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Live Digital Panel - September 15, 2020

Team Leads: The good, the bad, and the ugly

For this Digital Panel, we had an authentic conversation around what comes next for stellar-SDRs, Amazing AEs, and Opportunistic Ops Individual Contributors. We were joined by Trish Bertuzzi, Tanner Lacey, and Scott Britton.

You have a BDR or AE that's beating quota and setting an example for their entire team. What's next?

Maybe you're overwhelmed as a manager and just need another set of hands to help load balance. How do you react?

In comes the Team Lead role. Or the player-coach. Or the super-AE.

Loved in some circles, loathed in others - we're bringing you some of the best leaders in the revenue world to discuss Team Leads: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Key Topics -

  • What the hell is a team lead? What is the role and what does that person do, day-to-day?

  • When does a team lead role work? When does it fail gloriously?

  • If you're thinking about team leads - how should you compensate them?

  • If you have a top performer who wants to be in management, but they'd be a stretch, how do you reward that person?

  • Is there consensus? Should your organization utilize the Team Lead role?

Key Takeaways -

  • Questions you NEED to ask yourself before implementing a team lead - Are you doing this for you or your employee's career development? Does this person even want to be a leader? Do they even want to manage people?

  • Invest in your people the right way and you’ll get a bigger return on investment. Career growth should be prescribed on an individual basis, it's not one size fits all.

  • Your team doesn't need to be siloed in the sales organization. In comes the timeless saying "If you love them set them free, if they return it's meant to be". Sales skills translate well to marketing, customer success, product, and so many other functions! Let’s be real and stop thinking of the team lead role as a legit promotion.

  • If you don’t have an opportunity for your top performer, you need to be able to support them in finding their next opportunity. You need the emotional intelligence as a manager to do that. (Hint - Read Radical Candor)

  • Team leads can work on a case-by-case basis. They shouldn't be worked into your organizational culture. It doesn't work 95% of the time. There's a better growth opportunity out their that won't impact their ability to do their job.

  • Being a team lead is really two jobs. Part one is being an awesome IC and part two is being a stellar people manager. It's almost impossible to master both. Take a note from engineering organizations. You have a people manager and a practitioner manager. Those two people have very different roles.