After 7 years in the same company (B2B advertising), I have been promoted, let go, re-hired, demoted, and re-instated as an AE, and now have been put out to pasture (became a sales manager), and I've read enough bullshit from "sales enablement" stories in this sub to steer clear of what they do.

At the end of the day, what I really want from the AE's, BDR's and Lead Gens is to develop a measure of independence and let them imagine what it is to be on the receiving end of the cold call and pitch.

I am now in charge of Quality Assurance and Training, plus making sure the lead generation specialists, BDR's and AE's do their job, and my first day starts Monday.

Could any one else add more to this list of what not to do as a sales manager?

• No forced happiness / toxic positivity
• No "bro" culture
• No sports analogies
• Keeping daily huddles to 15 minutes max
• No inspirational quotes
• No monitoring apps / computer trackers
• No checking every 30 minutes or so
• No diversity / inclusion workshops
• No structured team building aside from the usual company paid dinner / lunch

​

• More emphasis on:
• Academic rigor (industry news, history, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, geopolitics)
• Focusing on tonality and body language during pitch practice
• Improving vocabulary and improving their ability to find context clues
• Using Chat GPT to create fictional companies, CEO profiles, fake press releases so they can detect sales nuggets (which are buried in the text) during mock discovery calls.