Sales Coaching: All You Need to Know in 2021

In order to notice positive effects within a sales organization, sales managers and heads will often invest in a practise called sales coaching. This is done to optimize the performance of sales representatives whilst empowering them. Inherently, the process of sales coaching is implemented to support sales reps, and equip them, to fulfil their own personal quotas alongside the team’s goals and quotas.

Statistically, sales representatives with less than 30 minutes of sales coaching, on a weekly basis, receive win rates of approximately 43%. In comparison, sales reps with over 2 hours of coaching, weekly, receive win rates of 56%. All in all, effective sales coaching is personalized, inclusive, and frequent.

The primary components of sales coaching revise negative behavior whilst highlighting positive behavior; the focus is more so directed towards techniques and practices, rather than numbers and quantitative data.

Sales Coaching Practices to Avoid

While it may be difficult to narrow down the specifics of sales coaching, there are certain practises which simply do not constitute as effective sales coaching. These are inclusive of:

Dictating the behaviour of sales reps rather than allowing them to figure out the specifics for themselves
Failing to customize your advise on the basis of individual sales reps
Refusing to acknowledge the varying strengths, weaknesses, and motivations of the sales reps under your instruction

Optimum Sales Coaching Practices

On the contrary, some highly effective sales coaching practises to implement are as follows. In fact, companies utilising, or providing, dynamic programs for sales coaching are known to achieve higher win rates upwards of 28%.

Walking through a sales rep’s performance/call with them; this involves discussing the improvements which can be made, alongside what went well
Offering insider tips and training skills to reps in need of improvement
Revising the utilisation of remote tools and selling techniques
Scheduling check-ins on a weekly basis in order to discuss areas reps might be under confident in
Shadowing a rep’s interaction with a potential customer with prospects in mind
Monitoring a buyer’s journey, through the email conversations of a rep, with prospects in mind

Primary Advantages of Sales Coaching

1. Improvement of Employee Retention Rates

Amongst the many problems in a typical sales department, the turnover of reps is an inevitable, if not highly bothersome, one. While reps may often be tempted by larger salaries offered elsewhere, 9 out of 10 employees have stated that professional development is considered ‘’highly important’’ to them. Moreover, in a popular employee survey, participants have further announced that 4 in 10 particularly look for in-house programs.

2. Ability to Share Quality Practices

Practices implemented during sales coaching often tend to work with more than a single sales reps. Therefore, by carefully monitoring the results of your sales reps, you’ll be able to implement what works for one for the others as well. Using a strategy of this kind is both cost, and time, effective while proving to be highly advantageous for reps in training.

3. Maximization of Sales Training Investments

Research has shown that consistency, and long-term enforcement, are the key to maximizing investments made on sales coaching. Rather than spending billions on sales training year after year, it is far more lucrative for larger corporations to reinforce long-term practices made enforceable through sales coaching.

Sales Coaching Models

It is important not to get overwhelmed by the many sales coaching models available today. In fact, you’ll find that sales managers are often unimpressed with the abundance of models out there. This is because, more often than not, these models are often designed with a focus on reports in mind, rather than their pragmatic usage by an efficient sales manager coaching sales reps.

Sales managers who look to generic models often struggle to implement these, with their sales reps, given the lack of personalization and focus on individualism. In fact, some of these coaching models only tend to work when pertaining to specific methodologies– a rather frustrating piece of work. However, luckily for you, a good sales manager will not shy away from creating a hybrid model of their own, particularly one which better applies to their sales reps.

In stark contrast, the market is also flooded with models which are heavily overly structured. These allow no room for flexibility and are harder to use with differing sales processes. Therefore, it’s better to utilize a sales coaching model which comes with a bit of leeway- that way, you wouldn’t require a new model each time your strategy is changed.

Lastly, if you’re unsure about whether a sales coaching model is the right one for you, you can always ask your team. After all, because the model is going to apply to them, their feedback matters quite a lot. Businesses can utilize an internet survey, or an employee feedback tool, in order to receive this information.

Evaluation

All in all, sales coaching is amongst the most important aspects of sales management. When implemented in an optimum manner, sales coaching could very well heighten your team’s performance in a highly lucrative manner. This could lead to business growth, an increase in traffic, and higher lead generation. Therefore, you should definitely incorporate the many sales coaching practices, and models, available. And yet, it’s important to utilize ones which best suit your business in a personalized manner.