Sales coaching means developing your team by walking with them throughout the sales process.
Organizations that invest in coaching reap higher revenue and succeed more in their sales campaigns. A report by LinkedIn shows that sales reps that have been coached record a higher probability of attaining their quotas.
Coaching differs from daily management because it focuses on developing the sales team. It is a continuous and deliberate process that looks at long-term successes while focusing on short-term goals. There are different strategies that you can use to enhance your sales performance coaching.
Leverage technology
Traditional sales coaching methods work well, but they have limitations. If you want to become more effective, leverage technology to offer customized and individualized coaching. The sales coaching software by Revenue Grid makes your coaching highly scalable and effective. You can use it to share sales best practices and provide AI-powered guidance to your sales reps. Technology can help optimize sales training in different ways.
- Giving personalized coaching based on the sales rep’s learning style
- Facilitation of virtual workshops useful for remote teams
- Creating e-learning modules that can meet specific sales rep needs
- Preparing and implementing video conferences and mobile-optimized content
- Building social networks with the sales team
- Use of CRM to get insights into sales opportunities
Leverage collaboration
The purpose of sales coaching is to harness the skills of your sales team so that they can close deals more effectively. Do not work with the sales reps as a separate unit. Instead, team up with other teams such as the marketing team. Your team will learn some skills from each department that they can use to improve their productivity.
Coach more and teach less
Many sales managers give more energy into teaching and forget the importance of coaching. Teaching means imparting knowledge to your team. Coaching means walking with them on the journey and letting them learn from you as you do. It also means guiding them into what to do and letting them do it.
Include a wide range of skills
The best productive sales team is the one that is all-rounded in terms of skills. One skill is not enough. To excel, salespeople need to have a wide range of skills. The range of skills you offer can include the following:
- Communication skills
- Listening skills
- Product knowledge
- Sales Process
- Presentation
- Creating stories
- Opening deals
- Closing deals
Organize regular meetings
Consistency is an important aspect of sales coaching. In the groundbreaking sessions, you may organize compacted meetings to help build stronger bonds. Friendship is necessary for sales performance coaching. After that, space the meetings but organize them often. The best recommendation is to meet every fortnight for a session and to give feedback.
Give your team a challenge
Sales coaching is about helping your team learn the work hands-on. After a theoretical session, offer a practical lesson. Give them a challenge that is harder to accomplish. Help them set for themselves a higher target and let them stretch beyond their limits. The challenge might be tough for them but it will help them improve their skills and become productive.
Build authentic trust
Your sales team needs to build trust with you, but they also need to believe your trust is authentic. When you help them to solve problems, offer them real-life examples to help them overcome the problem while on the job. If you fail in any way, swallow your pride and acknowledge that you failed. This will help them trust you and freely share with you their challenges, ideas, and fears.
Coach both managers and sales reps
Managers too need coaching to become effective in managing the company. The organization will stay in the lane of profitability if sales increase and thus revenue generation. Managers help build stronger customer service, product development, and workforce cohesiveness. Include them in your sales reps' coaching strategy.
Conclusion
Sales performance coaching is different from teaching. It needs to go beyond providing knowledge and instructions to walking with your sales reps to help them make deals, meet targets, and communicate better. Create a coaching plan and use technology to make it effective through personalized coaching.
