The Death of Traditional Sales Coaching

Gary Rhoads, PhD – Co-Founder Xvoyant

Despite the traditional wisdom of the Sales Executive Council in 2005 to focus on the middle and leave the top and bottom performers alone, many sales leaders are still unsure about who and how to coach to maximize sales revenue.

Moving the Middle has been the mantra for coaching effectiveness for the past 14 years. In 2005, the typical sales performance distribution of an organization exhibited a 10/80/10 distribution (bottom/middle/top) or the 10-80-10 rule. That is, the bottom 10% of your reps, no matter how hard you work with them or train them, will most likely fail. The adage, “You can’t coach your dogs out of the kennel.” was born. At the other end of the spectrum, performance improvements from the top 10% or stars, was found to be marginal since they are already performing at a high level. The coaching plan for stars: leave them alone but coach for retention. Given leaders, limited time and resources, conventional wisdom exposes targeting the middle performers or 80% to produce the highest performance improvements.

From observing customers in 19 countries, we have come to realize that the so-called traditional coaching paradigm of the early 2000s may no longer be valid. After all, no one sells today as they did in 2005 and sales leaders will readily admit, “I don’t coach today as I did 14 years ago.” More than ever before, we are seeing reps who were once low performers or dogs in the kennel, killing it in just a few quarters and core performers leapfrogging expectations and becoming star performers at a much faster rate than ever before.

As one of our clients stated,

“Through consistent, impactful coaching, I witnessed a bottom performer on my team move from out of the gutter to the President’s club within six months. Today I see reps transform their performance in ways that were never possible in the past.”

So, what has happened since the seminal work on sales coaching in 2005? First of all, sales performance distributions today are not typical and vary widely from the 10/80/10 rule of the past. We see firms loaded with stars with just a few middle performers to firms having large distributions of low performers with very few stars or middle performers. In such cases, leaders struggle on who and how to coach to maximize team revenue. The most disturbing trend we see is that firms are hitting quota based on the efforts of 10% of their reps meeting or exceeding quota. This heavy lifting with just a few contributors is not sustainable for long-term success and is a significant concern for governing boards.

Secondly, advances in cloud CRM systems like Salesforce have come a long way since their humble beginnings in the early 2000s. The advent of a Sales Coaching Stack is now enabling sales leaders with the ability to transform rep improvement in a shorter amount of time than ever before. Advances in technologies are allowing leaders to be more efficient and more effective in managing rep performance.  Perhaps the best way to understand what is happening in 2019 is to compare the conventional wisdom advocated in 2005 to the modern-day sales coaching approach of 2019. Which side resonates with how you think and coach today?

Traditional Wisdom on Sales Coaching Modern-Day Sales Coaching
Coach the middle performers who have the most to gain and leave the top and bottom performers alone. DO NOT SHIFT THE CURVE! Coach who is coachable. Spend time and resources on salespeople who are coachable and eager to change. DO SHIFT THE CURVE. HAVE A PLAN TO HELP EVERY MEMBER OF YOUR SALES TEAM IMPROVE BY AT LEAST 10%.
Return on coaching time diminishes dramatically after five hours.  The sweet spot for coaching is between 3-5 hours per rep per month. Sales leaders have limited time and resources to coach every sales rep the minimum 3 to 5 hours per month necessary for sustained improvement. The advent of Artificial Intelligence and Sales Improvement Platforms enables leaders to have impactful 1:1’s in 30 minutes or less. Technology reduces leader prep time and helps sales leaders pinpoint and dollarize potential improvement to motivate and inspire reps to higher levels of growth than ever before.
You can’t coach your dogs (Bottom 10% performers) out of the kennel. You can coach some dogs out of the kennel and watch them become show dogs in a short amount of time.  Especially talented dogs who are coachable and eager to transform into stars. Many reps are embryonic stars waiting for the insights and direction to ignite into highly performing reps.
Typical sales organizations and teams follow the 10/80/10 performance distribution. Coaching the middle makes economic sense to maximize revenue per rep. Sales organizations today rarely see a normal sales performance distribution. Performance distributions vary widely across firms and teams. This variance requires sales leaders to be innovative and adaptive depending on their team distribution. Often sales leaders must coach their dogs out of the kennel, especially when they have a new team of bottom performers.
Performance improvements from stars (top 10% of performers) are likely to be marginal. Coach the stars for retention. Sales leaders should coach stars for retention and increased performance.  A 5% improvement of a star is equivalent to a 15% increase in performance of a core performer.  Sales leaders must never lose sight of their stars and engage them in “how good you get conversations.”  There is a huge payoff for coaching star performers who are coachable.

Many of the findings from the seminal coaching work in 2005 remain true today:

  • The Sales Leader is the most effective coach.
  • Experience and span of control is still not a strong predictor of coaching effectiveness.
  • High performing sales coaches customize feedback at the individual level of every member of their sales team.
  • Star leaders who place greater emphasis on coaching and mentoring have sales teams that continually overachieve on a consistent basis.
  • Salespeople are highly receptive to quality coaching—they want to be coached.

The key to Modern-Day coaching is the ability to shift the performance distribution curve of your entire team to the right. Imagine the financial impact of having every member of your sales team or organization improve by a minimum of 10% in 2019.  Using Salesforce and supporting coaching technologies, even the most novice leaders can quickly transform every member of their sales team to win more, fill pipeline gaps, hit goals, and achieve career aspirations better than ever before.

If you want to become a Modern-Day Sales Coach, join us in transforming your sales teams in ways you never thought possible.

Want To Know More About Xvoyant?

Our insight comes from combined decades (no, really) of business experience. The technology and methodologies behind our Employee Coaching & Human Capital Performance Platform will take your sales team to a whole new level you never thought possible.