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90-Day Sales Manager Advisory · Manufacturing, distribution, packaging, and industrial services

You put a manager in place so the team would deliver without you. It still runs through you.

The forecast needs your second look. Pricing exceptions land on your desk. Growth priorities are in the plan but not in the field. Sales and operations argue about what was promised. And the decisions you expected your manager to make keep coming back to you. That's true whether you promoted them, hired them from outside or inherited them in an acquisition.

Those exceptions add up.

One-to-one work with your manager for 90 days, measured against agreed targets.

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Cheryl Clark works with your manager on the team, forecast, customers and margin you have now. She has carried a quota, managed sales teams and sat in your seat, counting on managers to turn the plan into results, over 25-plus years of leading or working directly with commercial teams. You can help set the targets on Day 1 or leave them to your manager. Either way, on Day 90 you see the measured results against them.

From Cheryl's earlier one-to-one work with sales managers:

  • Within two months, a manager's approval requests had become updates on decisions he'd already made.

  • Within three months, a team's forecast went from reps' best guesses to a number the executive team could rely on.

  • A manager hired from outside, whose reps openly doubted him, had them inviting him into sales calls within 90 days.

Why it's still landing on your desk

Most managers got the job for being good at something else: selling, service, operations, or running a team in a different business. Few were shown how to run an evidence-based forecast review, hold a veteran rep accountable, or say no to a discount a customer is pushing for.

Training doesn't close that gap because a workshop doesn't change what happens in next Tuesday's pipeline review. In one case, a team had been through training the month before a new manager started, and results hadn't moved. What worked was a rep-by-rep diagnosis, a plan for each, and a clear call on who would develop and who wouldn't. Within 90 days, conversion improved at each rep's weak stage. By year-end, 7 of 8 reps hit or exceeded their annual target, and the rep who wouldn't change had left.

What it's costing you

  • Growth priorities that never reach the field.
  • Forecasts you have to rebuild before you can use them.
  • Loose pricing, and margin given away to keep customers happy.
  • Underperformers who stay that way, and reps who resist change.
  • Reps who lean on the manager instead of getting more capable.
  • Sales and operations conflicts that slow down execution.
  • Growth and margin goals that slip, quarter after quarter.
  • Decisions that still need you.

What's different about this

It deals with the whole business, not just the sales team.

Most real problems sit where margin, operations, service and sales overlap. Cheryl implemented a margin management program across customer-facing teams and worked closely with operations, customer service and newly acquired sales teams, so your manager gets help with that side too.

It works on the problems you need fixed.

No curriculum, no model to install, no deck. Your manager brings the situations they own. Cheryl brings the judgment of someone who has made these calls, and will say so plainly when she'd make a different one. Your manager makes the decisions.

It doesn't stop at advice.

Changes go through the team, get checked and get adjusted until there's something you can measure.

How involved you are is up to you

Day 1

The targets, set your way.

Help set them with your manager, or let your manager set them and review the one-page Results Agreement: what needs to change, what it's costing, where things stand today, the targets, and how you'll both know it worked. Every target is something you can count, like pricing exceptions, forecast misses, overcommitting operations or accounts with real expansion opportunities, and each is set for what can realistically move in 90 days.

Day 45

A short progress update.

What's moving, what isn't, and what's being adjusted. Your manager sees it before you do.

Day 90

A results report.

What changed, measured against the targets, and how your manager will keep it going. Talk it through with Cheryl if you'd like.

What you see, and what stays private.

You see the targets, the Day 45 update and the Day 90 results. What your manager says in working sessions stays between them and Cheryl. That lets your manager be candid about what isn't working and fix it before it reaches you.

What you'll see at Day 90

The problems named on Day 1, dealt with.

Decisions made, changes in place, results checked.

A team that runs with less intervention.

Reps moving more deals forward on their own and making better calls on customers and pricing. Fewer decisions reach your manager, and fewer still reach you.

Measured progress against the agreed targets.

Evidence, not more activity or a more hopeful pipeline.

A manager set up to keep improving on their own,

using an approach they've already practiced with their team.

You'll also get the 90-Day Results Record (where things started, what changed, results against targets, what's still open) and your manager's Next-Quarter Operating Plan, which carries anything still open to completion.

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Results from earlier work

From Cheryl's one-to-one work with sales managers and commercial leaders in manufacturing, distribution, packaging, and industrial services. The 90-day format is new; the work behind it isn't.

A manager who runs the team, so you don't have to

A manager kept bringing decisions to his boss. He started arriving with recommendations instead of thinking out loud. Requests got decided in the room, and within two months his approval requests had become updates on decisions he'd already made.
A manager hired from outside, into a business he didn't know, stumbled early and lost the reps' trust. The work focused on sound judgment, learning the business fast and doing what he said he'd do. Within 90 days, reps were inviting him into sales calls and flagging at-risk deals early instead of hiding them until quarter-end.
A newly promoted manager couldn't hold a longtime friend accountable for keeping his pipeline current and selling the full product line. After one direct conversation about expectations, the rep met the pipeline standard the next week and was selling the full line within the quarter. The friendship held.
A manager was carrying an underperforming team's number himself. He built the reps' judgment instead of teaching them to sell his way. Within three months, reps were handling more customer situations alone, and each booked at least two meetings a level higher for total-cost-of-ownership conversations.

Numbers you can run the business on

Forecasts were built on reps' happy ears. A manager replaced 12 individual approaches with a single sales process and weekly pipeline reviews built on evidence, not opinion. Within three months, the forecast was a number the executive team could rely on.
A manager was granting discounts to keep customers loyal. Automatic discounting ended. Margin was protected with no loss of key accounts.
A manager's new reps took nine months to be productive. That dropped to 45 days, and new reps paid for themselves within 12 months instead of up to two years.
Sales kept overcommitting operations. A three-question check the manager built with the operations manager cut monthly overcommits in half within two months, improved relations with operations, reduced cost and kept more margin.
Cheryl Clark
Cheryl ClarkFounder, Strategy to Street

Who your manager will work with

Cheryl Clark knows the sales manager's job from all three sides: carrying a quota, leading a team, and sitting in your seat, counting on managers to turn the plan into results. She started in sales in the paper industry and was promoted to manage her former peers. Over a 25-plus-year career working inside and alongside manufacturing, distribution, packaging, and industrial services companies, she has run operations as a COO, owned and run her own sales effectiveness and leadership business, and built a marketing function.

For 14 years she was a senior executive reporting to the CEO of a national manufacturer and distributor. Through years of organic growth and more than 20 acquisitions, she made sure the CEO's plans showed up in what branches and sales teams did every week, helped existing teams hit bigger numbers and got newly acquired sales forces producing revenue faster.

That's why her work with your manager goes past "hold people accountable." It gets into customers, pricing, margin, team history and the operating limits that decide whether your plan works in the field.

What it takes

Your manager needs the authority to make changes, access to the relevant numbers, and a commitment to act. Without those, the results aren't in your manager's control, and Cheryl won't take it on.

Your priorities, worked through your manager, measured at Day 90.

90-Day Sales Manager Advisory: $3,500.

Help set the targets or simply review them. Either way, you get a progress update at Day 45 and the results at Day 90. Your manager's sessions stay private.

On a team selling $20 million a year, one point of margin is $200,000.

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Questions owners and sales leaders ask

Why 90 days?

It's one quarter, the same window you already judge the business by. Most of the results above moved within two to three months. Ninety days won't fix everything. The Results Agreement focuses on the problems that matter most, and anything still open at Day 90 goes into your manager's Next-Quarter Operating Plan so they can carry it through.

How much of my manager's time does it take?

A 60-minute working session every week or two, plus email or text between sessions when they need it. The rest is the job they already have: the changes happen with their team, not as homework.

Does Cheryl work with my reps or operations?

No. She works with your manager, and the changes reach the team through them. That's deliberate. A manager the team doubts gains standing by leading the change, not by bringing in an outsider. It's how the outside hire above won over reps who doubted him.

How do I raise this with my manager without it feeling like a performance plan?

Tell them it's private, it works on problems they already own, and they stay in charge. Then have them message Cheryl directly. Send them the manager page.

What if a target is missed?

You'll hear at Day 45 if something is off track, while there's time to change course. If your manager came to the sessions, made the agreed changes and shared the numbers, and a target is still short at Day 90, Cheryl can add a few sessions at no charge to help close it. Either way, the review shows why it fell short, and your manager's Next-Quarter Operating Plan deals with it.

How does payment work?

It's a fixed fee, with 60% due when the Results Agreement is signed and the balance at Day 90.

The problems named on Day 1, dealt with. Progress measured against the targets. Less of it running through you.

And a manager with a plan to see anything still open through to the finish.

$3,500 for 90 days.

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Tell her what you need your manager or team to deliver, or the problem you need solved. If this isn't the right help, she'll tell you.