Stop Undervaluing the Impact of Training Your Frontline Managers—Your Revenue Growth Depends On It

Sales leaders prioritize seller training, but they often overlook training for frontline sales managers, one of the most critical levers to improve seller productivity. These managers dictate whether sales teams execute effectively or fail to meet their targets. However, most companies fail to invest in their development, leaving a gap in performance.

In partnership with the Revenue Enablement Society (RES), we surveyed 134 commercial leaders in public and private companies to understand how enablement teams are addressing sales manager skill development.

Download the report, Closing the Training Gap for Frontline Sales Managers.

Sales managers are your biggest performance multiplier

While nearly every enablement team (96%) reported responsibility for seller training, we uncovered that nearly 40% of teams have no dedicated sales manager training program. Of the companies that do, only 34% provided training to their managers in the 12 months preceding our study. This results in inconsistent performance, misaligned coaching, and sellers left struggling under ineffective leadership.

Companies that prioritize sales manager development see the impact in the numbers, achieving a 7% higher quota attainment. This results in potentially millions of dollars in additional revenue.

So why are so many companies making this critical mistake? 

Most companies are failing to upskill frontline sales managers

Today’s frontline sales managers are being asked to do more than ever before:

• Navigate increasingly complex sales cycles with 12+ stakeholders per deal.
• Coach sellers on a rapidly evolving AI-driven tech stack.
• Deliver revenue growth in a climate where hiring additional headcount is off the table.

Despite their expanding role responsibilities, frontline sales managers are left to figure it out on their own. Many were once top-performing sellers promoted into leadership, and without structured training, their skillset is not qualified or prepared to deliver results as a leader.  

This results in a number of unforeseen consequences:

• Seller Underperformance: Without proper coaching, sellers struggle with execution, pipeline health declines, and deals stall.
• Lost Revenue Opportunities: A poorly trained manager leads to declining quota attainment.
• Attrition and Burnout: The top-performing sellers leave, frustrated by leadership (or lack thereof). Meanwhile, underperforming reps are unable to make significant improvement.

How to close the sales manager training gap

Leading companies are shifting their focus to deliberate, high-impact training programs for sales managersthat directly improve seller performance. Here’s four steps you can take to do the same.

1. Stop letting short-term priorities undermine long-term success

The number one reason sales manager training gets deprioritized is competing priorities. While closing deals today is important, equipping your leaders with the tools they need to drive sustained performance has long-term impact. The most successful organizations treat sales manager training as a non-negotiable part of their commercial strategy.

2. Treat sales management and sales coaching as distinct skillsets

The skills needed to be a top seller are not enough to be a sales manager. Commercial teams need to look beyond selling skills and prioritize the skills needed to successfully lead a sales team. Companies with a dedicated program for sales manager training cited managing sales performance and sales coaching as their top two priorities:

1. Managing Sales Performance: Setting expectations, tracking KPI’s, and holding sellers accountable.
2. Sales Coaching: Helping sellers develop skills, navigate deals, and improve win rates.

While distinct, these skills are intertwined, and sales managers need both to successfully lead their teams.

1. Invest in technology training to ensure productivity gains

Sales managers today are expected to drive increased seller efficiency through technology. But only 12% of companies prioritize training their frontline sales managers on revenue technology.

When sales managers lack training, they underutilize sales tools, misinterpret performance metrics, and fail to leverage AI-driven insights for coaching. In addition to training on the traditional fundamentals of sales management, top-performing enablement teams are ensuring that future training programs for the frontline include guidance on effectively using generative-AI and a modern sales tech stack to increase seller efficiency.

2. Don’t rely on coaching playbooks as the sole reinforcement mechanism

Reinforcement is key to successfully shape manager behavior, and enablement teams must fortify training with materials that are accessible and beneficial. While a playbook can be helpful, companies gain even greater value from enablement content for sales managers and increase the effectiveness of skills development by adhering to these critical principles for learning reinforcement:

• Ensure new processes and playbooks are accompanied by robust training prior to implementation.
• Reinforce new skills with post-training “refresher” sessions with real-world scenarios.
• Engage sales managers with a variety of training formats
• Leverage tools and job aids to solidify concepts.
• Embed training content in CRM and other tools in the sales tech stack to make information more accessible.

Managers need real, embedded enablement that drives behavior change in the field. 

Training your sales managers is vital to your sales teams success

Sales managers are your greatest revenue enabler and yet most companies are failing to support them.

The cost of inaction is too high, teams with trained managers see better seller performance, higher quota attainment, and stronger revenue growth.

Download the full report, Closing the Training Gap for Frontline Sales Managers.