19 Mar How to Handle Being a Sales Player/Coach
Why use the Player/Coach Model?
This hybrid approach combines hands-on contribution (Player) with team management and mentorship (Coach). It is common in startups and agile organizations. The model offers leaders who both do the work and shape strategy. It can be deployed in sales and non-sales positions.
Rethinking the Player/Coach Model in Sales Leadership
Late in my career, I held a role as a sales manager while also carrying an individual sales quota. Although I achieved considerable success in that position, it was also one of the most stressful periods of my professional life. Looking back, I am convinced that my team would have benefited from more focused leadership had I been able to devote myself fully to management rather than splitting my attention between leading the team and managing my own sales pipeline.
This experience shaped a strong view: I do not support the player/coach model, in which sales managers are expected to both lead a team and carry a personal sales quota, in a non-start-up environment. While the approach may appear efficient on paper, in practice it often undermines both management effectiveness and team performance.
There are several reasons for this.
- The model creates a fundamental conflict of interest.
Sales managers must constantly decide whether to prioritize their own pipeline or devote time to coaching and supporting their team. Inevitably, one responsibility suffers—and often both do. - Balancing the two roles is extremely difficult.
Success in sales demands sustained focus on prospecting, deal progression, and closing. Effective leadership, however, requires time spent mentoring, strategizing, and developing people. Doing both simultaneously is rarely sustainable and often leads to burnout. - Few professionals succeed in the dual role.
Experience suggests that fewer than half of those placed in player/coach positions achieve notable success across both responsibilities. - The skill sets required are fundamentally different.
Successful sales professionals tend to be intensely focused on their own pipeline and minimizing distractions. Effective sales managers, by contrast, must shift their attention outward—toward building, developing, and supporting a team. As discussed in Above Quota Performance, these priorities can often be at odds. - Managers should support sales activity—but not replace it.
Sales managers can and should participate in key sales efforts when appropriate, particularly in strategic deals. However, their role should be to elevate team performance, not substitute for the team. - Coaching and communication inevitably decline.
When managers carry their own quotas, time available for coaching, deal reviews, and strategic planning is reduced—precisely the activities that drive consistent team success. - Team morale can suffer.
Sales professionals may become frustrated if their manager appears more focused on personal deals than on helping the team succeed. - Compensation structures can create bias.
If managers are compensated directly for personal sales, they may be incentivized to prioritize their own opportunities, which can be perceived as self-serving by their direct reports. - The model becomes unworkable with larger teams.
Once a manager oversees more than five sales professionals, the demands of leadership alone typically require full-time attention. - Accountability becomes unclear.
Organizations often struggle to determine whether the manager’s individual sales should count toward team targets, creating confusion around performance measurement and responsibility.
The continued popularity of the player/coach model may stem from a desire to maximize short-term revenue or reduce management overhead. On the surface, it appears efficient: one individual contributing to both management and direct selling. In reality, however, the approach often dilutes effectiveness in both areas.
Sales leadership is not simply another sales role—it is a force multiplier. A highly productive salesperson may close a significant amount of business individually, but a strong manager can elevate the performance of an entire team. Through coaching, strategy, pipeline management, and talent development, an effective sales leader can create an environment where many salespeople close more deals, more consistently. That is where the real leverage in sales leadership lies.
When managers are freed from the burden of carrying their own sales targets, they gain the time and focus required to analyze pipelines, improve sales processes, mentor individual team members, and remove obstacles that prevent deals from progressing. These activities are often invisible in the short term but are essential drivers of sustained revenue growth.
Organizations that are serious about maximizing sales performance should therefore view sales management as a distinct and strategic role—not as an extension of individual selling. The most successful sales organizations recognize that investing in full-time leadership ultimately produces stronger teams, healthier pipelines, and more predictable revenue.
In summary, sales organizations achieve stronger results when managers are able to focus fully on what they are meant to do: lead, coach, and develop a high-performing sales team.