How to Fix the Top 4 Flaws of Dated Sales Coaching
Welcome to?How to Sales Enablement, our series of trends, tips, and tactics for enabling sales teams.
When our VP of Sales Richard Smith was starting off in the world of sales some ten years or so ago, he recalled that he'd infrequently be accompanied by his manager to sales meetings. The purpose of this in the field ride-along would be so that his manager could observe him in action and give what's called the “taxi debrief” at the end of the meeting.
It was essentially a critique of things Richard had done well or (occasionally) things he should have done better. In hindsight, and after studying the evolution of coaching even in that relatively short space of time, he realized this approach was full of flaws.
Often his manager would "take-over" the sales meeting. He would see Richard struggling to handle a question, or simply felt he could handle a tough situation better, and would jump in. This is natural of course. Sales managers want the best outcome in a sales opportunity and the temptation to "save and rescue" can be very strong.
The "taxi-debrief" was often a rushed conversation, hardly high-quality sales coaching. Over and done within a matter of minutes. It was difficult to properly cover everything which had happened in what could have been an hour or more meeting.
It was really hard to "self-reflect" because the meeting was already being lost in the memory. A lot happens in an hour-long, sometimes high-pressure conversation. Richard couldn’t often remember all of the "coaching moments" which had occurred. Critical learning events which could have massively improved his sales performance were often never discussed.
These ride-alongs happened so infrequently. The time and cost requirements for managers to spend traveling across the country with him were restrictive for the company. Not to mention, Richard was just one rep out of six on the team. Coaching opportunities were ultimately few and far between.
Coaching was never truly measured with this approach. The manager could have diagnosed that one of Richard's development areas was asking tough questions. But really, there was no formal way of ensuring this was recorded and worked on. Coaching, when not measured, is rarely going to be effective.
Thankfully, ten years on there are now much better ways to coach sales teams.
Here at Allego, we work with some of the most innovative companies when it comes to finding new and better ways to coach sales teams. Here are four creative ways in which they are fixing flaws of outdated coaching.
Like sports, in sales... practice makes perfect. The more we refine and craft our pitch to the questions and scenarios we come up against day in day out, the more accomplished and confident we will sound to our prospects. Create sales simulations using video scenario challenges, and invite reps to take part by recording their response or reaction. These present great follow-up or reinforcement activities for face-to-face training, as it actually gets reps to prove they can put into practice the skills you have been training them on—often a missing piece when it comes to sales training.
Importantly, getting reps to practice handling objections, opening sales calls, or working on their positioning statements reduces the chances of them making mistakes in crucial live sales conversations. The true value of these challenges is the limited time investment required to administer and take part, versus the huge amount of coachable insight they generate.
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2. Record and analyze live sales conversations.
As the world increasingly moves to selling online or over the phone versus face-to-face, there becomes less of a need for managers to observe live in the field, on expensive ride alongs. Companies are now getting reps to record their prospecting, discovery, demo, and negotiation calls, so they can analyze and feedback retrospectively.
Moreover, they can do this from the comfort of their own office, without needing to fly to another state or city to do this in person. It's essentially virtual call coaching and a much more effective way of understanding how a rep is executing in live sales situations rather than relying on a rep to debrief.
Platforms like Allego make it incredibly easy for sales reps to record their calls, but also to flag key insights and coaching analysis such as ‘speaking versus listening time’ and how engaged they get their prospects to coaches.
3. Get sales reps to critique their own sales conversations.
Effective sales coaching is not all about telling reps what they could improve on or even what they did particularly well. Just like Richard's taxi debrief highlights above, the importance of reflection is crucial in getting reps to self-discover their own strengths and weaknesses. Sales coaches we work with encourage salespeople to listen back to their own sales calls and essentially deliver feedback to themselves. They then match this up to what the coach thinks to see if there is alignment or to receive more expert guidance and feedback.
The beauty of this is that it ultimately frees up coaching time, which is often at a premium. It also enables sales managers to measure the "coachability" level of reps, as they can see how open salespeople are at giving themselves constructive feedback, rather than this always coming from a coach.
4. Record and analyze sales manager coaching conversations.
Sales coaching is not just about making reps more effective, but also about making sales managers more accomplished at coaching their own reps. Effective coaching stems from having powerful coaching conversations and role-plays with sales reps. Organizations we work with are now getting sales managers to record their coaching conversations so they can analyze and give feedback, just as if it were a live sales call with a prospect.
Some sales coaches are even recording their own coaching conversations, to share as model examples for aspiring sales managers, and ultimately give a framework of best practice which they can try and replicate.
Sales coaching has evolved and the barriers to delivering sales coaching-on-demand are lower than ever. The average sales manager typically invests less than 5% of their time coaching their reps. Only 7% of all sales managers are effective at coaching. They don’t do it frequently, they restrict it to only a few of their reps, it’s usually not interactive, and it often doesn’t have the desired outcome of level-jumping performance.
Embrace some of these ideas, and you’ll be on the right path to sales coaching success.
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