Sales Leaders Should Give Their Managers a Strong Sales Operating Rhythm

This blog contains content from Chapter 3 of our eBook - Coaching the Coaches: Five Lessons for Training Front-Line Sales Managers. Start from the beginning here.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

For sales leaders and sales organizations, the Management Operating Rhythm (MOR) is important. The operating rhythm is a major way that organizations support their sales managers. It drives the accountability that ensures your front-line sales managers focus on the activities necessary for repeatable success, and that they perform them consistently and at a high level.

Unfortunately, most companies don’t have a Management Operating Rhythm to make sure that their sales managers and their sales teams can be successful – and that’s a huge gap. The operating rhythm is a dedicated, concerted effort. It's important to consciously create an operating rhythm for yourself and all of the managers who lead a team of sellers.

A great sales operating rhythm should address three main areas:

1. Corporate visibility This is what’s on the minds of the leaders at the very top and how it cascades through managers and their teams. The operating rhythm is essential for defining how expectations will be communicated so that everyone is working toward a common goal.
   
   
2. Talent management This is important, because hiring, onboarding and developing talent is how successful organizations scale their business. The operating rhythm is critical for leaders, managers and employees to know what is expected of them in terms of hiring to the right success profile and teaching and leading themselves and others.
   
   
3. Sales planning and execution Managers need to be able to do a great job helping their sales reps with the entire business and competitive landscape – territory planning, account planning and opportunity execution. The operating rhythm is the guidepost for what is expected, for both opportunities and challenges. It provides the plan of attack.

Bottom line: The Management Operating Rhythm is a framework of activities, guidelines, tools, and success measures that helps sales leaders and managers focus on the most important aspects of their job - hiring the right team, driving consistent sales planning and execution and providing visibility both up and down the organization. 

The MOR creates a cadence around the critical management activities that have the greatest impact on the bottom line. It contains an inventory of the tools, developed to assist managers in successfully completing these activities. Sales teams that operate within this cadence remain committed to elevating performance and driving sales revenue.