As a front-line manager, it’s difficult to find the time to effectively coach reps on both specific deals and overall skill development. But that doesn’t mean coaching should be excluded from your list of priorities. Dynamic sales coaching is proven to improve both quota attainment and win rates.
How can you optimize your time while ensuring your reps are getting the support they need to progress? A data-driven sales coaching strategy is the key to coaching success.
Set sales coaching goals and expectations with key stakeholders
Before you can introduce a solution, you need to establish the key goals and expectations of implementing a new coaching strategy. Evaluate what isn’t working currently, what needs to change, and what success will look like. Talk to your front-line managers, enablement team, and sales reps. Involve key sales stakeholders early in the process to get their buy-in to establish a coaching culture and make sure you set goals by defining what a successful coaching strategy would result in.
Select a sales coaching technology
Coaching technology is designed to support your coaching initiative not add more work. So, when assessing your options, consider how each solution will fit into your existing tech stack. If a platform creates a clunky experience with other solutions you’re already using, it will likely be more work than it’s worth. You need a tool that is fully integrated and makes life easier for managers and reps alike.
The ideal solution for any sales organization is an all-in-one platform that doesn’t just aid in coaching activities, but also includes content, enablement, and conversation intelligence. With everything in one place, completing daily tasks is seamless, information doesn’t get lost in translation, and you can make more educated decisions when it comes to how you coach your team.
Start at the top: “coach the coach”
Sales enablement focuses on the performance of reps—but what about the managers tasked with coaching and leading them? Many front-line sales managers got their positions through being reps themselves, so it’s not fair to expect them to be experts on effective sales coaching from the jump.
Train managers on your new coaching processes, including how to use the technology to be more efficient. And, just like with reps, provide reinforced learning and measure managers’ coaching performance over time to get the most out of the program.
Prioritize sales coaching with conversation intelligence
Managers cannot be on every call with every rep and, as a result, have very little visibility into sellers’ skills in the field. Most likely you are tracking how many calls each seller is making and the length of those calls, but this information doesn’t enable you to make informed decisions on how you can help reps improve performance.
Conversation intelligence records, transcribes, and scores calls so reps don’t need to take notes or update the CRM and managers can unlock opportunities for skill coaching. With conversation intelligence, managers can sort calls by score to focus on reps who may need additional guidance, and filter calls by themes to highlight specific skills like negotiation or objection handling.
Self coaching and peer coaching are also effective in getting a new perspective and collaborating as a team within conversation intelligence:
Self coaching: Enabling reps to evaluate their own call performance allows them to be proactive in their coaching process and come more prepared to one-on-one sessions.
Peer-to-peer coaching: Using tags and comments on call transcriptions allows reps to share best practices and work together to solve problems and handle common objections.
Personalize sales coaching with AI-powered insights
Along with the insights gleaned from conversation intelligence, gather data from your training and enablement platform, as well as your CRM, to understand where reps are excelling and lagging—and determine the best path for coaching them. Every seller has their own strengths and weaknesses, so a one-size-fits-all approach won’t cut it. Artificial intelligence (AI) helps to automate data processing and give smart suggestions based on that data.
Use this information to focus on unique skills and behaviors individual reps are struggling with in one-on-one coaching sessions, and follow up with enablement content to reinforce what was learned.
Go beyond technology
It’s easy to lean heavily on technology to help sellers do their jobs. But the purpose of a sales readiness platform is to supplement—not replace—the authentic relationships managers build with reps. If you truly want to alter performance, you need reps to trust you and take your guidance seriously. You aren’t just a manager; you’re also a mentor.
Beyond data points, the only real way to know what your sellers need is to ask them. Ask them about their career goals and how you can help them achieve these. Together, you can create a plan of action using the methodologies above.
Measure success and refine sales coaching processes
Never assume your strategy is working because you are doing all the “right” things; coaching shouldn’t be a “set it and forget it” program. Periodically revisit the goals you have determined for your sales readiness program — these will change over time as your business evolves and new sellers come onboard. Collect feedback from reps to get their perspective and find ways to refine your program for the greatest impact.
And actually act upon analytics and the feedback you receive. Just like you use performance metrics to improve sales skills, use this information about your coaching approach to pivot and get the best results possible. Your sellers will feel more valued, be happier and more productive employees, and, ultimately, close more deals.
Be ready
Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness Platform takes your sales training, coaching, enablement, and analytics to the next level with automated solutions for sales leaders, sales ops, front-line managers, and more. Unlock powerful insights into rep and team performance and translate those insights into successful coaching across your team.
Front-line sales managers are some of the most underutilized weapons in sales.
Why is that?
Managers have the ability to transform rep performance through sales coaching. The problem? Managers are busy. Really busy. And traditionally, the tools created for front-line managers are focused on updating CRMs and forecasting, creating more busy work.
Until now.
As part of our 2022 Spring Announcement, we are launching Sales Coaching Rooms, the only sales coaching product specifically created for the front-line manager.
We know seller transformation cannot occur through enablement and content alone. Reps are building knowledge through enablement and showing they know their stuff with training and practice. But, when it comes to executing, you need to make sure your reps are getting better deal after deal. Coaching is the only true way to change their behaviors in the field.
Now, front-line managers can focus on seller transformation by becoming better managers and mentors — and find themselves on a fast track to the CRO seat!
Introducing Mindtickle Sales Coaching Rooms
Mindtickle Sales Coaching Rooms are dedicated one-to-one spaces to have revenue-boosting discussions. Coaching Rooms provide:
A single location to move deals forward and build the long-term skills reps need to succeed in the field
Coaching within conversation intelligence (Call AI) to support learning in the context of real selling situations
Coaching integrated with enablement content to drive long-term skill development through practice and reinforcement
Self-coaching so reps can evaluate their own performance compared with manager feedback and better prepare for one-on-one sessions
Coaching outcomes factored into the Mindtickle Readiness Index, showing leadership a full-picture view of the readiness of their teams and individuals
Actionable insights for front-line managers into the lagging skills of individuals to facilitate the delivery of personalized coaching
In addition to Sales Coaching Rooms, Mindtickle is announcing features for better deal collaboration and detailed analytics to benchmark and track readiness.
Deal collaboration tools that meet sellers in the flow of work
Deals and open opportunities are constantly evolving and sellers need to be able to work quickly to prepare for meetings, provide relevant content, and collaborate with teammates to make sure nothing stalls or falls through the cracks. To help sellers better collaborate on deals, we are announcing:
Email and Slack notifications in Call AI for meeting preparation, action items, and recording metrics
Asset sharing, tracking, and analytics for content engagement insights
Detailed analytics for deeper readiness insights
Your sellers are not the only ones interacting with prospects and customers. You have specialized teams, like business development representatives, account executives, solutions consultants, customer service managers, and more! Each of these roles requires a different set of skills to succeed. That’s why, as part of our Spring Announcement we’re releasing benchmarking and tracking with:
Role-based ideal rep profiles to define and track the key skills that lead to success for different sales positions
Role-based winning behavior in Call AI to benchmark call metrics by customer-facing teams
Readiness Index insights for managers to track the progress of their team
These features help your teams be ready and achieve continued sales success. To learn more about the newly announced Sales Coaching Rooms, deal collaboration tools, and readiness analytics, save your seat for our LIVE demo webinar on March 30.
Sales coaching is key for revenue organizations to continue to hit quota quarter after quarter but, unfortunately, teams continue to consistently miss their numbers. It’s true that there is no magic one-size-fits-all coaching approach that works for every team. But there are commonalities in why some sales coaching programs fail.
Learn what pitfalls to avoid when evaluating your existing sales coaching approach or when starting a more formal process for the first time.
Focusing on quantity of sales coaching sessions
Often we see statistics about the amount of time spent coaching by sales managers per month or week.
Sales reps with 30 minutes or fewer of sales coaching per week receive win rates of 43%, and those who receive at least two hours of coaching per week have a win rate of 56%.
23% of sales managers spend less than 30 minutes individually coaching their direct reports each week.
A good rule of thumb is to spend 25-40% of your time coaching your sales team.
While these metrics help set a baseline of coaching frequency for managers, they can put too much emphasis on recurring sessions and too little emphasis on what will actually be covered in the sessions to help level up your reps.
Instead, focus on the quality of your sales coaching sessions
A little prep work can go a long way, and your preparation does not have to be exhaustive. After all, as a sales manager, you’re also juggling your own quota attainment, forecasting, and the ever-looming end of quarter. Setting agendas for coaching sessions, outlining action items, and reviewing your reps’ past achievements can help keep your sessions helpful and productive.
If you start to notice that some reps are not showing progress or improvements, it may mean you need to dedicate more time to coaching these individuals.
Alternatively, sessions with your best performers may be needed less frequently. If you find your one-on-ones with these people are repetitive and it’s a struggle to find topics to cover, try reducing the number of times you meet.
Sales coaching that is only top-down
Most of us have experienced a less-than-ideal manager at some point in our careers. Sometimes in sales, the highest performing reps become managers—but that doesn’t always mean they have the formal training on how to manage and coach reps. With a large revenue organization, it can be hard to track the effectiveness of your coaches. When your sales coaching process doesn’t incorporate the feedback of reps, you could be missing the true root of performance issues.
Instead, implement a coaching feedback system
There are two key components of a coaching feedback system. The first is giving reps the ability to easily provide feedback. If you’re using a sales coaching tool, this is a critical feature that makes it easy for reps to have their voices heard. In Mindtickle sales coaching, reps can approve or disapprove coaching sessions.
In addition to providing a feedback method, make sure you are tracking this feedback. If you start to notice patterns such as negative feedback from sessions for the same manager, this manager may need more training on how to coach their team. This is a good opportunity to “coach the coach.”
Only deal coaching your reps
Deal coaching will always be a critical part of sales coaching. Reps need to know how to move forward deals that they have right in front of them. It becomes easy to focus only on these deals during coaching sessions.
Instead, spend the majority of your time on skill coaching
A proactive approach to bettering your sales team, skill coaching works to improve upon the individual skills that reps are lagging behind in. Skill coaching ensures your sessions are relevant and reinforce long-term development to improve rep performance over time. (Here’s more on deal vs. skill coaching.)
Blanket skill coaching
All of your reps possess different skill sets. They excel in different areas, have been at the company for different times, and consume training and enablement in different ways. While it saves time to focus on one skill for coaching each week or month, in the long run, this will not benefit your reps and improve their performance.
Instead, focus on the individual skills each rep needs to improve upon
Skill coaching is most effective when it is individualized. Take the time to assess the skills of your reps. View enablement and training performance, review recorded calls, and ask your reps what areas they can improve upon. A sales readiness platform can help aggregate this data and track the readiness of your reps over time.
After skill gaps are identified, work with your reps to coach them on these skills. Then, reinforce your coaching efforts with training and enablement content.
Coach your reps to success with Mindtickle
The Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform gives you the tools and data you need to coach your reps to continued sales success. Integrating enablement and training, call recording, coaching, and content all in one platform enables revenue organizations to make data-driven decisions that win more deals. Want to learn more about how to become a sales mentor? Save your seat for our LIVE product announcement on March 22.
Mindtickle is on the airwaves! We recently launched a new podcast called Ready, Set, Sell, where we’ll regularly sit down with industry thought leaders to provide listeners with smart insights, tangible advice, and actionable tips they can apply to the work they do in their own roles. It’s co-hosted by Hannah Ajikawo, Practice Lead at Skaled Consulting, and Tony Germinario, Director of Sales at Mindtickle, and in our first episode, they sat down with Bob Apollo, Founder and Chief Outcomes Officer of Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners.
In case you missed it, not to worry. We’ve got a recap of the podcast below, covering major themes such as:
Tips, tricks, and selling secrets for outcome-centric selling
Creating unique selling propositions
How to build trust, and why it matters
Becoming a future-focused seller
What sales leaders should prioritize
Rapid-fire questions
Who is Bob: Apollo?
Tony: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
Bob: I’m working with a bunch of very interesting scale-up and entrepreneurial units of larger organizations, helping them put a new slant on their business-to-business selling, with particular emphasis on the complex sales process. I’ve been involved in B2B sales of technology-related products and services. And that career has spanned start-ups, scale-ups, and corporates. My sweet spot is really in scaling up start-ups and turning them into a sort of reliable growing revenue generation machine.
Tony: So what really drew you to the world of sales initially?
Bob: One of the things about selling is, unlike many other careers, you have a very, very clear measure of whether you’ve succeeded or failed. So that’s part of it and certainly, in the world of complex selling, it’s a world of interaction with people. The challenge and the joy of interacting with prospective and existing customers is a big part of the motivation.
Let’s talk about the future of sales.
Sales futurist really positions the commentary as not looking backward, but anticipating where the world of selling is going and helping salespeople who have a desire to improve themselves and learn new ways of thinking.
Hannah: You’ve got a wealth of experience and I love the fact that you’ve noticed your sweet spot really being in that start-up/scale-up space. If you think about the big picture, what is the impact you want to make on the sales community overall?
Bob: I think it’s very simple. It’s to help others achieve their potential. Whether it’s at an individual level or at an organizational level.
Hannah: I love that. There are so many individuals now that have named themselves sales experts, but you really are based on your experience. I’m quite keen to transition into the term sales futurist and what that actually means to you. And more specifically, Bob: why should more salespeople adopt this type of approach?
Bob: Top Sales World created the label sales futurist really to position the commentary as not looking backward but anticipating where the world of selling is going and helping salespeople who have a desire to improve themselves and learn new ways of thinking. So I’m not talking about, you know, the world of selling is going to be immediately overrun by artificial intelligence. I’m still thinking about the role of well-informed, skillful individuals helping to shape sales as a positive profession.
Tony: I think sales futurist has meant more than ever over the last two years, no one could have ever anticipated what we’ve been through and what salespeople, in general, have had to deal with going through the pandemic. So from what you’ve seen, how has the customer experience really evolved over the last six months or so? What are some of the factors that might be making it more complex than what has been in the past?
Bob: The pandemic has accelerated things that were probably in play already. We already observed more stakeholders and decision-makers being involved in complex buying journeys. We observed a desire to consume information in the most practical and effective form, not just relying on the salesperson, not just relying on the internet, but wanting to be able to make sense of the overwhelming amount of information that’s out there. And in fact, I think it’s interesting to note that one of Gartner’s main themes about the evolving world of selling is this concept of the salesperson, the sense maker, to help the customer make sense of the world that they’re in to try and strip out some of the complexity. And I think if I observe one thing, it’s really shown who within the sales community is really adaptable and has a personal desire for continuous development.
Tony: I think you’re absolutely right about the evolving world of selling. It really has evolved from product to solution, and now it seems like there’s a lot more around outcome-centric selling. At least the people that are really getting ahead of the game at this point. So why do you think that shift is really imperative for modern sales organizations?
Bob: I think that shift is really important because if the customer is making a significant buying decision, they’re doing it because they want to achieve a better business outcome rather than because they want to buy your solution. Your solution is just a tool to enable them to achieve a better outcome.
So we need to really think as salespeople about a buying journey that only ends when the customer’s outcomes have been achieved, rather than a sale that appears to be complete when an order is taken.
Hannah: I love what Bob said about your strongest competitor being the status quo.
Tony: I think it’s human nature to stick to what’s comfortable. People tend to believe it’s easier to deal with challenges you’re already familiar with rather than launch headfirst into something new.
Hannah: I completely agree. It’s the role of the salesperson to build confidence in the customer and help them to see the value in making a change. This will ultimately require proving to the customer that they can trust you to add value to their day-to-day life.
Tips, tricks, and selling secrets for outcome-centric selling
Tony: Like any other personal or professional relationship, success really comes down to building a strong foundation of trust. Given his expertise and lengthy experience, I think Bob: really has an intimate awareness of this concept.
Hannah: I loved that point about the experience not ending when your sales process ends and more about being really focused on the customer’s received outcome. What would you say are some of the main principles of that approach of an outcome-centric selling approach?
What happens if the customer doesn’t know what outcome they’re trying to achieve?
Bob: You have to work backward from what the customer is trying to achieve. I actually did a broadcast last week where the question was asked, “What happens if the customer doesn’t know what outcome they’re trying to achieve”? If a prospective customer cannot articulate the business outcome they are trying to accomplish, they’re much less likely to get the project approved. I think there’s a sort of correlation that says more junior buyers tend to think in terms of features and functions and it’s the more senior executives, the ones that have to actually sign off any significant purchase who think in terms of this is an investment in achieving an outcome. So if you can’t have a conversation about outcomes, I think it’s sometimes an indication you’re actually not very well placed in the decision-making process because if this is a significant purchase, then your apparent champion is going to have to defend and justify that purchase internally to the approval group. So it’s not really if you can your solution approved, it’s to do with getting the project approved. If you’re the salesperson that has an outcome-oriented conversation and everybody else is talking about features, functions, and so-called solutions, you’re in a lot better place.
Hannah: You gave an example of a salesperson possibly not being high enough in a decision-making tree, right? So you’ve got a prospective buyer and they’re saying, “I need a customer data platform.” The junior salesperson starts to go through the process and then things start to go quiet. What kind of things can salespeople do, particularly in this day and age, to help move higher in that food chain when it comes to decision making so they can start to piece together what a real outcome is, a tangible outcome for a business?
Bob: Somebody very smart long ago told me that you end up talking to the person you sound like. So if your sales conversation is about features and functions and so on, you’re going to end up talking to somebody who’s interested in features and functions. And if you do turn out to accidentally be talking to somebody senior and you have a dialogue with them around features and functions, that dialogue is not going to last long, right? You’re going to get delegated down or thrown out.
What any salesperson can do is understand the business issues that companies come to your organization wanting to solve. Understand the outcomes that you were able to help other similar organizations achieve so that you can become more confident in having a value story with the customer.
Hannah: I completely agree with you. When speaking and working with salespeople I’m always surprised at the lack of interaction that they have with the customer success team. There’s never been an introduction, there’s never been a meeting just to find out what are those value stories. So to make your job much easier, I really love that piece of advice.
Bob: I think any organization delivering solutions as a service has realized the critical importance of customer success teams. But I’d say even then, there’s a wide range of perspectives about the role of customer success. It’s about making sure that you fix any issues that the customer’s having, that you respond quickly and you make sure their uptime is high and their usage is high. However, I think the best customer success teams also in addition to operational excellence, seek to understand and reinforce the value that the organization is achieving through the use of your solutions. The first time you have that value conversation is when you’re asking them to renew and it’s way harder than if you’ve been having a dialogue about business value delivered throughout the relationship.
Creating unique selling propositions
Tony: I feel that should be part of the entire process, it starts from the salesperson because they need to establish that upfront, and then the customer success team just really follow through with that. So you’re absolutely right. Just to pivot slightly, I read something that you had posted recently, I’ve been doing sales longer than I care to admit, and I’ve run into many salespeople over the years that tend to use that same process, no matter what type of organization or type of company that they’re working with. You recently wrote a blog about unique selling propositions and how they can be enough maybe to close a sale in a B2C type business, but it’s is not really the same for a B2B business. Why do you see that? And what more can B2B businesses be doing to close the sale? Or what can you be doing in those sorts of scenarios?
Bob: I think the classic unique value proposition or however you label it can work in relatively simple, straightforward sales where there’s little variation in the buying environment from one customer to another. But if you’re trying to sell change to an organization, that story has to be tailored to the reason why that organization needs to change.
Why should they change rather than carry on their current path?
Why should they choose you rather than any of the other options?
Why should they act now rather than later?
Who is going to benefit from implementing your approach and how?
Those things can’t be cookie cutter. You have to tailor them to the conversations you’ve been having with the customer, this will help you discover the unique answers to those four questions. It’s as much about justifying change as it is justifying your particular approach to that change. But if you are the salesperson that most influences that value journey, that specific buying justification, you have put yourself in a far better place than salespeople who only think about why the customer should buy their solution.
How to build trust, and why it matters
Tony: And I think one of the ways that you really help justify is by establishing that level of trust with the client. So what would you say about the role of trust in the sales process? And do you think it’s more crucial today in the environment that we’re in than it’s ever been before?
Bob: I think that trust operates at a number of levels. It’s trust in the individuals I’m interacting with because they represent the likely interactions I’m going to have with their colleagues. It’s trust in the solution that is going to deliver, the results of the outcomes that I’m expecting. It’s trust in the organization I’m about to do business with, in their viability, and in their approach to partnering with customers. So trust isn’t just at one level. I think it’s established. Another part of Gartner’s recent research suggested that one of the reasons that prevented business buying decisions was a lack of decision confidence.
And again, I think that decision confidence is intimately connected with trust. Do I trust the salesperson? Do I trust the solution being proposed will work as it’s defined? Do I trust the company I’m about to do business with? Do I trust the collective experiences of all of the other customers this organization has dealt with can be applied to my benefit so that I can be confident that I’m making the right decision?
Because I think the default is where decision confidence isn’t established that the customer decides to stick with the status quo. And in many ways in a complex discretionary purchase, your strongest competitor is almost always the status quo.
Becoming a future-focused seller
Hannah: What kind of things should salespeople be thinking about to become more future-focused? What sort of skills should they should be trying to improve and work on?
Bob: It starts with a mindset, some of the advice I give to the clients is if they’re recruiting, they need to recruit people who come into their organization with the mindset that says, “I need to be in a mode of continuous learning.” So a lot of that curiosity and humility. What’s going through their minds? How could I, as a sales professional, help them make the case to achieve what they’re looking for?
Hannah: I love that, just the two words “curiosity” and “humility.” You don’t often hear people refer to humility where it’s OK not to know everything. In fact, that’s great because it forces you to go out and develop some ideas about what you actually need to find out. I feel like the last two years have almost forced salespeople to switch their mindsets because everybody didn’t know what to do. There were definitely a few months where everybody was just improvising. Just do what you can, think outside of the box, and try to make things work in a scenario of extreme uncertainty. So a lot of people have been doing things that they haven’t had to do before because they didn’t have the support of their company. Do you think that these last two years have really helped to start to shift the mindset of salespeople who may have been relying on “my company will get me there?”
Bob: I think it’s been almost Darwinian – survival of the fittest or the survival of the most adaptable. I think the last two years have actually permanently damaged the careers of salespeople who had gotten away with not having to be creative, curious, or humble.
One thing that distinguishes really effective sales organizations is the ones that can gather up the learnings that the smartest salespeople have accumulated and recycle that learning in a way that’s applicable to the other members of the sales organization. That way you have an internal of understanding what works and reinforcing it.
Hannah: That moves perfectly into something we try to live and breathe at Skaled. We have this philosophy, when we work with organizations, don’t be a professional visitor. So you don’t just turn up, say lots of fancy things, and leave. You really have to create change. You have to help them to move the needle. Just on your experience of working with smaller companies and large global organizations, what have you noticed about the way in which smaller companies tend to approach sales in comparison to the larger ones?
Bob: That’s a really interesting question because I have seen larger organizations, particularly the entrepreneurial divisions of larger organizations, be effective in this regard. But I do think many of the scale-ups need to work out where growth is going to come from, what you need to do to adapt, et cetera.
It comes down to a management philosophy of not just thinking about the quantity of action that their salespeople are undertaking, but the quality of the action. Instead of saying, “You have to make 100 calls a day,” instead say, “You need to be able to advance X number of opportunities in a meaningful way. Now, with the help of your manager and your colleagues, let’s work together to see how we cannot maximize the inputs or the activities but maximize the output.”
Tony: I think we’ve seen a lot of that, especially over the last two years here, where management is trying to set a certain path and it’s trickling down through the sales organization. As much as people have tried to pivot, there is still seem to be, in some cases, these underlying themes that are still out there or that are a little bit older school. In that regard, are there any common myths or misconceptions that we need to get beyond? What would you say those things are?
Bob: There’s one, in particular, I’ve hammered on. It’s the statement, that the average buyer is 57 percent of the way through the buying process before they want or need to talk to a salesperson. As an average and without any context, it might have been accurate, but the truth of the matter is if I’m a buyer who knows what they want to buy, why would I want to talk to a salesperson? They might find it far more convenient to have an entirely web-based buying experience. But if I’m an inexperienced buyer, this is the first time I’ve tried to solve this sort of problem.
I think there are profound reasons why if the salesperson is positioned as somebody who can educate rather than pitch, they’d want to learn from that. If you think about desirable and undesirable behaviors, I want to persuade them to engage me way before 57 percent of their buying journey. I want them to think that if they do choose to speak to me, they’ll learn something of value and that they’ll emerge from the conversation feeling smarter.
Tony: And that’s where that trust level comes in as well, right? Because if someone can be educated in a conversation, that’s where your trust really is built upon – you’re getting that foundation.
Bob: If the potential buyer emerges from that interaction thinking that was time well spent, they learned something valuable rather than they couldn’t wait to get off the call.
What sales leaders should prioritize
Hannah: I think everybody can relate to that. And that’s an important part of what you’re talking about when you’re saying, how can salespeople be educators rather than just trying to sell their solution. So this is really an important part of your whole discussion around salespeople being educators rather than trying to force their solutions onto these poor buyers. What other things would you say that sales leaders should be prioritizing to make sure that their sales team is actually ready when they’re in front of prospective buyers?
Bob: The very short answer to that is to equip salespeople to think like a customer, to understand what’s going through the customer’s mind more broadly. I think it’s sort of developing a commercial empathy and an ability to talk in those commercially empathetic terms with buyers. You know, a significant part of their training needs to be not teaching the salespeople the features and functions of the latest release of the latest product but to identify the business issues this particular offering was designed to address and how to have a dialogue with a potential customer around those issues. So what would happen if you didn’t do anything about this? That question is always struck me as being one of the most important things.
Hannah: And you’ll also find some customers who will say something like, “hmm, haven’t really thought about that yet.” How do you position the follow-up?
Bob: You need to recognize that this is a substantial decision requiring a significant investment of money, time, etc. It’s almost always going to be competing against other projects that the customer might also be thinking about committing to at the time.
Tony: What is your sales philosophy in just three words?
Bob: Always create value.
Tony: What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given in your career?
Bob: Take responsibility.
Hannah: What’s your top productivity hack?
Bob: Focus. Prioritize. Execute.
Hannah: Looking into 2022, what’s your top prediction for the sales industry this year?
Bob: That smart sales organizations will continue to drive towards thinking about outcomes rather than so-called solutions.
Tony: What’s one thing or perhaps one person that you believe has really been revolutionizing the sales industry?
Bob: I don’t think it’s any one person. There are a bunch of people that I’m inspired by, and I hope to continue to be inspired by. The thing that’s revolutionizing complex B2B sales is this emergence of hybrid selling because of the mixture of face-to-face and virtual, the use of automated information sources, and blending them all together.
Hannah: If you could share just one piece of advice to all salespeople, something that they could do on their next call or in their next meeting, what would that be?
Bob: Don’t make excuses. Hold yourself accountable for your actions. Say things that the customer needs to hear rather than what you think they’d like to hear.
What we learned
We learned the importance of building a strong foundation of trust with customers by considering the entire customer journey and final business outcomes. This is what outcome-centric selling is really all about: creating a culture of continuous learning within sales organizations – curiosity, humility and self-awareness will take you far in the sales industry. At the end of the day, sales is mostly having a willingness to stay open and adaptable to change. We hope you took away some valuable lessons and insights that inspire you to reevaluate your approach to sales readiness. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show when you get a minute, and stay tuned for the next episode of Ready Set Sell.
As a sales leader, you know the impact of effective sales coaching — it’s the key to maximizing your team’s potential. In fact, it probably isn’t surprising that companies that provide quality coaching can reach 7% greater annual revenue growth.
The problem is that for too long, sales managers have relied on a one-size-fits-all coaching playbook and hoped for the best. But with sellers entering more competitive markets, it’s time to hit reset. Not only should sales coaching be personalized to each rep, but it should also be backed by data.
If you’re ready to take the guesswork out of making the most of sales coaching conversations, read on to find out how you can use data to take a more strategic approach to sales coaching and ultimately help your team win more deals.
Why sales coaching conversations must change
Having conversations about performance can be hard, especially if a rep isn’t doing well. It can be especially difficult to call out areas for improvement when you don’t have the specifics to back it up. Relying on data makes these conversations easier and more productive.
For sales managers, being able to track and analyze seller performance all in one place using sales readiness software provides concrete insight into every time you say, “You’re doing a great job,” or “There’s room for improvement.” Your feedback is rooted in actual performance metrics, rather than anecdotal feedback or opinions.
Data also identifies the exact ways each seller can improve. Perhaps one rep is weaker in competitive intelligence while another needs more support with operating sales technology. By digging into the data, sales managers can identify opportunities for improvement and, in turn, maximize each rep’s performance.
What a data-driven approach looks like
To adopt a data-driven coaching approach, start with a clear understanding of the key metrics to track. These will help gauge the overall success of your sales force, but really allow you to dig into individual performance to fuel more impactful coaching conversations.
Below we’ve highlighted some key criteria you’ll want to evaluate — and how you can gather the data.
Product knowledge: Assess and certify sellers on their product knowledge with quizzes using different formats. You can create a proficiency threshold score for reps to show they’re knowledgeable on your product, which you can test through multiple choice quizzes, checklists and written tests.
Reps can also be assigned role-plays to see if they can demo the product, describe what it does and accurately express the value of the product. If you’re using sales readiness technology, all of this can be easily reviewed and scored through artificial intelligence (AI).
Selling behavior: Evaluate how articulate and enthusiastic a rep is on a call, voicemail or presentation as well as the tone. You can also keep track of how many filler words are used. This will gauge their overall confidence in selling your solution.
Selling skills: By tracking sellers’ progress in real-time, sales managers can get data on each rep’s ability to demo, use a sales methodology (e.g. MEDDPIC) on a call, challenge competition, handle objections and evaluate whether or message the product correctly. Real-time data from conversation intelligence also gives visibility into how to move deals forward.
Message consistency: AI-powered keyword analysis is a great way for sales coaches to get better insight into individual competencies and needs based on live interactions during the selling process. When you analyze sales calls (and leave the hard work to AI), you can uncover why deals didn’t close and start training on common questions reps are asked.
Technology skills: How well do your reps use sales tools? Assess sellers on their knowledge (and correct use) of sales stack tools like Outreach, Ring, Zoom and Salesforce to see how effectively they’re being put into action.
Using a sales readiness platform, reps can actually record themselves using the tools, which can then be evaluated and scored. This will give sales coaches visibility into any challenges or inefficiencies on the team.
Competitive knowledge: Gauge how well your sellers understand the competition by rolling out quick updates or instructor-led training sessions, followed by quizzes that test their knowledge of the material covered.
Sales process: See how well your sales team understands your organization’s sales process, including what reps are expected to do at each stage. With a sales readiness platform, you can have this information available as an on-demand resource, then use virtual role-plays to evaluate your team’s understanding.
Why is continuous training and coaching so valuable?
We all know that in a fast-paced sales role, it’s important to stay on top of your skills in order to get ahead. But it’s the companies that really commit to a culture of continuous learning that see results from their efforts. In fact, best-in-class companies that enlist a training plan see their sales reps reach higher quotas by 31%, with a 10% increase in yearly corporate revenue.
What sets a winning sales training program apart lies in something called the “Forgetting Curve.” This formula shows that humans – sales reps included – forget 90% of new information after 30 days. That’s why continuous and spaced reinforcements have proven to be a much more successful way for reps to learn.
In order to truly hone their skills, reps need to be given ample opportunities to practice them. In turn, this gives leaders the chance to gain insights into their team’s proficiencies and weaknesses, allowing sales coaching to happen proactively rather than reactively.
Your new approach to coaching starts now
On top of using data to coach reps, this data-driven approach also empowers you to establish a “profile of excellence” on your sales team. This helps sales managers to identify top performers and they’re then able to coach other sellers to replicate those behaviors.
While it certainly makes it easier to track and report on these metrics with sales readiness technology in place, it’s not impossible to do without. However you gather the data, it’s important to incorporate it into coaching conversations in order to pinpoint areas for improvement, provide more specific feedback and ultimately empower your team to succeed. Now, who’s ready to start digging into some data?
It might not come as a surprise that 57% of sales reps are expected to miss their quotas in 2021. Sellers often can’t explain why deals don’t work out, leaving your sales managers in the dark. Knowing a seller lost a deal isn’t enough to prevent it from happening again. Your sales managers need the ability to identify why deals are lost and how they can train and coach reps to win today’s deal — and every deal in the future.
Conversation intelligence solutions offer invaluable support to sales managers. These solutions record, transcribe and score customer calls, serving them back to sales managers to use as fuel for more effective coaching conversations. Managers gain insights into the seller’s performance, pinpoint areas of concern and develop targeted coaching techniques to improve outcomes. These solutions take the guesswork out of why deals were lost, giving visibility into every touchpoint of the sales cycle – from the pre-qualification call all the way to closing the sale.
In this blog post, we’ll walk through the sales cycle and offer up some AI-driven coaching opportunities each step of the way.
Pre-qualification call
The seller’s goal at this stage is to determine if the account should advance to the next step in the sales cycle or be sent back to marketing for further nurturing. Conversation intelligence gives managers insights into a seller’s missteps, potential skill gaps and the customer’s experience during the call. Opportunities for coaching could include:
Showing examples of performers in action and facilitating peer reviews: Did the rep nail the call or launch into an extended sales pitch? Maybe they focused too much on the solution vs. listening to the buyer. Have your seller learn from the best by reviewing a recording of a model pitch. Discuss how the model differed from the rep’s pitch then have the rep practice their pitch and submit a recording for a manager or peer review. You can then use AI insights to analyze the recording and identify areas for improvement.
Sharing a relevant learning module and AI-based insights: Was the rep able to gather the critical details they needed to pre-qualify the account, e.g., the customer’s challenges and goals, their current solution, their willingness to spend, the influencers and decision-makers in the buying cycle, etc.? To strengthen the rep’s ability to uncover this important information, share AI-based insights from the call around specific themes and topics, and then discuss how to listen and respond to these verbal cues. You can share a short learning module with them on how to pre-qualify a lead and then ask the rep to get certified on this training before the next pre-qualification call.
Assigning a learning course and using role-play to measure improvement: During the call, did the seller engage in active listening, letting the buyer describe their situation? Or did they talk too much and interrupt the customer? Show your rep an analysis of the call, focusing on the ratio of time spent talking by the rep versus the buyer. Then share an active listening course, including the appropriate ratio of listening to talking at this stage, and how to paraphrase what was heard in the conversation and ask for confirmation. After the course is completed, have the rep role-play to demonstrate proficiency in active listening.
Discovery call
During this stage of the sales cycle, sellers are focused on reviewing buyers’ needs and criteria for selection, getting a clear view into the buying process and the other decision-makers involved. Managers can use conversation intelligence to review the seller’s performance during the call and inform coaching strategies that can improve their ability to uncover critical details. Opportunities for coaching could include:
Assigning micro-learning modules: Did the seller identify the other solutions the prospect is evaluating? Did they find out what stage of the sales cycle they’ve reached with each vendor? Were they able to discover how the buyer perceives the competition (pros and cons)? Point the rep to micro-learning training modules on competitors’ solutions so they can learn how to probe for the buyer’s perception of competitors and set traps as the sales cycle progresses.
Sharing tips from training experts: Did the seller miss the chance to explore opportunities to upsell and cross-sell? Direct the rep to a video with tips on upselling from sales training experts. Share snippets of conversations between other sellers and customers to give the rep examples of how to apply those skills in real-world scenarios.
Leveraging AI insights to pinpoint concerns and practicing critical skills to close gaps: Was the rep able to uncover more insight into the other decision-makers? Could they identify those stakeholders’ top concerns and pain points? Use intelligence features such as search, keyword identification and timeline analysis to ensure the rep asked the right questions. Have the rep practice how to ask buyers required questions and how to probe for answers.
Evaluation call
The seller’s goals during this stage are to provide all of the information necessary for the buyer/buying committee to make a purchase decision and collect all information needed to put together a proposal to be discussed on the next call. Using conversation intelligence, managers can pinpoint ways to strengthen the rep’s role as a trusted advisor and reduce negotiation friction later in the sales cycle. Opportunities for coaching could include:
Reviewing top-performing demos and using role-play: Presenting a demo is a critical moment in the sale cycle. It’s proof of everything the seller has already discussed with the buyer and most importantly, the solution’s value relative to the buyer’s challenges. To help your rep prepare and go into this meeting with confidence, have them engage in a role-play to ensure the demo is engaging and relevant. Expose them to real-world scenarios and successes by reviewing recordings of top-performing demos and pointing out the key areas of excellence.
Analyzing the call for insights into the buyer’s experience and providing feedback: The buyer needs to leave this meeting fully understanding the product and how it will address their unique challenges. Use conversation intelligence to determine the buyer’s sentiment and open questions to make sure there’s no confusion or frustration during the demo. Discuss how the rep could have improved their understanding of the product and how it aligns with the buyer’s needs.
Quizzing the rep to keep knowledge fresh: Was the rep able to show how the solution is a better fit and better value compared to the other technologies being evaluated? Or did they miss the mark by using outdated messaging and positioning? Quiz your reps periodically on competitive positioning and features so their knowledge about the competition is reinforced and up to date. If needed, have them review existing competitive intelligence assets.
Negotiation call
The seller’s goal is to close the deal and ensure all necessary elements are in place to put together a contract that will be signed by the buyer. Conversation intelligence enables sales leaders to review rep performance and provide laser-focused feedback on how they can sharpen critical negotiation skills. Opportunities for coaching could include:
Scheduling a one-on-one to review past calls and prepare for potential objections: It’s imperative the seller presents options (i.e., length of contract, terms) and product/service bundles that are relevant to the buyer’s needs. It’s also important that they avoid resorting to discounting. Set up a one-on-one the day before the next negotiation call to review the details of the deal, prospective discounts and potential objections and to work with the rep on any areas of concern. Review how the call went, identify areas of concern and provide feedback and guidance.
Using role-play to build confidence and trust: When a buyer is about to make a big investment, they need reassurance that they are making the right decision and that the company is dedicated to partnering with them on their long-term success. To ensure the rep comes across as confident and maintains a partnership approach to the conversation, have them role-play situations where the buyer makes various demands and/or takes an adversarial stance.
Showing examples of what a successful negotiation looks like: Your seller needs to make sure all parties are on the same page before concluding the call. Did the rep provide a summary of what was agreed to, define clear next steps and answer all questions? Coach the rep on best practices for summarizing at the end of a negotiation call and following up. You can do this by showing them what a successfully closed deal looks like using snippets of call recordings, prescribing role-plays so they can practice different techniques and finally identifying and fine-tuning areas of concern using AI-driven insights.
Purchase call
The seller’s objective at this stage is to review the contract with the buyer and discuss any pending issues – clearing the path for the buyer to sign a contract and start the onboarding process. Conversation intelligence enables sales managers to analyze the seller’s ability to guide the conversation, demonstrate confidence and identify coaching techniques to improve these skills. Opportunities for coaching could include:
Measuring the rep’s performance and the customer’s experience: What was the rep’s approach to asking the buyer about the status of the purchase? Were they actively listening to the customer’s concerns and questions, and understanding any obstacles to signing the contract? Analyze insights to measure the rep’s listen-to-talk ratio and customer sentiment. Then review the recorded call with the rep to ensure the buyer did most of the talking and left the call satisfied.
Testing the seller’s knowledge: The buyer will expect to leave the call with important details and actionable information like the onboarding and training processes, customer support terms, pricing, implementation start date, and more. To prepare your seller, assign a quiz measuring knowledge of all contract-related terms and processes. Assign a targeted learning module based on any knowledge gaps, and then assign the quiz again to measure improvement.
Comparing the rep’s performance to best practices: How well did the rep manage the call? Did they check all the boxes by summarizing the discussion, committing to making changes in the contract as agreed to during the call, and setting expectations for when the buyer would have it signed? Analyze the rep’s performance for highs and lows, and discuss findings and feedback. Finally, show the rep a recorded call of a successful close and follow-up to reinforce your discussion.
Call AI, Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence solution built into our comprehensive readiness platform, uniquely helps you identify and fix the real-world behaviors that stop your salespeople from closing every deal. Critical coaching moments happen at every stage that can drastically impact deal outcomes. Conversation intelligence, when paired with a readiness approach, gives you the ability to steer reps toward closing their current deals at every step in the process, and then arm them with the skills they need to close future deals with greater success.
To learn more about how sales managers can use conversation intelligence to optimize coaching techniques and improve business outcomes, book a demo.
Enterprises today see the need to make a critical, immediate recalibration to the way they run and manage sales. What started as an immediate response to the pandemic – digital selling has now become the new normal; demanding changes in management and leadership skills to keep sales organizations upskilled, engaged, always on message, and capable of selling digitally as a team. To meet these needs, Mindtickle and our strategic partner The Ken Blanchard Companies have come together to enable businesses for a digital-ready generation of corporate and sales leadership in today’s uncertain, nearly all remote environment.
For more than 40 years, The Ken Blanchard Companies has provided management and leadership training programs backed by practical research, thought leadership, and scientific learning methodologies to develop results-oriented, proactive leaders that can confidently address business challenges. Its Situational Leadership® II (SLII®) program is a proven model that has been used to strengthen the leadership skills for more than 5 million managers in organizations around the world. It uses a proprietary method to teach managers how to become what they call “situational leaders” — ones who’re able to understand the evolving needs of the people they manage and adapt their leadership style to meet those needs.
To meet the needs of increasingly distributed teams, sales leaders must lean more heavily than ever on virtual upskilling programs including “blended learning” to maximize business performance. To this end, the partnership announced by The Ken Blanchard Companies and Mindtickle is a critical new program for global organizations as it brings the proven SLII® leadership development to leaders everywhere with a digital experience — adding the “virtual” element to the mix so that instruction and participation can be experienced both online and in the classroom.
By combining SLII® with Mindtickle, we are delivering personalized, prescriptive and guided content to managers when they need it, so they can continue learning in a virtual “classroom” (likely their home office for now). And, with an eye to the future, The Ken Blanchard Companies and Mindtickle are collaborating on expanding access to coaching, gamification, and role play.
Even though our partnership with The Ken Blanchard Companies came together before the pandemic changed the way we do business, the principles driving our joint efforts couldn’t be more timely. Together, Mindtickle and The Ken Blanchard Companies are addressing the challenge of enabling and applying leadership learning in the flow of remote work, because engaging users and building value-added relationships between sales leaders and those they manage will be important no matter what trials and tribulations the world faces.
Every quarter, sales teams work tirelessly in pursuit of leads that might not ever turn into a sale anyway because they were unwinnable to begin with –the epitome of wasted time. Why not just eliminate unqualified leads and focus on pursuing only the qualified leads? (Sales is likely collectively chuckling at that question right now. If only it were that easy, they might ruefully say.)
But what if it was that easy? What if there was a methodology that significantly boosted the quota-carrying professional’s ability to disqualify opportunities unlikely to close and instead focus their energy on opportunities that would help them exceed their goals? And, what if sales people could be trained on that methodology, develop the requisite skills, and be coached on it through the Mindtickle platform?
Lucky for our global enterprise customers, our new go-to-market partnership with MEDDIC Academy makes this all a reality. With this partnership, MEDDIC Academy makes available its sales qualification methodology (“MEDDIC”) content on the Mindtickle platform in the form of self-paced e-learning, bite-sized microlearning content, virtual and in-person instructor-led training, and blended learning.
Created 20 years ago, MEDDIC itself emphasizes customer qualification specifically. It is often used as a complement to existing sales methodologies such as target account selling, which focus on enabling predictability and turning uncertainty into success across the sales cycle.
Specifically, through our partnership with MEDDIC Academy, customers will be able to:
Improve seller productivity and effectiveness with MEDDIC, and benchmark their success through assessments and checklists in Mindtickle
Standardize on a common language and sales methodology for teams to better qualify opportunities. (This will be achieved through the MEDDIC approach as well as by practicing knowledge learned on Mindtickle.)
Validate high performance provided by the MEDDIC methodology and leverage the Mindtickle Sales Capability Index™ (SCI) to measure seller effectiveness
Provide a way for recruiters and hiring managers to find high-performing candidates who are MEDDIC-certified, and then use Mindtickle to replicate their success across the entire sales team
MEDDIC has been used by many well-known software and SaaS vendors like SAP, Oracle, Salesforce.com and EMC for years, and is regarded as one of the most effective around. When applied to each stage of the customer engagement process, MEDDIC culls the qualified leads from the unqualified, ensuring only the right leads make it into the sales funnel. It truly shifts the urgency onto the buyer, positioning the product or solution as something the buyer needs to have and it’s now up to them to decide whether or not to move forward. It covers six elements, which can be defined as follows:
M = Metrics: Quantifiable measurements and proof of the business benefits of the solution
E = Economic Buyer: The individual within the customer’s organization who is required for the final approval
D = Decision Criteria: The formal solution requirements against which each participant in the decision process will evaluate
D = Decision Process: The process by which the customer will evaluate, select and purchase a solution
I = Identified Pain: The catalyst for the buyer solving the problem within a set time frame
C = Champion: The person with power and influence inside the customer’s organization who is actively selling on your behalf
The MEDDIC-Mindtickle partnership is a natural fit for any company that wants to help their sales team focus on opportunities they’re more likely to close. And really, what company doesn’t? If you’d like to read more about MEDDIC, take a look at Darius Lahoutifard’s new book, Always Be Qualifying, available now on Amazon.
For more on MindTicke’s partnership with the MEDDIC Academy, listen to the podcast with Darius Lahoutifard here!
A remote workforce can be difficult to navigate especially for sales enablement leaders. And as some employees begin to return to an office, the ‘new normal’ of a hybrid environment will continue to increase these complexities. Regardless of location, sales enablement leaders must keep customer-facing teams actively engaged. In this context, the 2 C’s of readiness enablement, Communication and Coaching are critical to get right.
Personalizing and adapting two-way communication, enabling new and upgraded remote selling skills while enabling visibility and the ability to intervene with proactive coaching (even at a distance) is a North Star for the emerging normal. Although challenging, working remotely is no excuse to pull back on training and coaching investments because it can be done just as well as in the office.
Before further discussing how to effectively facilitate remote training and coaching, sales enablement leaders must first make certain that all pertinent information and content are specific to the markets, segments and customers that your team is contacting. It needs to be closely aligned with the steps and activities sales reps execute as part of the process. Finally, it must be in line with the sales methodology and expectations for customer-facing interactions and be designed to deliver visibility on delivery, engagement, usage and satisfaction for managers. This last point is critical as remote coaching programs and initiatives become critical in the emerging virtual everywhere environment. While self-service and 2-ways communications are a basic first principle for remote enablement, ensuring managers participate as recipients and coaches ensures that updates are resulting in updated teams. .
With that in place, let’s dive into how to ensure sales enablement delivers value for remote workers. First, every content asset and communication designed to align with and keep the sales force highly engaged must deliver ROI. Enabling this requires the following:
Frequent push and pull-based, personalized communications sent in a rep’s preferred channel that will draw greater interest in training. For example, communications that pop up in the flow of a sales rep’s daily work life — such as in an email or app, through the Salesforce dashboard or other CRM, or in newsletters — drive higher engagement.
Reps must be able to consume content on their own schedule and modality. Never has this been more important than now, with an often-unpredictable work environment and work hours. Understanding engagement trends – what modules or learning is most revisited, offline vs. online consumption trends, mobile minutes, responsiveness to digital reminders are just a few of the compelling metrics afforded by modern platforms that should be embraced by managers and executives for coaching engagement as much as administrators of platforms.
Learning delivered in different formats caters to different learning styles. Microlearning in the form of videos, polls, quizzes, podcasts and gamified content tends to drive higher consumption and retention among reps. Video is also a powerful tool for practicing and polishing pitches through guided role play. With it, reps can practice interacting with customers in simulated sales scenarios to improve their presentations and get real-time feedback from managers or coworkers.
Don’t overlook remote coaching engagement. With regular video coaching sessions and use of shared competency assessments, reps and managers can prioritize, build and track skills incrementally while also providing valuable inputs to readiness and enablement teams. And, when it has structure and regular cadence, virtual coaching can be as valuable as in-person coaching while being cost and commute efficient.
Keeping remote employees engaged and active isn’t a challenge relegated only to sales enablement leaders. CMOs and CROs alike are indirectly impacted by sales enablement’s success too, because hitting their numbers depends on reps’ active engagement with sales training. With CMOs heavily involved in driving leads through the sales pipeline, they must engage, motivate and align customer-facing teams with new, innovative messaging, the latest content and other assets, and new and ongoing campaigns. CROs need to equally be involved in engagement, adoption and effective tactics in order to achieve revenue targets.
With that in mind, CMOs and CROs can help their team stay aligned in this remote setting and confirm that they’re retaining information in the following ways.
Monitor updates in activity logs in the CRM
Conduct one-on-ones with managers and engagement reporting
Gather feedback from the field
Measure the amount of content consumption
By monitoring whether their teams are seeing an uptick in deal velocity across stages and over time, driving better engagement with buyers, and securing more ‘solutioning’ activities like workshops and proofs of concept, CMOs and CROs can identify problem areas and develop plans of action to address them. And finally, by maintaining open lines of communication with marketing, revenue and marketing leaders can ensure the most impactful content is pushed out in the most effective ways. After all, we know what messaging will resonate with which channels to drive revenue.
It’s unclear when we’ll be able to get back to business as usual, but that doesn’t mean that sales training and coaching initiatives should be put on hold. In fact, the 2 C’s of readiness enablement – Communication and Coaching – are more important than ever to ensure that sales teams are engaged and on message. Customer-facing employees can keep some sense of normalcy and continuity in their day-to-day by continuing to develop their skill sets from home, the office or a combination of both. Companies with an understanding that training, coaching and microlearning are the key to driving consistent customer engagement and messaging will be poised for success in today’s ‘new normal’.
28%…that’s how much you can improve revenues through effective sales coaching.
Over the past few months, companies have faced significant challenges as their sales teams have transitioned into remote workforces. Managing productive sellers working out of home or remote offices is not a new concept, but how you approach the art and science of coaching must if you’re to develop and maintain productive sales activity that has shifted entirely online.
While onboarding and business reviews are key components of sales enablement, coaching is arguably the most important – and the most difficult – to implement for the following reasons:
Ongoing – While onboarding focuses on providing new information to reps, coaching reinforces and builds on this foundation with additional information through continual daily and weekly sessions.
Individualized – Whereas business reviews are vital for ensuring alignment on company and financial goals, coaching is tailored to the needs of an individual rep accounting for their strengths, challenges, and areas for improvement.
Behavioral – Coaching is behavior-based and focuses on correcting a rep’s unfavorable behaviors and habits while reinforcing effective ones.
This begins with clearly defining the benefits for your organization for developing a coaching culture. Coaching just to say you coach isn’t enough. You need to understand your audience and the benefits of setting up an ongoing meeting between manager and rep. Especially in today’s separated workforce, regular meetings over the phone or video conference are essential for developing rapport and learning from others.
Here are useful tips for developing a successful coaching strategy.
Tip #1: Understand the needs of your organization
Develop a plan that outlines the needs of the organization, and more importantly, the needs of your sales team. For example, younger sales reps will benefit more by learning from others, while experienced reps will relate to knowledge and content in more of a self-paced environment.
Figure out where you want the program to go and identify what results and goals you have for this program. This begins with understanding the strengths, skills gaps and areas of improvement which will be useful for developing KPI benchmarks. Ultimately, you’ll want to be able to measure, follow-up and share these findings throughout the program.
Tip #2: No person is an island (though it feels like that sometimes)
While coaching is a two-way street so is the process for getting buy-in from managers and reps. You’ll need to “educate” both sides on how coaching sessions benefit their professional and financial goals.
When developing expectations, seek and (as needed) integrate manager and rep feedback. This provides insight into what programs are working as well as a channel for additional topical ideas.
Tip #3: Professional development roads lead to compensation
Money talks, and this can be an effective way to ensure everyone participates and actively engages in the program. For example, withholding commission until all training is completed (or achieving an 80% or higher passing rate), including coaching is not uncommon in some organizations.
For coaches, setting evaluation parameters that tie closely to reps’ KPIs (industry/domain knowledge, communication style, and accuracy) ensure reps meet their goals. They can be specific to an initiative, such as “Did the rep determine definitive next steps at the end of the call?”, or more interpretive, such as “Could the rep speak to the client’s use case, industry, and/or market?” Evaluation parameters help guide ongoing skills development as coaches and sales administrators can track progress over time to ensure reps are improving, or if not, develop training to address their needs.
Tip 4: Coach the coaches
The practice of effective coaching relies as much on the coaches as it does on the participants. Develop a program that enables your coaches with best practices before beginning a coaching program. Coaches are key allies in facilitating change management by creating a positive experience for reps, while build buy-in for managers.
Best practices for coaches include:
Communications: Coaches need to have regular cadence for communications with reps that promotes engagement and reinforces the message of the opportunity to improve.
Feedback: Comprehensive written feedback can benefit reps significantly and should include constructive assessments, encouraging comments, action items and next steps. Not only will the rep benefit by incorporating this feedback into his/her next conversations, but the coaches can then reference their feedback during the next coaching session to ensure the rep is improving.
Tip 5: Measure what you sow
Coaching can be viewed under two primary categories: hard skills and capabilities; and soft skills and performance. Your coaching program should take these categories into consideration and align them to the strategic objectives of your business and to the day-to-day activities of the reps.
For reps:
Engagement – completed sessions and average score
Progression – overall scores and competency
Soft Skills – rate of speech, demeanor/rapport, use of filler words, persuasiveness
KPI Comparison – improvement over time, impact specific to the skillset
For coaches:
Total completed sessions and disapproved sessions
Adherence to coaching sessions, number of coaching sessions scheduled and completed over a daily, weekly and monthly basis
For more detailed information on these tips as well as how to create your own coaching structure for your remote workforce, download our checklist for effective remote coaching and check out our 6-minute demo.
