2/13/2025-My Mgr can teach me something?

Your sales manager wants nothing but the best for you, but that means you have to bring your best to your manager. Do your homework, show your work, and keep those communication lines open.

Your manager has two priorities: help you close sales and help you develop skills so you don’t need help closing sales. Growing revenue is the byproduct of those two priorities.

Your manager can add value only if you are open to receiving coaching and guidance.

If your manager sometimes forgets their primary role, remind her/him. If your manager sometimes forgets how to communicate effectively with you, teach her/him.

Today, sit down with your manager and discuss that one skill you need help developing. Actively solicit her/his recommendations.

Your buyers are excellent skill trainers (who else provides real-time feedback?), but your manager has seen more fastballs and curve balls than anyone. They know much about skill application, even though they may not know much about teaching.

Don’t retreat if you need to guide your manager on how they should teach you to grow your skills. Like you, managers aren’t perfect.

Talk!

Your sales manager may not wake up thinking about your problems, but they do wake up thinking about you. (Without you and your problems, your manager is out on the street.) It’s up to you to determine which of your problems need to be co-owned with your manager.

First and most importantly, your manager never wants you to lose business alone. In other words, if you feel a deal is going south, rope in your manager fast and let them decide which part of the cavalry needs to be engaged.

Last, your manager needs to know what weight you can handle; they need you to tell them what you can and can’t handle. And that becomes very hard for any proud and ambitious seller.

Hint: get over the pride and actively engage your manager; let those discussions guide you toward future decisions about leveraging your manager best.

In this YT short, Steve Jobs asks, "Why would you want to work for someone you can’t learn anything from?"

You don’t need Steve to tell you what lives deep inside you: you want a manager who inspires you, even if that means you are continuously and intensely challenged.