Why and how managers should join sales meetings

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• Put in the effort: Affiliates are only as engaged as you are with them

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• No flat rates: Or you kill the incentive to grow

• And 5 more… (in this free, ungated summary)

As we’ll see in today’s insight, it’s all about how you do it, and who you involve (at the right time).

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📝 Context

Topic: Sales
For: B2C. Can be tested for B2B
Research date:  April 2026
Universities: University of Tennessee, University of Wyoming, University of Kentucky

After a back-and-forth over email, a customer agrees to meet with you to discuss buying an annual subscription for your productivity software. You’ve been through all the options with them, and are setting up a call to close the deal. 

You loop in your manager to lead the meeting, hoping they will help seal the deal.

Science says that might not be the best way to do it.

P.S.: During sales meetings, be more expressive (e.g. use arm gestures and change your tone of voice) to make people more likely to buy from you.

📈 Recommendation

In important sales meetings, have a manager or more senior team member (e.g. a founder or VP) join a salesperson in the meeting. This will make people spend more with your company.

When they join the meeting, make sure they are there in a supporting role, and let the salesperson keep the lead. (e.g. salesperson presents, manager backs them up and answers some questions). 

Customers will spend more and be more satisfied and loyal, especially if they are new customers.

🎓 Findings

• Sales teams with a manager playing a supporting role to the main salesperson in meetings drive higher sales revenues than teams with 2 salespeople. It also leads to more loyal and satisfied customers and increased upselling.

• As part of an analysis of 5.5 million sales from 462 automotive services stores over 2 years, and 6 experiments, researchers found that compared to a team of 2 salespeople:

  • Teams with a manager and salesperson had sales with:

    • 13.2% higher value for new customers

    • 12.5% higher value returning customers

  • When the manager took a supporting role and the salesperson led the meetings led to:

    • 3.6% higher sales revenue for new customers

    • 3.7% higher sales revenue for returning customers

    • Increased cross-buying intention from customers

    • Higher customer satisfaction and intentions to stay with, and advocate for, the company

🧠 Why it works

• We consider people with a higher rank (e.g. a supervisor or manager) to be more attentive to customer needs.

• When we see a manager defer to a salesperson and take a supporting role, we interpret that as a sign that the salesperson is trusted and respected by their supervisors.

• Having a manager join a sales meeting also sends a signal that the deal is important to the company, and the sales team is respected in the company.

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✋ Limitations

• The research looked at B2C shopping (auto services, high-end clothing stores, kitchen remodelling). It wasn’t tested, but the effect is likely to work the same for B2B sales.

• The study looked at teams of 2 people (e.g. manager and salesperson vs. 2 salespeople). The effect may work differently in larger teams (e.g. 4 associates reporting to 1 manager) or organizations with more hierarchy.

👀 Real-life example

Scoring leads by their potential is a useful practice that is commonly used by sales teams. For example, Hubspot encourages scoring them by fit and engagement.

❌ Issue: Lead scoring is used to prioritize leads (e.g. who to schedule a meeting with first, who to follow up with), but rarely is it used to decide who should be on the sales call.

✅ Solution: Maximize results of your sales process by:

• Use lead scores to decide whether there should be only a salesperson (low score), or a salesperson plus a manager on the call (high score).

• Encourage salespeople to speak in a loud tone, and make sure their microphones and connections are high quality so they will sound smarter and more interesting.

• Train sales people to be expressive and talk with their hands.Bonus: make sure salespersons and managers follow these guidelines on their background and appearance when taking sales videocalls.

🔍 Study type

Online experiments and market observation (analysis of 5.5 million transactions of a Fortune 1000 automotive service business across 462 stores from 2017 to 2018).

📖 Research

Whether, When, How, and Why Sales Managers Should Be Involved in Sales Teams. Journal of Marketing (April 2026).

🏫 Researchers

• Daniel E. Chavez. Haslam College of Business, University of Tennessee

• Molly R. Burchett. College of Business, University of Wyoming

• Brian Murtha. Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky

Remember: This is a new scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

🎁 Bonus: Trivia

Check your knowledge from previous insights (for paid Platform members only).

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🎓 It took me, a PhD analyst, and a marketing pro 13 hours to accurately turn this 83-page research paper into this 3min insight. 

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