2.2 Dilemmas: Account Allocation & Interviewing

Dilemmas explores difficult situations faced by sales managers. 

In this episode we look at deal allocation, team development, and hiring decisions. Featuring insights from experienced sales leaders, it offers practical strategies for effective sales leadership.

Key topics

• Deal allocation strategies between A and B players
• Balancing fairness and performance in team decisions
• The importance of rules and transparency in sales management
• Coaching and developing struggling salespeople
• The role of intuition and gut feeling in hiring decisions 

𝗚𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀

Special Guest: Sami Ammous

Sami is the Founder and Chief Change Maker at kyadah, a B2B SaaS fractional sales advisory, based in Singapore, which helps companies achieve their potential through building & executing sales and go-to market strategies and fractional leadership for senior roles. 

Before running kyadah, Sami spent several years in senior leadership roles in tech companies in the APAC and Middle East, navigating nuanced cultures, economic turmoil, and the shift to XaaS solutions. He has been entrusted with resolving the most complex challenges the companies he worked with had, and consistently executed successfully. His focus was always creating environments where teams performed to their maximum ability. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sami-ammous/ 

Richard Bounds

Richard brings more than three decades of sales and leadership expertise across startups, scale-ups, and global enterprises, with experience leading teams of 30+ sellers and driving consistent, high-impact growth. His track record includes doubling turnover at Box-it by transitioning to a cloud-first model, scaling a business from zero to $4M in just 18 months before a successful trade sale. Built a $25M partner channel at Software AG and delivered record results at OpenText as VP EMEA. 

Today, Richard supports technology companies as a Board Advisor and Fractional Leader, helping organisations build stronger sales functions, implement best practices, and accelerate revenue through structured coaching, advisory, and modern sales approaches 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbounds1/ 

Sophie Steel

Sophie is a coach, trainer, and recovering sales manager who now spends her time figuring out what actually makes people perform. She loves mindset, behaviour, and all that good stuff, but mainly she enjoys calling out the gaps between what we say we do… and what’s really going on. 

She’s an ICF PCC coach, EQ-i qualified, and specialises in brain and behaviour change—working across sales teams and senior leaders to turn insight into actual behaviour change, not just good intentions. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophie-steel-72218817/

Sound bites 

"Establish the rules up front"

"Customers are not the training ground" 

"Star performers also need development" 

"Team perceptions of favoritism matter" 

"Listen to your gut in sales decisions" 

"I spend more time with people who need help" 

"Fairness and consistency and communication is really critical" 

"if you're not 100%, don't do it" (hiring) 

"You always want more information; dig deeper" 

Further information Dilemmas is brought to you by Real Sales Manager. For more details of our coaching, consulting, training and research go to https://www.realsalesmanager.com/ 

Please get in touch with any dilemmas that you are facing that you would like us to discuss.

𝗞𝗲𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 sales management, lead allocation, team dynamics, recruitment, leadership, integrity, performance management, sales team culture, sales manager coaching