Span of control is the number of reps who report directly to one sales manager, and so the number of people that manager has to coach every week.
Span and coaching time
Span sets how much coaching each rep can get. Alexander Group reports that the average first-line sales manager has 8.5 direct reports, with a range from two to thirty-eight, and spends 16% of their time coaching, against the 28% that Alexander Group calls best practice. Narrower spans suit field selling, complex deals and newer reps; wider spans suit inside sales and experienced teams.
The useful way to read a span is as arithmetic: a weekly 30-minute one-on-one per rep, plus fifteen minutes of preparation for each, plus a review before every decisive deal call. Past a certain span the hours run out, and deals reach their decisive calls unreviewed. Adding hours does not fix weak coaching, though: across 1,246 pharmaceutical reps, frequent coaching from less skilled managers was linked to worse results (Dahling et al. 2016, via our Game Winning Kickoffs field study). More in our sales manager coaching guide.
Example
Illustrative. A manager has nine account executives, each with about ten open deals. One-on-ones and preparation take nearly seven hours a week. If two deals per rep reach a signer or pricing call each week, that is eighteen reviews on top. At 20 minutes each, another six hours. Most weeks something gives, usually the reviews. The manager either narrows the span, drops to reviewing only commit deals, or gives reps an AI sales expert they can call about any deal and uses Bryce, our manager coach, to prepare each one-on-one.
The same assumptions across different spans (45 minutes of one-on-one and preparation per rep, two 20-minute deal reviews per rep a week):
| Direct reports | One-on-ones and prep | Deal reviews | Weekly coaching hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 4.5 | 4 | 8.5 |
| 8 | 6 | 5.3 | 11.3 |
| 10 | 7.5 | 6.7 | 14.2 |
| 12 | 9 | 8 | 17 |
Set the right-hand column against the hours a manager has left after the forecast, hiring and their own pipeline. The span where the two cross is the span the coaching plan can carry.
Related terms
- Coaching cadence: the weekly schedule a span has to fit.
- Sales manager coaching checklist: a weekly check that every rep was coached.
FAQ
How many reps should a sales manager have?
Alexander Group puts the average first-line sales manager at 8.5 direct reports, with a range from two to thirty-eight. Fewer suits field teams, complex deals and new hires. More suits inside sales and experienced reps. Check the number against the coaching hours it leaves per rep.
Does a wider span of control hurt coaching?
A wider span usually hurts coaching, because coaching time per rep falls as the span grows, and deal reviews are the first thing cut. Tools that take preparation and deal-by-deal volume off the manager can offset part of it. The quality of each conversation still depends on the manager's skill.
What is the difference between span of control and span of management?
The terms are often used interchangeably for the number of direct reports one manager has. Some writers use span of management for the wider set of people and work a manager oversees. In sales, both come down to how many reps one manager must coach.