Sales leaders: how would you react if a newer rep asked “how do I get better?”
Almost 1 year into sales after coming from a Product Director background. Curious how sales directors / VPs would perceive this conversation with a manager:
“How do I get better? What are the biggest things I should improve on?”
Context:
- Enterprise / long sales cycle environment
- Territory expectation is realistically ~2 major deals per year
- Lots of relationship building, technical conversations, and navigating ambiguity
- Hard to know early on if you’re truly progressing because the feedback loop is so long
As someone newer to sales, I genuinely want coaching and pattern recognition from people who’ve done this a long time. But I also don’t want it to come across as insecurity or lack of confidence.
If one of your sales managers asked you this directly, how would you perceive it?
And for those in enterprise/strategic sales, what actually separates average reps from great ones in year 1-3?