Why Sales Coaching Matters for Sales Performance

Sales Coaching Matters
When you wonder why your sales team is not achieving the success you had hoped for, look into how much time is being spent on sales coaching.  Why?  Because sales coaching matters.

Skilled Sales Coaches Can be the Key to Solution Selling Success
When you have a standardized selling process that is supported by proven solution selling training. a proven sales coaching methodology, and research-backed sales management training you have set your sales team up to perform at their peak.  While 3-out-of-4 organizations do not make consistent use of a formal sales coaching process, the effort is worth it. When sales reps receive consistent sales coaching and are held accountable for the way they sell and to whom they sell to:

• Win rates improve by almost 20%
• They outperform their peers 4-to-1 in terms of revenue and margin
• Their forecast accuracy improves more than 25%

Where to Start
First, before sales coaching matters, make sure you have a clear and compelling sales strategy to guide your team. Sales coaches need to know how to translate the sales strategy into daily, weekly, and monthly sales behaviors so sales reps:

• Run the right race
• Select the right ideal target clients
• Sell the right value proposition
• Practice the right sales behaviors
• Measure the right sales activities

Who to Focus On
Improvement takes effort, and coaching takes time. When a sales rep doesn’t have the desire to do the demanding work required to reach a new level of performance, sales coaching is pretty futile. From our perspective, desire, not talent or skill, is the only ticket required to enter a sales coaching session.

The responsibility of the sales coach is to be prepared and available — but if the sales rep is unwilling to put in the effort to improve, what’s the point? And that means more than just going through the motions. If that’s all that happens, change will never occur.

Focus your sales coaching time and efforts on sales reps with a high enough desire to change and improve.

How to Create Accountability
Sales managers should stay close to their reps so they can get an accurate picture of what’s going on. Their role is to help with pre-call sales plans, check in regularly, monitor, observe, and suggest possible actions to move a sale through the sales funnel. They need to know how their sales reps are spending their time and with whom.

• Unqualified Prospects
  When sales reps are spending time on unlikely buyers, sales coaches need to push them toward more likely prospects that fit the overall go-to-market strategy.
• Internal & Buyer Obstacles
  When sales reps are overwhelmed by obstacles in a sale, coaches can help sort out what needs to be done to overcome them.
• Customer Centricity
  When sales reps need help addressing a customer need or solving a customer problem, a good sales coach can pull in needed resources or provide insights on how to proceed.

The Bottom Line
We know from sales leadership simulation assessment data that sales coaching matters.  High performing sales leaders know how to lead, manage, and coach to higher performance.  Don’t underestimate the value of sales coaching to raise sales performance. Effective and consistent sales coaching has a 4-to-1 difference between hitting your sales quota and missing your sales targets.

To help ensure that your sales coaching matters, download  The Biggest Sales Coaching Mistakes to Avoid According to Top Sales Reps