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

You're responsible for a number you can't hit by yourself.

Reps who used to be your peers, or who wonder whether you could do their job, especially if you didn't come up through sales. A veteran who's outlasted three managers. A forecast you have to defend upstairs. Pricing calls that depend on margin, inventory and what operations can actually deliver. And a boss watching to see whether you can lead the team and grow sales.

None of this fixes itself.

Ninety days of one-to-one work on your real team, customers and numbers.

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Left unaddressed, these problems follow you into your review, your bonus and whether you're trusted with more.

Work through your challenges one-to-one with Cheryl Clark, who's carried a quota, managed former peers, and led or worked directly with commercial teams for 25-plus years. You agree on the targets on Day 1 and measure results against them on Day 90.

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

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

  • A new manager took over a team that training hadn't helped and got 7 of 8 reps to their annual target.

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

Not a program. Work on your real problems.

Nothing to sit through, no model to install, no deck. You bring the problems you're responsible for right now. Cheryl brings the judgment of someone who has made these calls, and will tell you plainly when she'd make a different one. The decisions stay yours.

What managers bring to it

  • A longtime friend on your team who won't keep his pipeline current or sell the full product line.
  • Veteran reps who've decided you're temporary.
  • Reps who won't change, and reps who can't.
  • A team that brings you every question, so you end up carrying the number yourself.
  • A forecast built on what reps hope instead of what customers have done.
  • Discounts given to keep customers happy, and margin leaving with them.
  • Promises to customers that operations can't keep, and the friction that follows.
  • A revenue and margin number on every goal and initiative, and all of them on you to deliver.
  • An owner or boss who still discounts with customers, undercutting the pricing you're trying to hold.
  • Requests to your boss that keep getting sent back for more work.

How it works

Day 1

A 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.

The work

Private 60-minute working sessions every week or two, scheduled around your calendar. Email or text between sessions when a decision can't wait, answered within one business day. You make the changes with your team. Then the two of you look at what happened and decide what's next.

Day 45

A midpoint check.

What's changing, what isn't, and what to do differently.

Day 90

A results review.

Actual results compared with what you agreed on Day 1, and a plan for anything still open.

What you'll walk away with

The hard problems, dealt with.

The difficult rep has clear expectations and is meeting them, or you've made and acted on the performance call.

A team that needs you less.

Reps moving more deals forward on their own and making better calls on customers and pricing. Fewer decisions land on your desk.

Measured progress against your targets.

Backed by evidence, not more activity or a more hopeful pipeline.

A way to keep it going on your own.

You'll know how to spot problems earlier, set expectations, check results and step in, because you'll have already done it.

You'll also have the 90-Day Results Record, a documented account of what you fixed, ready for your next review, and a one-page Next-Quarter Operating Plan that carries anything still open to completion.

$3,500 for 90 days, paid by you or your company. One discounting habit or one rep coasting for a quarter usually costs the business more than that. Want your company to cover it? Here's an email you can send your boss.

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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.

Leading the team

A new manager inherited a team that training hadn't helped. Each rep was losing deals at a different stage. A rep-by-rep diagnosis gave each a plan and showed who could be developed and who wouldn't change. 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.
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 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 stopped coaching reps to sell his way and built their judgment instead. 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.
A manager's requests to his boss kept getting sent back. He started arriving at their meetings with a recommendation 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.

Running the business

Sales kept overcommitting operations. A three-question check the manager built with the operations manager cut monthly overcommits in half within two months, eased the friction with operations, reduced cost and kept more margin.
The forecast was built on reps' happy ears. A manager replaced 12 individual approaches with a single sales process and weekly pipeline reviews focused on evidence that each deal will close. 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.
Cheryl Clark
Cheryl ClarkFounder, Strategy to Street

Who you'll be working with

Cheryl Clark knows the sales manager's job from all three sides: carrying a quota, leading a team, and sitting in the executive seat, counting on managers to turn the plan into results. She started in sales in the paper industry and was promoted to manage people who had been her peers. Over a 25-plus-year career working inside and alongside manufacturing, distribution, packaging, and industrial services companies, she's 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 the conversations go past "hold people accountable." They get into customers, pricing, margin, team history and the operating limits that decide whether a plan works in the field.

Is this a fit?

You don't need to control everything. The advisory works when you have room to change how your team works, access to your numbers and the will to act. Without those, the results aren't in your control, and Cheryl won't take it on. Not sure where you stand? That's a good question for the first conversation.

Questions managers ask

Will my boss know what we talk about?

No. What you say in sessions stays private, even if your company pays.

Why 90 days?

It's one quarter: long enough for changes to show up in the numbers, short enough to keep everyone focused. 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 Next-Quarter Operating Plan so you can carry it through.

How much time does it take?

A 60-minute working session every week or two, scheduled when it works for you, plus email or text when you need it. There's no homework. The work is the job you already have, done with your team.

What if we miss a target?

If something is off track at Day 45, you'll know while there's time to change course. If you 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 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.

Can my company pay?

Yes. If it does, your boss can see the targets, the Day 45 update and the Day 90 results. What you say in sessions stays private. If you'd like to ask, here's an email you can send. Message Cheryl first if you'd like help tailoring it.

The problems you brought, dealt with. A team that needs you less. Progress you can show your boss.

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

$3,500 for 90 days.

Message Cheryl on LinkedIn

Tell her the role you've stepped into and one problem you're facing. If this isn't the right help for it, she'll tell you.