You got promoted because you could close.
Big deal. Tough buyer. Last week of the quarter. You brought it home.
Every time.
So they gave you the team.
The skill that got you the seat is now the thing keeping you stuck in it.
Every Big Deal Still Ends Up on Your Calendar
The deal that's slipping? You're on the call.
The buyer who went quiet? You're writing the email.
The pricing exception? It's waiting for your approval.
Your managers aren't lazy. They've learned. When it gets hard, they bring it to you, because you always say yes. And you always win.
What Saving the Deal Actually Costs
Every deal you save teaches your team that you'll save the next one.
Your manager never builds the judgment to handle a hard negotiation, because she's never had to. Your rep never learns to recover a stalled deal, because you recover it for them.
It’s the same pattern I wrote about in why decisions keep landing back on your desk.
You keep waiting for them to step up. They keep waiting for you to step in.
You win the deal. You lose the team you're trying to build.
And you lose the time that should be going to hiring, coaching, the 2027 plan, and the conversation with your CRO about where the business is going next.
This isn’t unique to you. A peer-reviewed study of 38,843 workers across 214 firms tracked promotions from sales rep to sales manager. The best individual sellers were promoted at the highest rates, and on average they performed worse as managers than reps promoted with weaker sales numbers. Closing and building closers draw on different skills, and the first one doesn’t turn into the second on its own. (Source summary)
The Shift: From Closing Deals to Building Closers
Your job isn't to close the deal anymore. It's to build the people who close it.
You don’t disappear from the deal. You change what you do on the call.
The next time you join a deal call:
Before: Ask your rep for their plan. Let them lead.
During: Stay quiet unless the deal is truly about to go off a cliff. Take notes.
After: Take 15 minutes. What worked? What would they do differently? What's their next move?
The deal still moves. Your rep gets better. Next time, they might not need you on the call at all.
Will some deals take longer? Yes. Will one slip that you could have saved? Maybe.
That's the cost of building a team that can win without you. It's a lot cheaper than staying the closer forever.
The research points the same way. A 2014 CSO Insights study found that companies whose managers spent more time coaching than selling had an 8.2% higher win rate on forecast deals and 5.2% higher revenue attainment. (Source summary)
Try This: Your Last Five Deals
List the last five deals you stepped into.
For each one, ask yourself one question:
Did this deal actually need me, or was I just the fastest fix?
Be honest.
Most of the time, you were the fastest fix.
Then ask one more: Who on my team should have handled it, and what would they have needed to do it?
That answer is your coaching plan.
You Don’t Have to Figure This Out Alone
Most women in your seat know they need to let go of the deals. They just don't know how to do it without the number slipping.
That's the work we do in the VIP Catalyst Intensive. It's one day, one-on-one with me. We look at what you're carrying, decide what's actually yours to hold, and map how you'll lead differently starting the next morning.
You're still great at closing. Now let's make you great at building the people who close.
Book a call to talk about the VIP Catalyst.
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