MoonDog349

Sales Manager

Valued Contributor

Executive

Opinionated

What is a Team Lead?

I'm hoping to crowd source opinions/ideas about what you think a team lead is on a sales team.

To me, it's always been a "we aren't sure if you're ready to manage so try this out and still carry your own bag."

In my company's structure, we have an RVP, two directors, and reps under each director. With one of the teams with a less experienced director, we have a team lead that essentially coaches new reps and points people in the right direction.

I'm curious, what responsibilities should a team lead have? Only deal coaching? enablement? actually managing? team forecast or just their own?

Please let me know what you have seen, like, and dislike.

🏋️‍♀️ Leadership

🧢 Sales Management

24 comments

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braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

A scam management pulls to not pay you for extra work

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

nailed it.
kinda like telling ppl you are getting "paid in experience"

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

Sales

But if you don’t do it, they can say you are quiet quitting lol.

MoonDog349

Valued Contributor

Sales Manager

“HE DIDNT WANT TO TAKE THE TEAM LEAD ROLE HE MUST NOT CARE ABOUT THE COMPANY!!!”

MoonDog349

Valued Contributor

Sales Manager

Sure but… what would make the role valuable?

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Money

MoonDog349

Valued Contributor

Sales Manager

I received a fat raise to be a team lead. Anything else you think would make the role more valuable?

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

This is how it's always felt to me too

Corpslovechild

Politicker

Inbound Sales Manager

FACTS!!!!!!!!!!!!

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

A team lead could be someone that is being groomed for management. They get delegated tasks to test their ability to lead and manage certain tasks within the given department.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

and then when this person gets that title, the other reps stop talking to them 😂

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

lmao YUP! Then they all think you fell to the dark side.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

It means different things at different companies. Just be sure if you are getting the extra responsibility with that title that you are also getting extra money.

MoonDog349

Valued Contributor

Sales Manager

Sure. While this is good advice for anyone considering a team lead role, I’m more looking for what would make the role worth while to a team and what the responsibilities ought to be.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Definitely this.

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

- supposed to be a "transition" role, more often than not, it isn't one
- you can / should use it to your advantage though, now that you're already aware of the truth
- when I was one, I used to cheekily add my pipeline, to team's pipeline to save their butt, it worked !
- on the downside, you tend to get sandwiched - being a sponge helps - keep taking in - keep draining it out
- operational issues, lots n lots of them, quite a lot of admin work too - can get you away from the ground easily
- apart from what you mentioned already, not letting the pressure from above blast onto your sub-ordinates can be the trickiest and most humbling one

In all honesty, it's one of the toughest roles. Hoping you thrive, and not just survive this one. Good luck! @MoonDog349

MoonDog349

Valued Contributor

Sales Manager

Honestly I started this thread because I’m moving out of the role to manage. Was a team lead all year and am now being asked to help formalize the role as I leave it.

saaskicker

Celebrated Contributor

Enterprise AE

Deal coaching, enablement, new hire training.

Extra work to pull you away from hitting your number.

Have seen a lot of people take on a team lead role in hopes to moving into management and miss their number by taking up so much time focusing on other reps. Yes it looks good to help, but at the end of the day many orgs will block you if you don't hit your number (depends on size of company and growth projections).

If you're interested in management, it's a relatively risk free way to dip your toes in - can always revert back to saying it's taking me away from my real job and i want to hit my number, need to peel back my efforts on team lead duties -- proper way to do this would be just have an open 1 hour monday and friday to do a "stand up" have people join if they have questions, want to talk strategy - gives you visibility across you calendar you're doing it and in my experience, people rarely join but you can notch it as something you continually do to provide value.

MoonDog349

Valued Contributor

Sales Manager

Spot on

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

i hate the "team lead" title. you have no authority and everyone knows it. i would rather have an understanding with my manager that you want me to help train new reps and not give me a title because that will just cause more harm than good.

MoonDog349

Valued Contributor

Sales Manager

So what would make a team lead valuable?

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

honestly......not sure. I really dont see the point.

If you want to train a person for a management role, then ok. BUT you need to have defined skills that are being developed and labeling that person a "team lead" idk if it does anything.

If i was going to train someone to be a manager I would call it a "Manager Track" and the goal is to have this person ready to manage a team by X date.
- they would be meeting with the current manager and that managers boss on a weekly/ monthly cadence to develop needed skills.
- Maybe there are assignments or projects that person works on with the team.

but they dont have any real authority, its nothing to put on the resume its a decision to learn new skills and leadership knows that person is ready if there is a spot opening up.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Lots of time someone who likes management but doesn’t want to give up the IC freedom or someone looking to get into management and this is a trial run

saasbaby

Politicker

SDR

This is a great question... I'd like to know too lol. My manager approached me within 2 months of being at the company and told me that she wants me to be the Team Leader of the group. I mean I was pleased to hear it, but Idk what I need to be doing other than reminding the team to do things.

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MoonDog349

What is a Team Lead?

24 comments

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