Your Frontline Sales Managers Are Costing You Millions. How To Fix It in 90 Days.

Let me ask you something.

How much are you paying your frontline sales managers?

$120K? $180K? More?

Now here's the real question... do they actually know how to do the job?

Can they run effective 1:1s? Pipeline reviews that move deals forward? Call coaching that changes behavior? Skill development sessions that create top performers?

If you're like most B2B organizations, the answer is no. And it's costing you millions.

The Hidden Revenue Leak Nobody Talks About

I just did a podcast with Bridge the Gap where we unpacked the biggest hidden revenue leak in B2B sales organizations.

It's not pipeline. It's not your reps. It's not your ICP or your messaging.

It's your frontline sales leaders who were never actually trained to lead.

Here's what happens. You promote your best rep into management. They were crushing quota, closing big deals, building relationships. So naturally, they should be able to teach others to do the same, right?

Wrong.

Selling and leading are completely different skill sets. And most organizations throw new managers into the role with zero training on the fundamentals.

The $35M Case Study

Take this company I worked with. $35 million a year. Based in California. Good people. Good product. But stuck at 70% to target.

They called me wanting sales training for their reps.

I said hold on. Let's run a diagnostic first.

We looked at everything. The data. The call recordings. The processes.

The problem wasn't the reps. It was the frontline sales leaders. They had no idea how to actually manage a sales team.

So we spent 90 days building the playbook and training their leaders on the fundamentals. How to hire. How to run 1:1s. How to coach. How to review calls. How to develop talent.

Table stakes stuff that every sales leader should know but most don't.

90 days later? They went from 70% to target to 100% to target.

We didn't train a single rep. We just fixed the management layer.

The $300K Training That Changed Nothing

Here's another one that blows my mind.

I spoke with a PEO company last week. Over 100 reps. They invested $300,000 implementing a sales methodology. Full training program. Workshops.

Certifications. The whole thing.

Fast forward several years. Their win rate? 8%.

Eight. Percent.

They spent $300K on training and got zero ROI because they solved the wrong problem. They treated a symptom instead of diagnosing the root cause.

What Actually Works

Stop throwing money at training programs until you fix your foundation.

Here's what that looks like:

First, run a diagnostic. Look at your data. Listen to call recordings. Talk to your team at different levels. Find the actual constraints killing your revenue.

Second, fix your management layer. Your frontline leaders have the greatest impact on performance. If they can't coach, your reps won't improve.

Third, build systems that scale. Training fades in 90 days. Systems compound for decades. Build playbooks, scorecards, and processes that work beyond any individual person.

This is unsexy work. It's not as exciting as implementing the latest sales methodology or hiring more reps.

But it's what actually moves the needle.

Wrapping Up

Most sales leaders are solving symptoms instead of root problems.

They see low pipeline and think they need more leads. They see missed forecasts and think they need better reps. They see inconsistent performance and think they need more training.

But the real issue is usually sitting one layer up. In the managers who don't know how to manage.

Fix that first. Everything else gets easier.