What’s Your Management Cadence?

What’s Your Management Cadence?

Many aspects of our lives have a rhythm or cadence. For example, sleep cycles, habits, and daily routines come together to create the pattern of our lives. The stability and predictability of these cadences form the foundation we all need to navigate life’s challenges and overcome them.  

In the world of sales, rhythms don’t usually happen naturally. Those cadences come about independently and require conscious effort to take root in many cases. A steady tempo is essential for sales success, especially for meetings.  

 What is Management Cadence? 

 Management cadence gives your team a steady rhythm of support– in the form of regular meetings that include evaluations, feedback, and guidance to realize and provide your sales force’s full potential. Great sales managers use the power of cadence to ensure their teams are always marching to the same beat, in the same direction, toward sales execution and continuous improvement. That’s no easy task, however. 

Why is Management Cadence Important? 

 Like a heartbeat, management cadence ensures that a culture of consistency and execution is carried throughout your entire sales team – nourishing every manager, rep, and intern with shared knowledge, goals, strategy, and vision.  

To reach this critical goal, the sales manager should, at the very minimum, engage in the following four types of meetings regularly:  

• Business planning  
• Sales team meetings  
• Top opportunity reviews  
• Sales activity one-on-ones 

When meetings take place will depend on your business and its own unique needs.  

  Tips to Improve Your Management Cadence 

 The most important management tip isn’t always the specific meeting dates or times, but that every team member can set their watch to the consistency of when they occur. Other essential tips are: 

• Meetings need to have a standard structure to ensure that each manager adds value, coaches, and develops the team effectively. For example, implement a framework for how long meetings last, who participates, a suggested agenda, needed reports, and potential coaching questions.  
• Cadence is about consistency, predictability, and reinforcement. Many sales managers do the things listed above, but they often do them irregularly, without warning, and without structure. Meetings that are part of a cadence, on the other hand, allow managers to set clear goals and define concrete agendas ahead of time. 
• Speaking of agendas, they need to set clear expectations on activities and performance. As a result, you and your team can arrive fully prepared and derive more value from the interactions.  

 As we work with clients, we have been a part of many sales transformations, and we have seen the power of meeting cadence make a vast, sometimes transformative difference. Establishing rhythm for meetings is one of our top recommendations for improving sales performance, and we would love to help  your company find the best cadence for your sales team.