From Top Rep to Coach
How to manage people, not dashboards.
A practical playbook for new SDR managers on making the jump from top performer to coach, with the GROW model, the metrics that matter and a toolkit to run it every week.
About this resource
You used to win by closing. Now you win by making other people close. This playbook is for new managers who were promoted for being great reps and now feel out of their depth. It covers why being a great rep doesn't make you a great manager, how to stop cloning yourself, how to manage former peers, and how to coach the human rather than the dashboard. It teaches the GROW model and why it works, how to lock in commitments, which metrics actually matter and how to get from the number to the why. It also shows how to teach reps to self-coach, deal with small problems early, and keep growing yourself. Ships with the Excel Coaching Toolkit. Based on the SDR Leaders of EMEA session with Jack Blair and Bruce Zivan, hosted by David Wilkins.
What's inside
- The trap: why great reps struggle as new managers
- Coaching the individual, not cloning yourself
- Managing former peers
- Coaching the human, not the dashboard
- The GROW model, and why reps follow through on it
- Locking in commitments that actually happen
- The metrics that matter, and getting from the number to the why
- Teaching reps to self-coach
- Dealing with frustration early
- A quick-reference page of common mistakes and fixes
- Companion Excel Coaching Toolkit
Built with the people running SDR teams in EMEA, the USA and APAC. Every number and play in here came from members, not vendors.