TL;DR: Most sales managers want to coach. Four things stop them: they were never taught how, they're measured on the number instead of the people, rescuing a deal is faster than coaching the rep, and they don't know exactly what each rep needs. Only one of those is about time. Telling managers to "coach more" won't fix any of them. Changing the system around them will.
Ask a CEO why his sales managers don't coach, and the answer is almost always the same: "They don't have time."
That's true, but it isn't the real reason. Give most managers an extra five hours a week, and very little of it goes to coaching. It goes to the forecast, the escalation, the deal that's slipping, and the internal meeting that ran long.
In Your Best Rep Got Promoted. Nobody Taught Him to Coach, we looked at the size of the problem. Our data science partner, Objective Management Group, found that only 7% of sales managers coach both consistently and effectively. This article looks at why.
Reason 1: They Were Never Taught
Think about how most sales managers get the job. They're the best rep on the team. A manager leaves, and the CEO promotes the person with the biggest number. That person gets a title, a team, and a quota. He almost never gets training in how to coach.
So he does what he knows. He tells reps what he would do, and when that doesn't work, he does it for them.
The data shows how big this gap is. In a 2016 analysis of about 100,000 sales managers, OMG found that the average manager had only 43% of the attributes of an effective coach. Only 7% had more than three-quarters of them. In a 2018 look at 9,000 managers, just 10% were strong at coaching.
Coaching is a skill, like prospecting or closing. Nobody expects a new rep to close well without training. Yet companies expect new managers to coach well without any.
Reason 2: They're Measured on the Number
Look at what your managers are actually paid for. In most companies, it's the team's revenue this quarter. Nothing on the scorecard measures whether reps are getting better.
That creates a quiet trade-off. A manager who spends Thursday closing a deal himself hits the number. A manager who spends Thursday coaching a rep through a hard call might lose that deal this quarter and win ten more next year. On the scorecard, the first manager looks better.
Managers aren't being lazy when they skip coaching. They're doing exactly what the scorecard tells them to do.
Reason 3: Rescuing Is Faster
It takes two minutes to jump into a call and save it. It takes weeks to coach a rep to the point where he can save it himself.
Under pressure, managers take the shortcut. And every rescue feels like a win. The deal moves forward, the manager feels useful, and the rep is grateful.
But each rescue teaches the rep something. It teaches him that when a call gets hard, someone else will handle it. Over time, the manager becomes the team's best closer, and the reps never learn to close. The manager gets busier, has even less time to coach, and rescues more. It's a cycle, and it gets worse every quarter.
Reason 4: They Don't Know What Each Rep Needs
Even a manager who makes time to coach often doesn't know what to coach. Without a clear picture of each rep's skill gaps, coaching turns into general advice:
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"Be more confident."
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"Ask better questions."
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"You need to qualify harder."
Those comments sound helpful, but they don't change anything. A rep can't practice "be more confident." He can practice a specific response to a specific objection.
The manager is also guessing based on what he sees, which is a small slice of each rep's week. He rides along once a month and listens to a few calls. The rep who struggles with the close may look fine on the calls the manager happens to hear.
Only One Reason Is About Time
Look back at the four reasons. One is about skill. One is about incentives. One is about pressure. One is about information. None of them is fixed by giving managers more hours or telling them coaching is important.
Each one has a system fix:
Why managers struggle What fixes it
Never taught Train managers in how to coach, the same way you train reps to sell
Measured on the number Add coaching to the scorecard: one-on-ones held, skills practiced, rep growth
Rescuing is faster Set a ride-along rule: the manager stays quiet unless the deal is truly at risk
Don't know what each rep needs Assess every rep, so the manager knows each person's skill gaps
That last fix matters more than it looks. When a manager knows exactly what each rep needs, the other three get easier. Coaching takes less time because it's focused. It's easier to measure because there's a specific skill to track. And it's easier to stay quiet on a ride-along when you know exactly what you're watching for.
What Do Your Managers Need From You?
Your managers already want their reps to win. Most of them were simply never given the tools, the incentives, or the information to coach. That isn't their failure. It's the system's.
Fixing it starts with you. Change what you measure, give them training, and give them a clear picture of each rep. Then ask them to coach.
Want to see what a real coaching conversation sounds like? Our companion article, Sales Managers: Managing Isn't Coaching, walks through the 15-minute one-on-one and the ride-along debrief.
At SalesIndex, we help sales managers become sales coaches. The assessment shows each manager exactly what every rep needs, and our manager training teaches them how to coach to it. Let's talk.
