Sales organizations continue to invest heavily in training programs, dashboards, and enablement tools, yet many frontline teams still underperform. The real issue is a coaching crisis. Managers are stretched thin, skill development takes a back seat to short-term quota pressure, and coaching is often confused with deal reviews. The result is disengaged reps, high turnover, and missed revenue opportunities.

I believe this crisis is solvable, but only if leaders treat coaching as a strategic priority rather than an afterthought.

Too often, what gets labeled as “coaching” is really just a conversation about closing the next deal. According to funnelmetrics.com, managers frequently mistake deal-focused discussions for coaching, but these conversations do little to build lasting skills.

Several forces drive this pattern:

• Metrics over mastery: Sales cultures reward hitting numbers, not developing people. Managers are incentivized to push deals across the line rather than invest in long-term capability.
• Time and talent gaps: Many managers oversee too many reps to coach effectively. Others were promoted for their selling ability, not their coaching skill.
• Lack of structure: Without a consistent framework, coaching becomes ad hoc and uneven across teams.
• Underlying skill deficits: A surprising number of reps lack foundational selling skills, which require more than quick tips to address.

The impact is clear: underperformance, disengagement, and attrition. Reps who don’t feel they are growing will leave, and the cost of replacing them is staggering.

The frontline is where customer experience is won or lost. When coaching is weak, reps default to outdated scripts or inconsistent behaviors. That erodes trust, reduces conversion rates, and ultimately damages the brand.

At Ashley Furniture, leadership recognized that inconsistent coaching was limiting performance. Managers had too many reps to support, and associates lacked visibility into their progress. The result was uneven performance and turnover risk. By rethinking coaching with FrontlineIQ, Ashley shifted from guesswork to structured, data-driven development. The outcome was double-digit sales growth and higher retention.

This is the difference between coaching as a checkbox and coaching as a culture.

Fixing the coaching crisis requires more than telling managers to “coach more.” It demands a systemic shift:

1. Make coaching measurable: Tie coaching activities directly to performance outcomes. If you can’t measure it, you can’t scale it.
2. Focus on behaviors, not just deals: Identify the single behavior change that will have the biggest impact for each rep, and build coaching around it.
3. Embed coaching into daily rhythms: Coaching should not be a quarterly event. It should be part of every one-on-one, every week, with clear goals and feedback loops.
4. Equip managers with tools, not just expectations: AI can help managers see exactly where to focus, saving time and making coaching consistent across large teams.

At FrontlineIQ, we built our platform around these principles. Our AI coach pinpoints the one behavior that will unlock performance for each rep, gives managers clear talking points, and tracks progress in real time. The goal is simple: make every manager a super-coach, and every rep a consistent learner.

I’ve spent my career at the intersection of sales enablement and technology. The pattern is always the same: companies invest heavily in data and training, but reps and managers still struggle to know what to do differently tomorrow. Coaching is the missing link. When done right, it transforms not just numbers, but culture.

The coaching crisis does not have to continue. Organizations that prioritize consistent, skill-focused coaching will outperform those that don’t.

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The frontline deserves better than deal reviews disguised as coaching. They deserve managers who can help them grow, not just hit this month’s target.

What about your teams? Tell us about the specific coaching issues impacting your sales teams?