A new year brings new goals, new targets, and new opportunities. But while markets evolve and tools change, the fundamentals of sales success remain the same. The biggest gains in 2026 will not come from chasing trends. They will come from consistent execution of proven behaviors!

These 26 sales tips are not meant to be revolutionary. They are reminders of what works. Use them to sharpen your focus, strengthen your discipline, and build momentum throughout the year.

The 9 Skills to Sales Coaching Success

1. Debriefs Effectively
Great coaches do more than ask how the call went. They dig into what actually happened. This skill focuses on structured, consistent debriefs that uncover the salesperson’s execution, thought process, and patterns. It emphasizes understanding the how rather than focusing only on the outcome.

2. Is Effective on Joint Calls
Coaches who only attend closing meetings miss the valuable learning moments. This skill highlights how to observe early stage calls, set expectations before the meeting, and avoid stepping in to rescue the salesperson so they can learn and strengthen their process.

3. Asks Quality Questions
Powerful coaching is built on powerful questions. Instead of interrogating or correcting, this skill focuses on using open ended questions that help reps identify gaps in their performance, reflect on their approach, and take ownership of their development.

4. Understands Impact of Sales DNA
Challenges such as fear of rejection, need for approval, discomfort discussing money, or an unproductive buy cycle can quietly influence sales behavior. This skill explains how effective coaches spot these issues and help reps address the root cause rather than the surface level problem.

5. Demonstrates an Effective Selling System
A coach cannot reinforce what they cannot model. This skill outlines how coaches demonstrate the core selling system, teach the reasoning behind it, and use examples and stories to help reps understand why the system works.

6. Is Effective at Getting Commitments
Improvement requires commitment. This skill helps coaches connect reps’ personal goals to their required behaviors, identify the gap between current performance and desired outcomes, and guide the rep toward committing to meaningful change.

7. Consistently Coaches Skills and Behaviors
Coaching should not be a once in a while activity. This skill focuses on establishing dedicated coaching time, emphasizing how the rep executed each step, and using repetition, role play, and drill for skill to build mastery.

8. Understands Impact of Will to Sell
Desire, commitment, outlook, motivation, and responsibility shape how a salesperson approaches their role. This skill explains how a coach can help reps strengthen these elements, eliminate excuses, and maintain the mindset needed for consistent performance.

9. Effectively Onboards New Hires
Success begins the moment someone joins the team. This skill emphasizes clear expectations, weekly coaching, pipeline inspection, and early identification of choke points so new hires ramp up more effectively and avoid developing bad habits.

You can access our audio clips on the 9 Sales Coaching Skills for free HERE!

These nine skills serve as the foundation of strong sales coaching. Our audio library gives you a clear and direct explanation of each skill, making it easy to learn, apply, and strengthen your coaching approach. Whether you are working to improve your team’s consistency, develop new managers, or sharpen your own leadership style, these short audio clips provide practical guidance that helps coaches lead more effectively and support the long term success of their sales teams.

In this article, we discuss the 3 rules every successful salesperson must follow in order to eliminate stalls and objections during the sales process. These rules create the structure needed to consistently have powerful sales conversations.

The Difference Between Typical and Powerful Sales Conversations

There is an important distinction between having a powerful sales conversation and a typical sales discussion, and it starts with a position of trust. If your salespeople have done the due diligence of researching the prospect or client and understanding what their industry and company challenges may be, then they have a better chance of having a powerful sales conversation.

But the prospect must be coming from a position of trust and hopefully some curiosity about what your salesperson can do for them. These conversations require thoughtful preparation, personalization, and a structured approach that guides the discussion from understanding problems to presenting value and ultimately closing the sale.

The Two Taboo Topics That Block Powerful Sales Conversations

In our work helping clients develop their sales talent, we know there are two topics consistently avoided, and both are to the detriment of the salesperson. Those two taboo topics are:

1. Discussing the incumbent

2. Uncovering the budget

There is an age-old debate about which came first, the chicken or the egg. While that debate may never be solved, there is one “which comes first” situation that shouldn’t be up for debate, and that is whether you should show the solution first or know the budget first.

Our definition of budget is broader than just the monetary investment. It includes three categories commonly known as TMR: Time, Money, and Resources. What is the prospect willing to commit in the context of time, money, and resources to make their problem go away or achieve their goals? Stronger sales professionals don’t shy away from this discussion. They are successful because they follow these rules.

Rule #1: Have the Conversation

The 800-pound budget gorilla is in the room, so talk about it. Don’t make it part of your opening conversation, but don’t ignore it either. If the need is big enough and your solution fixes it, most of the time they will find the money.

Rule #2: Provide Context

Regardless of the investment your prospect needs to make to fix their problem, it needs to be framed in the context of their pain and your ability to eliminate it. If the pain is minimal, then your solution won’t seem that meaningful.

We have had prospects tell us their problem is a “two-comma problem,” meaning their cost of turnover was over one million dollars. That is context. Skillful salespeople who know how to have powerful sales conversations understand their prospect’s cost and level of personal pain before proceeding.

Rule #3: Don’t Show Your Solution Until You Know the Budget

It’s really that simple. If you have ever provided a solution to a prospect only to hear them say, “That’s more than we intended to spend,” then you have an issue discussing the budget.

Does it make sense to know their appetite for change, including budget, before you provide your solution? Here is where strong sales professionals stand apart. If the prospect doesn’t want to discuss budget, it is usually for one of two reasons. They haven’t uncovered enough pain, or the prospect simply wants to use them as a pencil sharpener for the competition. Your salespeople don’t get paid to be pencil sharpeners, so don’t let them become a means for prospects to get a better price from their current provider.

Salespeople do not need to be afraid of the budget or incumbent conversation. They must initiate and welcome these discussions because they are the basis of powerful sales conversations. In our history of working with companies, once they instill this with their people, relationships deepen and their salespeople move one step closer to being in an advisory position.

FAQ: Powerful Sales Conversations

Why do powerful sales conversations matter?
They help salespeople move beyond surface-level discussions and uncover the real issues driving a prospect’s need for change. When conversations are structured and intentional, it becomes easier to eliminate stalls and objections.

How do I know if my team is actually having powerful sales conversations?
If your salespeople consistently uncover pain, explore the prospect’s investment capacity, and address the incumbent early, they’re on the right track. If they avoid those topics, they are likely stuck in typical sales discussions.

Why do salespeople avoid talking about the budget?
It usually comes down to discomfort or fear of losing the opportunity. But strong sales professionals know that avoiding the budget leads to mismatched expectations and stalled deals.

When should the budget conversation happen?
Not at the very beginning, but well before presenting a solution. The prospect’s level of pain and commitment should guide the timing.

Is discussing the incumbent really necessary?
Yes. Without understanding who the prospect currently works with and why, the salesperson can’t position themselves effectively or eliminate the risk of becoming a “pencil sharpener.”

Can powerful sales conversations work in any industry?
Yes. The principles apply to any sales role where trust, preparation, and uncovering the truth behind a prospect’s challenges matter.

What if a prospect refuses to discuss budget?
It typically means one of two things. Either the salesperson hasn’t uncovered enough pain yet, or the prospect is gathering prices to negotiate with their current provider. Both situations can be handled with stronger process and questioning.

The Cost of Tolerating “Pretty Good”

Let’s pretend that you just invested $500,000 in the latest technology to “tighten up” the reporting on your company’s payables, receivables, compensation reports, taxes, and forecasting. The company you bought the service from told you that it would take about 90 days to work any bugs out, but certainly, by year-end, your expectations would be met.

Around the 90-day mark, you meet with your CFO and ask, “How’s it going?” She responds, “Pretty good!” You then inquire, “Pretty good means?” She replies:

• Our payable reports are about 66% correct, but trending in the right direction.
• Our overdue receivables still average 45 days, but we’re making progress.
• Our compensation expenses are off by about 5% and we’re not sure why, but we’re working on it.
• Taxes? Well, my best guess is that we are going to owe between 10% and 20% more than last year.
• As far as forecasting revenue, our pipeline shows $5,000,000 to be closed in the next 6 months, but we’re not yet confident that the number is accurate.

How do you feel about your investment? What is your reaction to a lack of success at meeting expectations? How long would you tolerate the continuance of this failure? I’m not sure you’d fire your CFO, CTO, HR, or consultant, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t say, “Okay, let’s give it another 60 days.”

What Nobody Talks About in Building a Successful Sales Environment

This is a bit of a stretch scenario, but the point I want to make is that you probably get a report like this about your sales team; you just don’t know it. What isn’t revealed in a sales meeting or in your monthly meeting with your sales manager is the detail behind the big numbers you talk about.

You talk about YOY results, sales YTD against plan, and maybe even how you’re doing against other sales divisions or peers in your industry. What you don’t see or hear about is this:

• Over 90% of your results are probably coming from 36% of your sales team.
• The bottom 36% of your sales team is likely responsible for less than 4% of your total sales.
• Of the last 4 hires, only 1 of them is doing better than the people they replaced.
• The cost of putting the other 3 in the market for 12 months and then replacing them is a two-comma problem over 5 years.
• If you really wanted to drive profit, you could probably eliminate the bottom 36% and increase profitability significantly.
• Some of your more senior people are not performing nearly as well as some of your new people.

The challenge to organizations (and what matters most) is the answer to the question: Are we hitting our numbers? If that answer is yes, you’re okay. BUT if you are unwilling to accept 90% correct in your tax estimate or compensation projections, why are you settling for anything less than 100% execution from your entire sales team?

3 Steps to Building a Successful Sales Environment

These three tools will help your organization build a successful sales environment and correct what’s broken.

1. Speed to Failure
With your new hires, do your best to find out quickly if both of you made the right decision. Make sure that, as you are making the offer, you let them know everything they are going to have to go through, how they will be managed, and all that is expected of them in the first 90 days and the following 6 months.

2. Conversation is King
Despite all the technology that is available to help your salespeople create opportunities, nothing yet has replaced the value of quality conversations and coaching. This means you need to have a very high standard for training, practice, and preparation before you put people out into the market. These consistent conversations are the foundation of building a successful sales environment.

3. Use Sales Technology That Supports Selling
The technology that you buy to support sales must support sales first, then finance. Your sales technology should make it easy for salespeople to communicate with suspects, prospects, and clients. It should be easy to use and provide extremely useful information for both the sales manager and salespeople. It should make it simple for your team to consistently follow your sales process and help you predict, with a high level of validity, what is actually going to get sold over any given time frame.

Implementing these three steps will go a long way toward building a successful sales environment and improving the productivity of your entire team.

FAQ: Building a Successful Sales Environment

Q: What is a “sales environment”?
A: A sales environment refers to the systems, culture, and tools that influence how your sales team performs. A strong environment promotes accountability, communication, and clear expectations.

Q: How long does it take to build a successful sales environment?
A: While quick wins can happen within 90 days, building a truly successful sales environment requires consistent coaching, clear metrics, and leadership commitment over time.

Q: What’s the biggest mistake leaders make when trying to improve sales performance?
A: Many leaders rely too heavily on technology or metrics without focusing on conversation quality and accountability. The best results come from combining strong systems with daily coaching and real dialogue.

Q: Can smaller teams benefit from this approach?
A: Absolutely. Whether you have 5 salespeople or 50, these same steps—speed to failure, consistent conversations, and the right technology—can transform your results.

In our recent webinar, Finding & Growing Your Future Leaders, Jack Kasel and Alex Cole-Murphy explored how top-performing financial institutions identify, develop, and retain leadership talent. They discussed the four key components of a strong succession plan and shared insights on how leaders can use data and coaching to prepare their next generation of high performers.

Why Leadership Assessments Matter

Jack and Alex emphasized that finding the right people for leadership roles starts with a structured assessment process. Resumes and interviews only tell part of the story. Effective organizations use sales-specific tools, such as Objective Management Group (OMG) assessments, to evaluate candidates on 21 Core Sales Competencies. These tools help uncover the traits and belief systems that drive real performance.

Beyond assessment, leaders must also understand their own biases and blind spots. Recognizing how personal beliefs shape coaching and hiring decisions allows organizations to make better, more objective leadership choices.

Coaching Over Commanding

Great leaders coach; they don't command. Moving from a sales role to a leadership role requires a different skill set. Handling rejection, motivating others, and developing emotional intelligence are crucial for success. As Alex shared, “Positional authority may get short-term results, but personal power inspires long-term growth.”

Leaders who engage in regular coaching conversations, roleplay exercises, and feedback sessions create more resilient teams. Jack added that challenging team members with high standards helps them grow, but it’s the coaching process that keeps them engaged and improving.

Building a Strong Succession Plan

Succession planning should be proactive, not reactive. The best organizations develop leaders before they need them. Jack and Alex discussed how using consistent data, clear accountability, and repeatable hiring processes ensures that leadership transitions happen smoothly. They encouraged companies to think beyond immediate needs and start developing internal talent now because the future of your business depends on it.

Watch the entire webinar above! 

FAQs

1. How do I identify future leaders within my team?
Look for team members who take initiative, handle challenges well, and influence others positively — not just your top performers.

2. What’s the best way to develop emerging leaders?
Provide stretch assignments, coaching, and feedback that build both confidence and decision-making skills over time.

3. How can I create a culture that grows leaders at every level?
Model strong leadership behaviors, encourage ownership, and make development a regular part of performance conversations.

Contact the Speakers:

Alex Cole-Murphy: alex@anthonycoletraining.com

Jack Kasel: jack@anthonycoletraining.com