Programs

Sales · Self-serve

Sales Manager

Metrics and conversations for leading a sales team

Two guided documents and four simulations. Each simulation is built around the participant's role and seniority, and each document around their own team. Unlimited attempts.

6 rooms · about 2 hours 15 min

Start program

Who it's for: Anyone leading a sales team, new or experienced, who runs the numbers, the pipeline meeting and the tough conversations.
Format: Self-serve
Program sessions: 5

Who it's for

Anyone leading a sales team, new or experienced, who runs the numbers, the pipeline meeting and the tough conversations.

Output

An audit of the numbers you inherited, metric by metric, with the counter-metric your headline needs and recommendations with an owner on each
A team dashboard of five to ten KPIs linked to the company's, with thresholds, owners, data sources and a review cadence
A scored report after every simulation, with the moment that earned each score, one recommended focus and a trajectory across every attempt
Scored against published frameworks: Care and Challenge, Conversation Layers, High-Stakes Dialogue, Clear Communication, Participatory Facilitation and Roger Schwarz's ground rules; the documents rest on Goodhart's Law, North-Star and Counter-Metric Pairing and the KPI cascade

Program contents

Reading inherited metrics · Metrics audit
Defining the team dashboard · Team KPIs
Naming the performance gap · Holding the hard conversation · Performance Conversation · Difficult Conversation
Running the pipeline meeting · Meeting Facilitation
Coaching from the evidence · Objection Handling

How the program works

A self-serve program for reps promoted to run a sales team, built on Renatus. Two document rooms and four simulation rooms · Five weeks, one or two rooms a week, with the real conversation or meeting after each · Unlimited attempts · Ongoing thereafter.

The rooms

Metrics audit

Framework

You are the source.

Team KPIs

Framework

Set-up: the function or department you lead, which company KPIs your team's metrics support, the five to ten metrics that make up the team's dashboard, the green, amber and red thresholds for each, and the owner, data source and review cadence for each.

Performance Conversation

Simulation

Calibration: role title, situation type (coaching a high performer, underperformance, PIP or exit conversation), industry or sector, and a brief description of your working context.

Difficult Conversation

Simulation

Set-up: your role and seniority, the kind of conversation, who you are having it with, and what is at stake.

Meeting Facilitation

Simulation

Calibration: role title, meeting type (stand-up, decision meeting, strategy session or difficult conversation forum), industry or sector, and a brief description of your working context.

Objection Handling

Simulation

Calibration: role title, sales role (BDR or SDR, AE, Senior AE or Enterprise rep), industry or sector, a brief description of your working context, and the sales reference you attached at set-up.

Why this program exists

You were promoted because you could sell. Now you are paid for what the team sells, and the first month decides whether they follow you. You inherit a dashboard you did not build, a pipeline meeting that decides nothing, and a rep who used to sit next to you. This program prepares you for that month through two guided documents and four simulations. Ren builds each scene from your real role, your sector and your working context, and plays every person in it, so every scenario is new, adjusting according to each response.

What you'll achieve

An audit of the numbers you inherited, metric by metric, with the counter-metric your headline needs and recommendations with an owner on each
A team dashboard of five to ten KPIs, each linked to a company KPI, with thresholds, an owner, a data source and a review cadence
A scored report after every simulation, with unlimited attempts: each dimension with the moment that earned its score, one recommended focus, and a trajectory across every attempt
Four real events in the same five weeks: a number changed, a one-to-one held, a pipeline meeting decided, a rep coached

At a glance

Who it's for: Reps promoted to run a sales team in the last six months. Team leads who own the number but have never held a performance conversation. The person a founder hands the first sales team to. It assumes you can sell, that you have a team of two or more, and that a pipeline meeting is in the diary.
Cadence: 5 weeks
1: Reading inherited metrics · Metrics audit · Read Counter-Metric and Recommendations; make or schedule the change
2: Defining the team dashboard · Team KPIs · Read Cascade and Thresholds; share the dashboard
3: Naming the performance gap · Holding the hard conversation · Performance Conversation · Difficult Conversation · Read Clarity of Message and Framing; hold both real conversations
4: Running the pipeline meeting · Meeting Facilitation · Read Air-time Management and Closure; run the real meeting
5: Coaching from the evidence · Objection Handling · Read Explore Before Responding; coach one rep; set the ongoing plan

Session by session

Week 1: Reading inherited metrics

Find out which of the numbers you inherited are worth watching, and which one is distorting what the team does.

Metrics audit

Week 2: Defining the team dashboard

Define the five to ten numbers the team watches every week, each linked to a company KPI, with thresholds, an owner and a cadence.

Team KPIs

Week 3: Naming the performance gap · Holding the hard conversation

Say the gap clearly and end with a path forward; then have the conversation the promotion created.

Performance Conversation Difficult Conversation

Week 4: Running the pipeline meeting

Run a pipeline meeting that ends in decisions, in less time, with every rep heard.

Meeting Facilitation

Week 5: Coaching from the evidence

Run the room you are about to coach from, so you know what each dimension measures, then coach one rep on one dimension.

Objection Handling

Six rooms for the first-time sales manager, run weekly, measured over time.

Start program

Whether a market is real, where it is growing, and where the opportunity sits

How an entire industry is structured, who controls it, and where it is heading

Who controls a market, how they compete, and where the real gaps are

Who buys in a market, what drives their decisions, and where the unmet needs are

What competitors charge in a market, how pricing is structured, and what customers will pay

Who supplies the critical inputs to a market, how concentrated it is, and what switching costs

The technology deployed in a sector, and where competitive advantage moves next

How product reaches the buyer in a market, and where channel power is shifting

Financials, leadership, strategy, and reputation on a company

Deep dive into how a company operates strategically, and where it is most exposed

Revenue, margins, cash, debt, and auditor signals on a company

How a company is perceived across customers, employees, media, and ESG

Discover a country's GDP, political environment, infrastructure, and outlook

Discover a city's GDP, economic drivers, workforce, and trajectory

Trade flows, tariffs, agreements, and friction points between two countries

Background, current state, key actors, evidence, and where an issue is heading

What a policy does, who wins and loses, and how it lands in practice

The specific risks facing a market — ranked, evidenced, and with the signals to watch

Single-source exposures, concentration, and trade-route risk for a market

Climate, governance, social, and controversy risk in a sector

Pending legislation, enforcement shifts, and where the rules are likely to change

Licensing, compliance, recent changes, and pending legislation in a jurisdiction

Government stability, policy direction, and the political risks facing a market

What a role pays — verified across named salary databases and job posting data

Whether to take a job at a company, with the evidence behind the answer

Who the credible candidates are, what they earn, and how the search will unfold

How a career in an industry works — entry, paths, pay, and prospects

The three things that will move a business forward this quarter

A 90-day plan that turns a strategy into something a team can act on Monday

Segment, positioning, channels, and pricing — tested against each other so the four hold together

A positioning the market can place — and a category claim worth defending

A pricing strategy that the market accepts and the business can defend in negotiation

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Targets, thresholds and cadence

Whether an opportunity is worth pursuing — with conditions or risks named

The real problem behind the surface one, with options and a recommended next step

How a business creates, delivers, and captures value — and where it is exposed

Where work is breaking, where capability is missing, and the one structural change worth making

Build, buy, partner, or wait — with the killer assumption named

Whether a specific partnership is worth pursuing — with the asymmetries named

The right financing structure for the opportunity — tested against fit, cost, and flexibility

A fundraise structured to close on terms worth living with

Every variance classified — structural, timing, one-off or noise — with the call the pattern demands

How long the cash lasts across three scenarios, with the killer assumption named

Whether the per-unit economics hold up — with the killer assumption named

Whether the pay set serves the talent strategy, with the cost of fixing it

A board report that lands the narrative, the KPIs, the exceptions, and the decisions requested

What metrics are missing, misleading, or quietly rewarding the wrong thing

A complete business plan ready to put in front of investors, partners, or a board

A career decision weighed against criteria that matter, with a pre-mortem and a verdict

What matters most, what you would give up, and what stays true under pressure

Which option holds up under income loss, rate moves, or a downturn

A relocation decision and plan, with the trade-offs each destination forces

What the culture is like — values in practice, leadership behaviour, and where the gap sits

Strategy clarity, alignment, talent density, ways of working, and trust in leadership

What's energising people, what's draining them, and the levers that would move engagement

The patterns in how a person handles pressure, conflict, collaboration, and decisions

PENDING — product being redesigned. See Replit brief.

How a person leads — defaults, strengths, blind spots, and development areas

Real strengths backed by evidence — and the cost each one carries when overplayed

The values revealed by what a person has held the line on, refused, or regretted

What every role owns, what's silently dropped, and which handoffs are breaking

Where the team is aligned on priorities and goals, and where dangerous gaps sit

Where trust, conflict handling, and accountability are strong — and where they break

Any subject explained to a real listener, scored on accuracy, depth, audience adaptation, and handling the unknown

A presentation rehearsal scored on lead argument, evidence, question response, and poise

A stakeholder-influence rehearsal scored on reading the room, framing, negotiation, and durability

A managing-up rehearsal scored on positioning, evidence, flexibility, and outcome

A meeting rehearsal scored on structure, air-time management, progress, and closure

The conversation that's been avoided, with an assessment of how the conversation went

A saying-no rehearsal scored on clarity, rationale, alternative, and relationship

A performance-conversation rehearsal scored on clarity, ownership, empathy, and path forward

A team-conflict rehearsal scored on directness, fairness, action, and aftercare

A hiring interview rehearsal scored on question design, follow-up, bias, and assessment integrity

A leadership crisis scored on decision quality, communication, strategy, and pressure response

A negotiation rehearsal scored on preparation, anchoring, concession pattern, and pressure response

A strategic-decision rehearsal scored on framing, information use, trade-off recognition, and time horizon

An ethics rehearsal where the right path is costly, scored on recognition and response

A prioritisation rehearsal scored on triage, trade-off recognition, communication, and revisability