Breaking Down the Critical Role of a Manager with Scott Rudy

Summary

Podcast Summary: Revenue Builders

Episode: Breaking Down the Critical Role of a Manager with Scott Rudy

Release Date: September 14, 2025
Hosts: John McMahon (Five-time CRO) & John Kaplan (Co-Founder, Force Management)
Guest: Scott Rudy, CRO at XYWave

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Revenue Builders, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Scott Rudy to dissect the pivotal functions and complexities of first and second line sales managers. The discussion zeroes in on why these roles are so foundational to organizational growth, how responsibilities can become muddled, and actionable strategies for creating consistency, accountability, and success across sales leadership layers. The trio dives deep into best practices for developing, onboarding, and supporting new frontline sales leaders, with a special emphasis on the partnership required between first and second line managers to drive seller effectiveness.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Importance and Challenge of the First Line Manager Role

• Scott Rudy’s Perspective

  • “I think it's one of the most important roles, maybe the most important role in the whole growth engine. I also think it's one of the most challenging. It's where the rubber meets the road.” (00:31)
  • Success of individual sellers (seller success) should be the #1 objective for first line managers, in addition to making the number.
  • The first line manager is expected to deliver a truly accurate forecast, serving as a direct link between strategy and results. (00:31-01:06)

• John McMahon Adds

  • First line managers, especially those new to leadership, face immense pressure as they move from seller to roles requiring recruiting, onboarding, training, developing, and leading—skills they may not have previously developed. (01:06)
  • Companies often fail to create real clarity and division of responsibilities between first and second line managers, leading to confusion and redundancy.

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2. Distinction (or Lack Thereof) Between First and Second Line Managers

• Scott Rudy Explains
  • At many companies, second line managers function like another set of first line managers—“I'll take the left side, you take the right”—without clear differentiation or responsibilities. (01:41)
  • “A great second line leader is doing the kind of coaching necessary to help plug the holes of a new first line leader.” (01:41)
  • Second line leaders should simplify the job for first line managers, preventing overwhelm, especially amid high-growth phases.

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3. The Danger of Blurred Responsibilities

• John McMahon Observes
  • The lack of segregated duties results in confusion, both for managers and their reps:
    “A lot of leaders haven't sat down and segregated responsibilities... that's why also the reps are wondering why they're getting the same questions from the first line manager as they are from the second line manager.” (02:27)
  • Redundancy leads to demotivation among reps:
    “There's nothing more demoralizing than getting the same question from three different people. And you have to just keep answering it.” (03:41)

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4. Best Practices: Creating Consistency and Accountability

• Scott Rudy’s Real-World Example
  • In a fast-growing company (80 to 400 sales reps in eight years), a key obstacle to success was the inconsistent execution by first line managers.
  • Partnered with Force Management to create a “frontline sales leadership playbook,” building a framework of expectation and best practices for 41 first line leaders. (03:41-04:42)

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5. Segregation of Duties: Recruiting and Development

• John McMahon Clarifies
  • Segregation doesn’t mean isolating tasks; instead, it’s about shared, but differentiated responsibility:
    • Second line managers should assess and develop personalized development plans for each rep, working collaboratively with first line managers.
    • When making personnel decisions, second and first line managers should have honest dialogues about strengths/weaknesses (using real rep names as hypotheticals) to anchor developmental feedback. (05:29)
    • Quote: “The first line manager talks about it and the second line manager... gives them insight as to what they see and why these should be the first, second, and third development areas.” (05:29)
  • Accountability in performance review: At QBRs, the second line manager must be able to explain rep development and performance plans to the CRO. (05:29-07:40)
  • Recruiting: Decision to hire should be joint, with clear articulation of where a candidate meets—and does not meet—the ideal profile:
    “It's a joint hire. Like, we hire them because they met our profile. Here was where they met our profile... here's the risk that we're associating with this hire.” (07:40)

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6. The Second Line Leader as Quality Control

• Scott Rudy Sums Up
  • The second line leader’s focus should be on quality—spotting trends, identifying process gaps, and coaching first line managers where blind spots exist:
    “The second line leader is a lot about quality and observing trends and coaching the first line leader... if there's a blind spot around even the types of interview questions that get asked... they each play a role. But I really like the second line manager focused on quality and being able to spot these trends.” (07:44-08:29)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Seller success should be the number one kind of objective and North Star..." – Scott Rudy (00:31)
• “A lot of leaders haven't sat down and segregated responsibilities... reps are wondering why they're getting the same questions from the first line manager as they are from the second line manager.” – John McMahon (02:27)
• “There's nothing more demoralizing than getting the same question from three different people.” – Scott Rudy (03:41)
• “A great second line leader is doing the kind of coaching necessary to help plug the holes of a new first line leader.” – Scott Rudy (01:41)
• “The second line leader is a lot about quality and observing trends and coaching the first line leader...” – Scott Rudy (07:44)
• “It's a joint hire... here was where they met our profile and here was where they didn’t meet our profile and here's the risk that we're associating with this hire.” – John McMahon (07:40)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:31: Scott Rudy explains why first line sales managers are the most important and challenging role in sales.
• 01:06: John McMahon breaks down the practical challenges and new responsibilities faced by first line managers.
• 01:41: Discussion of why companies often blur lines between first and second line management and the resulting problems.
• 02:27: John McMahon outlines the consequence for reps when management roles are not clearly divided.
• 03:41: Scott Rudy gives a real-world example of building sales leadership consistency during rapid growth.
• 05:29: The team dives into accountability and the correct segregation of management duties, especially in recruiting and developing talent.
• 07:40: The importance of joint and accountable hiring decisions between first and second line sales leaders.
• 07:44: Scott Rudy articulates the quality control role of the second line leader.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• First and second line sales leadership roles should be clearly defined to maximize seller success and minimize confusion/burnout.
• Second line leaders should serve primarily as coaches and quality control agents, supporting—not duplicating—the work of first line managers.
• Accountability must be built into not just outcomes (quota/goals) but also in leadership processes: development planning, recruiting, and performance management.
• Designing and institutionalizing sales leadership playbooks brings consistency, especially in high-growth environments.
• Joint decision-making and collaborative evaluation solidifies team cohesion, development, and hiring accuracy.

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This episode offers a masterclass in sales leadership structure, making it a must-listen for anyone responsible for developing sales talent or building a scalable sales organization.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast with John McMahon and John Kaplan. This podcast is brought to you by the team at Force Management. Force's solutions help companies meet the revenue goals that drive funding higher valuations. We're working with companies right now on their sko. If we can help you, let us know. Today a segment from our episode was Scott Rudy CRO at XYWave. In this segment they talk first and second line managers.

[A]

I think it's one of the most important roles, maybe the most important role in the whole growth engine. I also think it's one of the most challenging. It's where the rubber meets the road. It's where you, you really expect a true forecast out of your first line leader. It's seller success should be the number one kind of objective and North Star of course hitting the number. But seller success is the first line leader's job, I think.

[C]

Yeah. So I mean there's a lot of pressure on those first line managers, especially if they're brand new because now they have to do things that they haven't really done before. So for instance they have to recruit, then they have to help with onboarding and training and developing and leading. And as a lot of like in recruiting they may not know what to look for in developing, they may not know how to assess a sales rep or an account executive. So who's really responsible for making sure that the first line manager is successful?

[A]

Yeah, you know, I think in a lot of companies the difference between a first line leader and a second line leader is, is really blurred. And I think in a lot of companies the second line leader is just another first line leader and they split up the teams. I'll take the left hand side of the room, you take the right. But I think a great second line leader is doing the kind of coaching necessary to help plug the holes of a new first line leader. Like you said, like the recruiting profile, like the management operating rhythm, like trying to simplify the job so that the first line leader doesn't get overwhelmed because it's so darn easy to do. So.

[C]

Yeah, because you know you have 90 day quarters but really at the end of the day you have 62 working days to make this happen. You have to recruit, you have to onboard, train, develop, sell, make, forecast, make the number. And this is where I think in a lot of companies to your point, there's really two first line managers. Instead of a real good segregation of responsibilities and saying okay, you as the second line manager you actually have to assess and develop a development plan for Each and every sales rep you have to develop and you have to talk to the first line manager about why, how you assessed and why you think this is the development plan for these people. And then the same thing for recruiting. They have to be involved in the recruiting. You can't just hand it off to the first line manager who's never done this before. And that's where I think it is. A lot of leaders haven't sat down and segregated responsibilities between those two leaders, second line and first line. And that's why also the reps are wondering why they're getting the same questions from the first line manager as they are from the second line manager. And they're like, who? What's going on here? Don't you guys communicate?

[A]

Exactly. There's nothing more demoralizing than getting the same question from three different people. And you have to just keep answering it. John I was in a company a number of years ago and we were growing really fast. We went from 80 sales reps to 400 over an eight year period. We started looking at what our obstacles for success were. And one of the key obstacles for success was the successful execution of a first line manager. And this is very old and dog eared, but this is the frontline sales leadership playbook that Force management helped me create. Brian Walsh came in and we spent a bunch of time with our 41st line leaders and, and it was to help do exactly what you said, kind of create a set of consistent expectations and best practices.

[C]

But some of this, that's all really good and what we just said so far is really good. But the question is how do you hold the second line manager and the first line manager accountable? So if you do segregation of duties, then you also have to hold people accountable to those seg. To those responsibilities.

[D]

Let's make sure we're talking about what we're segregating because I want to make sure I'm not hearing what the audience might be hearing. Is that like when you said recruiting, the second line manager is responsible for recruiting. Can we just dig into that for a second? On like I'm assuming we're not saying segregation of duties that the one recruits and the other one does not recruit. Can you dig into that a little bit?

[C]

Yeah. So first of all, let's start with, we'll start with the two things that I said. One was assessing sales reps and helping with the development plan. And in that role I think you actually do have the second line manager assess the sales reps and sit down with the first line Manager and have questions like when we talk about John Kaplan, let's talk about his strengths and his weaknesses is and the first line manager talks about it and the second line manager talks about it. But gives the first line manager who's brand new to this responsibility, gives them insight as to what they see and why this, these areas should be the first, second and third development areas and then to hold them accountable. If I'm the CRO and we're having a QBR and we're talking about people, when John Kaplan's name comes up and maybe he's not doing so well, I'm not looking at the second line manager first. I might ask the first line manager but I'm asking the second line manager first. Why is it that you think that John Kaplan is not doing so well? Talk to me about where his strengths and weaknesses are and tell me about the development plan. Right. So that's on that side I'm recruiting. Certainly the first line manager has to basically develop a pipeline. You would think that the second line manager is doing the same thing because you know it's one of one of their teams. But the first line manager is responsible for recruiting. Second line manager is helping to recruit and then coaching the first line manager. Hey Scott Rudy. Here's what I see in that person. What do you see in them? Oh, okay. Here's what I see that you don't see and let's talk about that. So I can help develop Scott Rudy as the first line manager but I'm definitely involved. And when we make a decision that we're going to hire, you know, Joe or Sally, it's a joint hire. Like we hire them because of, you know, they met our profile. Here's where they met our profile and here was where they didn't meet our profile and here's the risk that we're associating with this hire.

[A]

Yeah, I.

[C]

Does that make sense? Does that answer your question?

[A]

Yes. Yeah. The way I think about it is the second line leader is a lot about quality and observing trends and coaching the first line leader to spot maybe in their blind spot like with recruiting. I think the second line leader ought to be able to observe if there have been a couple of bad hires or if there's a blind spot around even the types of interview questions that get asked or the profile. And I think they each play a role. But I really like the second line manager focused on quality and focused on being able to spot these trends.

[B]

If you're a leader, this episode is a must. Listen, great thinking here about enabling your managers. Check it out. It's linked in the show notes.