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From Closing Deals to Building Teams: The New Sales Playbook

Sales leadership is shifting from a purely deal-centric focus on pipeline and revenue to a human-centric approach that prioritizes team development. The best leaders integrate both—CROs balance high-impact deals with sales team support, sales leaders drive revenue while equipping managers with tools and training, and front-line managers close deals while personalizing coaching to elevate performance. The future of sales success lies in leveraging data-driven insights, fostering sustainable growth, and creating a culture that values both deals and people for long-term excellence.

Maneesh Joshi

March 7, 2025

Double-Clicking on your Sales DNA

Most sales tools focus on deal-centric insights, highlighting top reps and immediate wins but overlooking individual development. A human-centric approach shifts the focus to reps, identifying who needs support, what areas need improvement, and why they’re underperforming. By analyzing each rep’s Sales DNA—their activity patterns and performance trends—managers can provide targeted coaching, driving long-term team growth instead of just chasing quick wins.

Maneesh Joshi

February 28, 2025

Authentic Sales Coaching beyond the AI Smoke-Screen

Sales leaders are bombarded with tools claiming to revolutionize sales coaching—predictive AI, templated playbooks, and generative AI sales coaches promising to boost performance. But here’s the problem: these solutions often miss the mark by treating sales teams as data points rather than people. Generic playbooks fail to adapt, deal-centric AI ignores individual growth, and AI-generated coaching often lacks transparency and real impact. The key to scalable, high-performing sales teams isn’t just more AI—it’s AI that understands and empowers people. In this post, we’ll break down where traditional sales coaching falls short and how a human-centric approach, powered by salesDNA, transforms coaching into a personalized, measurable advantage.

Maneesh Joshi

February 14, 2025

The Human Bottleneck to AI Clairvoyance

AI-powered revenue forecasting relies on clean, reliable data, but human behaviors like data manipulation often undermine its accuracy. While advanced tools like salesDNA’s Ziggy help unify and enhance data quality, true improvement requires a cultural shift—standardized KPIs, AI-driven coaching, and smarter sales practices. By balancing AI with disciplined oversight, organizations can turn forecasting into a strategic advantage.

Maneesh Joshi

February 7, 2025

The Dirty Truth about Sales Tech: Why It’s holding CROs Back

Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) face the tough task of balancing people, processes, and technology to drive revenue growth. However, many struggle with pipeline inconsistency, leaving teams scrambling to meet end-of-quarter targets—a cycle that’s unsustainable and undermines forecasting confidence. Misalignment across dispersed teams adds to the challenge, as does the reliance on outdated sales tools. Current technologies are often siloed, offering fragmented workflows, generic recommendations, and reactive insights, which fail to address the unique needs of teams or provide actionable guidance. salesDNA’s AI tool, Ziggy, aims to change this. By spotting risks early, delivering personalized insights, and offering real-time coaching, Ziggy helps CROs align their teams and processes while building a strong foundation for sustainable growth.

Maneesh Joshi

December 20, 2024

Is Revenue Intelligence Dead?

Revenue intelligence tools, often seen as all-encompassing solutions, are not meeting the needs of front-line sales managers. These tools focus too much on short-term, big deals and neglect long-term growth and daily managerial challenges. The future calls for a shift to a human-centric approach, emphasizing personalized development, consistent execution, and equitable team involvement. To adapt, tools like salesDNA’s Ziggy are leading the way, encouraging strategic thinking and aligning all team members towards common goals. This evolution from deal-centric to people-centric strategies promises a more sustainable and effective management approach.

Maneesh Joshi

December 13, 2024

Bridging the gap between Sales Ops and front-line sales

Sales faces a significant challenge: the disconnect between Sales Ops and front-line teams. While Sales Ops provides high-level metrics like "Time-to-Close" and "Average Deal Size" for leadership's strategic planning, these insights often fail to address the practical needs of front-line managers. Managers need actionable, hyper-personalized insights that answer critical "HOW" questions—how to build a quality pipeline, improve forecast accuracy, and maximize productivity. The common "one-size-fits-all" approach focuses on broad trends, leaving teams without the tools to drive meaningful execution. Bridging this gap requires transforming Sales Ops into a resource for actionable execution, aligning metrics with team needs, and empowering sales teams to thrive.

Maneesh Joshi

December 6, 2024

Building World-Class Sales Teams: A Seasoned Front-line Sales Manager’s Insight

Building and managing high-performance sales teams as a first-line sales manager involves navigating complexities like balancing support across team members, addressing underperformance, and developing effective coaching strategies to elevate the entire team, not just top performers.

Maneesh Joshi

November 28, 2024

The Critical First 90 Days for a CRO: Navigating the Iceberg

The first 90 days of a Chief Revenue Officer's tenure are pivotal for setting the organization’s trajectory. The initial 30 days focus on listening and gathering insights from sales teams and customers, laying the groundwork for informed decision-making. During days 31-60, these insights are distilled into actionable strategies through collaboration and data validation. By days 61-90, targeted interventions are implemented to address high-impact areas, balancing immediate results with long-term growth. After the 90-day mark, the effectiveness of these strategies becomes clearer, often revealing deeper challenges like team misalignment or inefficiencies. Success in this critical period hinges on synthesizing insights with data to drive sustainable improvements.

Maneesh Joshi

November 19, 2024

Scaling the Sales Playbook: A Fresh Approach

Sales is traditionally seen as a numbers game, focusing on efficiency by targeting likely prospects. However, top performers enhance productivity by engaging customers at optimal times and prioritizing valuable interactions to sustain long-term pipeline growth. As salespeople rise to leadership, maintaining quality in forecasting and pipeline management becomes challenging. To address scalability issues, it's suggested that Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) shift focus from efficiency to productivity across their teams, distributing skills to adapt to business growth stages and ensuring long-term success.

Maneesh Joshi

November 14, 2024

Sifting through the AI Hyperbole in Salesforce Automation

In today’s AI-charged sales landscape, CROs face two perspectives: the “unicorn pundits” pushing hyper-automation, and the “cautious optimists” who recognize that B2B sales demand a human touch. While automation can drive Sales Efficiency—streamlining tasks and standardizing processes—it often falls short on Sales Effectiveness, which requires deeper insights into team performance and strategic support for sales reps. Platforms like salesDNA.ai help bridge this gap by targeting areas where AI truly adds value, empowering you to improve pipeline quality and build high-performance teams that go beyond the hype for real impact.

Maneesh Joshi

November 6, 2024

The DNA of Sales Success: Key Traits of a World-Class Sales Team

A world-class sales team thrives on individual resilience, team collaboration, and organizational support. By leveraging resources, data-driven coaching, and advanced analytics, sales leaders can overcome challenges like inconsistent forecasting. Ziggy by salesDNA empowers leaders with personalized coaching, pipeline optimization, and data insights for sustainable growth.

Maneesh Joshi

September 11, 2024

Elevating the Performance of Your Sales Leaders

Seasoned sales leaders face challenges and opportunities in today’s dynamic business landscape, making AI-powered tools and data analytics essential for achieving revenue goals and adapting to change. This blog highlights how AI, sales coaching, and automation can boost win rates, productivity, and decision-making. Ziggy by salesDNA empowers leaders to scale, deliver predictable revenue, and foster high-performing teams. Adopting these solutions transforms sales teams and drives business growth.

Maneesh Joshi

July 8, 2024

Growing from a Coin-Operated Rep to a Sales Leader

Being called "coin-operated" is common in sales, where closing deals is a primary focus. Despite the negative connotations, excelling at deal-making is exactly what you were hired to do. Leadership isn't just about managing teams; it's about using your influence to improve processes and the work environment. As you demonstrate leadership, you'll likely be given more responsibilities like team management and mentorship. Remember, your growth from a focused deal-closer to a leader shows how you can transform and contribute significantly to your organization.

Maneesh Joshi

April 24, 2024

RevOps Revolution: Unleashing Strategic Impact vs. Drowning in Tactical Chaos

Over the past 15 years, RevOps has evolved into the backbone of go-to-market strategies, transitioning from its early forms as BizOps and Sales Ops. Faced with balancing strategic and operational priorities, RevOps teams often stretch thin, juggling long-term projects with immediate demands. Utilizing advanced prioritization frameworks, like the extended Eisenhower matrix, helps address these challenges. The rise of AI tools empowers RevOps to scale its impact, supporting managers more effectively and setting the stage for strategic, data-driven decision-making in future growth.

Abde Tambawala

March 26, 2024

AI-Powered Sales Leadership: Transforming the Playbook for World-Class Coaching

Sales leadership is evolving with AI, enhancing coaching and decision-making in sales. AI assists in analyzing vast data, optimizing forecasting, and personalizing coaching, allowing leaders to focus on strategic coaching rather than deal-making. This transformation offers a chance for sales leaders to become more effective coaches, supported by AI's "second brain" capabilities, driving performance insights and tailored strategies at scale.

Jason Creane

February 23, 2024

Too many first-line sales managers lack adequate tools to perform their jobs effectively.

Clive Harrison explores the transition from sales to management, emphasizing the importance of a broad skill set for leadership. He shares insights from his career, noting the challenges first-line managers face, such as handling vast data and adapting to subscription-based models. The series advocates for AI tools to support sales managers, aiming to enhance strategic decision-making in a modern, data-driven sales environment.

Clive Harrison

February 20, 2024

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Double-Clicking on your Sales DNA
Too many first-line sales managers lack adequate tools to perform their jobs effectively.
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