By Steve Jensen
5 min read
Your job as a sales leader is hard. Just tell your reps what you expect, and they do their job, right? The reality is that you roll the dice with every hire. There are skill and knowledge gaps in your team, and you feel like you are in the dark about deal status. The answer is Sales Coaching.
Why All the Hype?
It’s simple: it works. Companies are beginning to understand the quantifiable value of good sales coaching. It has a direct effect on the bottom line. It’s a bonafide competitive advantage. Best of all, you can achieve the gains without any additional FTE, systems, or resources.
Also, in this millennial era, you must give your reps more than a quota. They are looking for something beyond a monetary reward. They are looking for mentorship—for guidance, education—and they are looking to you to provide it.
If you can establish a dynamic coaching program, your retention improves, onboarding time is reduced, and morale is better.
Is Anyone Doing It?
More and more sales leaders are creating coaching programs. Almost X% of sales teams have some sort of regular coaching. The larger the team and the more geographically dispersed, the more coaching programs are critical to individual and overall corporate success.
But there is a coaching gap. 8% of leaders say they do a great job coaching while only 48% of reps say they are receiving any coaching at all (you can find the study here). The system is failing somewhere. The gap exists because of a lack of a formalized process. Many sales teams are just one step away from a full-fledged coaching program.
How Much Time Does It Take?
But how can you possibly have the time to coach to achieve those kinds of results? It’s easy, and it takes a lot less time than you think—½ hour per week per rep. That’s it. If you manage a 10-rep team, that’s 5 hours per week. If that’s just impossible, do it every other week. The real power is in the consistency. Make that one-on-one sacrosanct.
Get a commitment in each one-on-one. The goal(s) should be mutually agreed-upon and reflect improvement.
Is It a Proven Practice?
So here are the numbers: Coaching improves win rates by 28%. Production goes up 25%. Sales coaching results in a variance in quota achievement: 9% positive impact, -6% negative impact for teams without a coaching process—that’s a 15% difference. (Sales Management Association in Sales Practice Brief, 2018). In fact, with good coaching, the percent of reps hitting quota rises 20%. 20%!
Does It Make a Difference?
But what does that mean? What would 1/4 more of your reps hitting their number do for you and your company? What would it mean for a quarter of your core and poor performers to actually hit quota?
We’ve all seen the numbers associated with sales coaching. I could throw more results and percentages at you, but what you are really interested in is, “what does it do for me?”
Bottom line, almost every KPI improves with sales coaching. Even the smallest investment yields huge, measurable results. Your team will close more deals, get more done and stay with the company longer.
The real killer is Salesforce adoption. With our customers, it goes up a staggering 95%. If you want to improve adoption, coaching is the answer.
Can I Do It?
It’s simpler than you think. Coaching is all about cadence. You’ve been there, and you know your stuff—just start sharing it on a frequent basis. Instead of a casual word around the water cooler, make and keep an appointment where you share with the rep, and the rep has a chance to bring up their concerns.
A rep should walk away from any one-on-one feeling like they learned something, and like they are better prepared to sell. Remember—commitment, not conversation.
What’s The Takeaway?
Ultimately, the answers to these questions are simple. Of course, you can do it. You can make the time. You can be a great coach, and your team and company will benefit. You just need to start holding regular one-on-ones. You will begin to reap the rewards almost instantly.
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Steve Jensen is Vice President of Marketing at Xvoyant.