What is Sales Coaching?
Sales coaching consists of ongoing training for sales reps. It helps ensure they’re always up to date and familiar with the latest sales tactics and strategies, and have the tools and resources they need to successfully achieve their targets.
Sales coaching is essential; a thoroughly trained sales rep will remain confident in their role, complete more deals, and effectively help ensure a company’s overall growth.
Why is Sales Coaching Important?
Implementing a sales coaching strategy is important for many reasons. If your company doesn’t have one, start putting one together. It will help with the following:
- Boost performance. A well-trained sales team has more tools, resources and knowledge, which they can leverage to close more sales and generate more revenue. If you don’t invest anything in your staff, they’ll only be able to provide so much for the company.
- Remain competitive. Sales coaching allows sales reps to stay on top of industry trends. This will give them an edge when interacting with sales prospects.
- Achieve goals and objectives. Sales coaching is intended to help staff reach their personal and overall team goals, which in turn generates revenue and contributes to a company’s overall growth.
- Address roadblocks. Individual sales coaching should be utilized to address specific topics for each sales rep on the team. If they’re struggling with a unique roadblock, give them the opportunity to learn how to overcome it.
- Provide professional development opportunities. Regular sales coaching will also help with staff retention, as it contributes to individual career growth.
Tips for Effective Sales Coaching
Align Sales Coaching with Strategic Goals
Ensure sales reps are being coached on topics that will help achieve their specific goals.
If you’re aiming to increase add-ons by 15%, coach sales reps on how to efficiently upsell to existing customers. If 20% of sales reps are consistently missing targets, schedule them for specific training to address issues they’re facing
Know what you’re working towards and align sales coaching appropriately
Set Aside Time
It’s easy to say, “our sales reps will participate in sales coaching,” but when will they? Actively blocking off time and dedicating it to training sessions will ensure staff participate in sales coaching sessions. Determine a realistic schedule and stick to it.
If finding time is difficult, provide your sales team with engaging content they can engage with on their own time. Podcasts are great to include as a training tool. There are countless sales podcasts to explore, and all of them will provide tips and general advice that a sales rep can put into practice.
Make Learning Fun
Not all staff will be excited to participate in sales coaching. If you’re able to make the experience fun and meaningful, it will be more effective. Create friendly competitions within teams, and switch up mediums of learning (online courses, peer mentoring, lunch and learns, etc.).
Role Play Within the Sales Team
Sales reps are outgoing people and thrive on interactions. They also bring their own unique experience and knowledge to their teams, so why not share it with each other?
Simple role-playing activities will get sales reps talking to each other and working through different scenarios where they can coach each other and share tips.
Get Feedback from Your Team
It’s one thing to provide sales coaching opportunities, but is it actually providing benefits? Sales reps will be more likely to participate in training sessions and connect with the learning material if it’s on a topic they are truly interested in. Ask for feedback on what they want to learn about, or where they need more guidance.