of North American Sales dug deeper, he noticed one manager was an Active Coach and one was…not. The Active Coach was applauded because they were following the playbook and super involved in their team. The other couldn’t prove any coaching of their team, and therefore, he was reprimanded. 

Most CROs I know want the active coach, not the manager who has the hero seller.

And in a world where average team size is growing, revenue expectations are rising, and initiatives move/change overnight — the Frontline Manager is more critical than ever.

Without FLMs bought in, CRO initiatives die.
With FLM bought in, CRO initiatives thrive. 

But in order to activate those incredibly busy frontline managers, an organization must focus on removing as many administrative, reporting hurdles as possible.

Make it easy for a manager to get full performance context. Like the Easy Button from Office Depot. Click….Boom.

At most organizations - when you ask your FLM for a breakdown of how their team is performing, the reality is you’re asking them to go to 4-6 different systems to get full context. Then, it takes them another 30 minutes to create a performance narrative.

Have you ever observed your managers preparing for Performance Reviews? Yikes.

These things take way too long—and when they have four  fires to put out, seven deals to help close, and 37 unanswered Slacks, performance management gets lost in the mix.

Before you know it, under-performers aren’t being held accountable, over-performers aren’t recognized, and that expensive Sales Methodology you invested in 6 months ago is completely forgotten. 

Not because the manager WANTS to miss these things. They don’t have a system in place. 

Creating a Performance Management Operating Rhythm, with clear expectations for coaching, and utilizing AI to aggregate that Performance Management is the answer. 

When this is done well, CRO initiatives are aligned with Enablement, Revenue Operations, and most importantly…. Frontline Managers.

Now your still incredibly busy FLM can spend time actively coaching, following your playbook, and leading their team to victory.

Active coaching is made simple with Ambition. Connect with our team to find out how Ambition operationalizes coaching flows so every manager can be an Active Coach.