Podcast
Turning Front Line Sales Managers into Force Multipliers
Featuring Nicole Schissel, Director of Sales Enablement at Regal Rexnord
Imparta’s Chief Innovation Officer, Michelle Vazzana, sits down with Nicole Schissel, Director of Sales Enablement at Regal Rexnord, to explore how frontline sales managers can truly become the “force multiplier” in the sales organization. Together, they unpack how the Sales Management Code framework, a clear coaching cadence and strong leadership alignment have helped Regal Rexnord reshape its funnel, drive cross- and upsell across a 60+ brand portfolio, and raise the quality of sales coaching.
Key Takeaways:
- [00:00] Why frontline sales managers are a critical “force multiplier”, and arguably the toughest, most “sandwiched” role between sellers and senior leadership.
- [01:00] How Nicole’s experience leading inside sales teams shaped her view that sales management and sales enablement share the same mission: making the sales force more effective and efficient every day.
- [03:00] The core challenge at Regal Rexnord: a high-pressure, fast-moving, post-merger environment where priorities shift and managers struggle to slow down, think about their people, and balance the art and science of coaching.
- [04:00] Partnering with Imparta to diagnose a “diamond-shaped” funnel and agree that early-stage opportunity management was the highest-impact focus area for sales manager coaching.
- [05:00] Using early-stage conversations to drive cross-sell and upsell across 60+ brands by pausing, looking more broadly at the customer situation, and deliberately asking “what else?” to expand the scope.
- [07:00] Designing a clear rhythm and cadence of coaching, with more structured one-on-ones, not just team meetings, and aligning expectations across three legacy organizations before rolling out training.
- [09:00] Applying the Sales Management Code framework to repurpose effort managers were already expending, focus more time on the early funnel, and explicitly link coaching activities to business results.
- [10:00] Securing senior sales leadership buy-in so leaders reinforce early-funnel focus, support the new cadence and avoid unintentionally dragging managers back to purely late-stage forecast conversations.
- [18:00] Early results and lessons learned: better questioning and listening in coaching conversations, greater confidence in the pipeline, practical advice for enablement leaders on listening and change management, and why a “manager-first” enablement strategy drives stronger, sustained behavior change in the field.
Speaker Bio
Michelle Vazzana
Chief Innovation Officer, Imparta
LinkedIn
Michelle Vazzana, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer at Imparta, is a prolific researcher and sought-after speaker on the topic of sales management and sales agility. Vazzana has conducted extensive research on the topic of sales coaching practices and sales agility. She is co-author of Cracking the Sales Management Code: The Secrets to Measuring and Managing Sales Performance, Crushing Quota: Proven Sales Coaching Tactics for Breakthrough Performance, and, in 2023, The Sales Agility Code: Deploy Situational Fluency to Win More Sales.
