Building A Great Sales Culture

How To Hire Great Leaders

Selecting front-line managers and second-line leaders with the traits that scale not just the top reps with the longest tenure.

The Answer
Test management skills explicitly: a coaching simulation, a recruiting plan, a management philosophy conversation, and scenario-based decisions. IC excellence does not predict managerial excellence.

Overview

The default sales org promotes its best reps to manager and is then surprised when 60% of those promotions struggle.

Great leader hiring requires explicit assessment of management skills, not assumptions.

Steps

  1. Define what good looks like at the level you’re hiring.
  2. Run a coaching simulation.
  3. Test recruiting craft.
  4. Probe their management philosophy.
  5. Scenario-test decisions.
  6. Reference deeply with former direct reports, not just former bosses.
  7. Resist tenure bias.
Pro Tip
Hire managers who recruit. A leader’s ability to attract and close talent is the most leveraged thing they do.
Watch Out
Don’t promote a rep into management to keep them. Promotion is not a retention strategy.

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About The Author

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Nate Broome
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Nate Broome
Founder
Nate Broome is known for building high-performing, operationally rigorous sales teams—and for the journey that shaped how he leads them. Starting as a top-performing individual contributor, Nate quickly learned that personal success doesn't scale. His transition into SDR leadership taught him how to coach, create structure, and drive consistency across a team. As a sales leader, he developed a deep appreciation for process, pipeline discipline, and cross-functional alignment. And at the executive level, he's learned that the real leverage comes from setting vision, building leaders, and creating systems that scale beyond any one person.
Along the way, Nate has been mentored by and learned from industry leaders like Manny Medina, Mark Kosoglow, Harish Mohan, and Anna Baird—shaping his perspective on what it takes to build modern, high-performing revenue organizations.
With leadership experience at companies backed by Sequoia, Accel, ICONIQ, Greylock Partners and other top tier firms, Nate has operated across every stage of growth—from early pipeline generation to enterprise-scale revenue operations. He's been described as "process-driven leader who knows how to get big things done" and "a visionary sales leader who always sees 2–3 steps ahead."
A University of Washington alum based in Seattle, Nate founded Tech Sales Coach to pay forward the insights and mentorship that shaped his career—equipping sales leaders at every stage with practical, field-tested coaching to build high-performing teams and evolve into impactful, scalable executives.
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