Sales coaching is the ‘the process of developing and accelerating sales managers and representative performance by initiating enduring behavioural changes’. Every sales leader wants a productive, efficient, and effective sales team, but only 1/3 of sales people meet or exceed quota. Sales managers who do not invest the time and resources into coaching are missing out on a valuable opportunity and effective way to develop their salesforce.
Given the range of skills a sales manager needs to be successful, where should a sales organization start? EEW recommend Sales Coaching since this skill has a significant “force multiplier” effect. Teaching managers how to coach produces a high return on training investment, as one trained manager can coach multiple sales representatives and improve their overall performance. According to the Corporate Executive Board, a leading research and advisory services company, effective sales coaching can potentially increase top-line revenue by up to 20 percent. With such potential benefits it is no wonder that many sales organizations recommend that their front-line sales managers spend 25% – 45% of their time sales coaching.
There are two types of sales coaching: strategic and tactical. Strategic coaching focuses on how a sales representative approaches an account in order to acquire new business or sell deeper into existing accounts.
Strategic coaching focuses on helping sales representatives work through challenges such as account penetration, inability to access decision makers, competitive issues and formulating overall account strategies.
Tactical coaching, on the other hand, focuses on selling skills and knowledge. Here the sales manager observes and analyzes a sale representative’s selling skills or sales knowledge in an actual sales call, discuss what went well and areas for improvement, and then provides constructive feedback.
While both forms of sales coaching are important, we find that many sales managers have the most difficulty with tactical sales coaching. With this type of coaching the sales manager must act as a teacher and help their sales representative learn or improve specific selling skills. That, however, can be exceedingly challenging for sales managers.
Remember, many sales managers were formerly successful sales representatives before being promoted into sales management. For them selling came naturally and they often cannot understand why one of their team members isn’t “getting it.” Moreover, sales coaching is an on-going process in which as sales manager must coach his entire team in a systematic manner.
Fortunately, sales coaching is a skill that can be learned, practiced and perfected. A sales organization should focus on a sales coaching model that is simple for its sales managers to learn and use. In addition, the sales organization should set clear expectations as to the amount of time it expects sales managers to spend coaching their sales representatives (25%-40% is typical for a high performing sales organization).
EEW Sales Coaching is driven by outcome of Sales Process and Sales Team leading to Excellence in Overall Revenue, Profit, Productivity.