Frequent Sales Coaching Boosts Sales Training Success

Frequent Sales Coaching Matters
Based upon over 800 sales training measurement projects, we know that solution selling training without the support of consistent and frequent sales coaching is often an exercise in futility.

Frequent Sales Coaching Improves Your Chances
Sure, customized and targeted solution selling training helps sales reps to become more aware of the business sales skills required to succeed. But our research found that, on average, only 1-in-5 sales reps change their on-the-job behavior and performance after sales training alone.  If you want to change behavior after sales training, ensure that sales managers and participants:

• Are clear about how the new skills and behaviors will help drive the sales strategy forward
• Are held accountable for the new consultative selling skills and behaviors on a consistent basis
• Believe that changing their behavior is in their best interests
• Are regularly supported by a competent sales coach to help them along the way

What Makes Sales Coaching Effective?
What does it take to be an effective sales coach — the kind of coach that helps their people to perform at their peak?

1. Credibility
   Frequent sales coaching is credible only if the sales coach has successfully “carried a bag.”  Sales coaches need to know what it takes to develop mastery.

   Make sure your sales coaches understand how to break learning down into sequential developmental steps, have attained a degree of competence that can inspire others, and have a record of accomplishment that correlates to your exact situation.

2. Focus on Performance Improvement
   The role of a sales coach is quite simply to improve sales performance in terms of: Being — how people behave and Doing — the desired performance results.

   Performance improvement is the goal that both partners — sales coach and coachee — should commit to and share. The most successful sales coaching relationships are win-win partnerships — the sales coach derives fulfillment from helping someone get better and the coachee derives satisfaction from clear and measurable progress toward meaningful objectives.

   Make sure that expectations are agreed upon, goals are set, performance is measured, and accomplishments are rewarded.

3. Ability to Provide Meaningful Feedback
   The best sales coaches keep the focus forward. They don’t stress what went wrong; they help the coachee understand how to do things better next time. They know how to motivate and inspire —not with formal lectures but with relevant, timely, specific, and honest feedback and encouragement.

The Bottom Line
If you want to improve business sales training skill adoption, behavior change, and performance results, add regular sales coaching to reinforce your sales training.  Sales forces that get it right, boost performance 4-to-1 compared to sales reps who do not receive consistent and frequent sales coaching.

To learn more about frequent sales coaching best practices, download The Truth About Sales Coaching’s Biggest Mistakes