In analyzing those salespeople who are successful year after year, we have found significant consistencies in behavior, sales skills, and practice management. We call these The 7 Activities for Sales Success. If your sales team can adopt these 7 habits, you will be amazed at how your sales will improve.

1. The ONLY “A” priority is prospecting. Successful salespeople service accounts just like everyone else. They also have“fires” to extinguish and meetings to attend. But they let nothing get in the way of consistent prospecting. They don’t have to like prospecting; they just have to do it. Of course, if your salespeople learn to like prospecting, they will do more of it. A sales leader’s coaching of this important sales behavior is also critical for success.
   
   
2. Don’t look, act or sound like every other salesperson calling on the prospect. Create a unique approach – your salespeople can’t just say that they are different. They must also demonstrate it. As sales leader, if you were the prospect, would you take their call? If not, then their approach needs some work.
   
   
3. Have an ideal prospect profile and look for candidates that fit this profile. You can help your salespeople do this by evaluating their best clients. Are their best customers typically Fortune 500 size or small family-owned companies? Are they regionally based, national, or are they local? Do they have thousands of employees? Are they retail organizations? , etc. Your salespeople must know who they are targeting.
   
   
4. Successful prospectors understand that the purpose of a call is to set an appointment with a qualified candidate. Your salespeople must stop seeing everyone and anyone who will see them. They must make sure the prospect qualifies to do business prior to setting an appointment. They also must stop selling on the phone.
   
   
5. The quality of the phone call determines the quality of the appointment. The goal, while on the phone, is to identify if the prospect has a problem that can be solved. First, they must establish that the prospect would like to fix the problem. Even though the prospect may identify a “problem” on the phone, this isn’t typically the real problem. Your salespeople must ask questions like “Why is that a problem?” and “How much is the problem costing you?”

6. Prospects want to meet professionals through introductions, not cold calls. Help your producers learn how to ask for introductions from their COIs and current clients as their first prospecting strategy. This is a proven practice of “elite” producers.
   
   
7. “Drill down” past the pain or problem indicators (symptoms). Here are a series of questions to provide and help your salespeople get past the initial symptoms that a prospect will verbalize:
   
   
   • Tell me…
   • How long has this been a problem?
   • What have you done…?
   • When you spoke with…?
   • What has your current provider done to make this problem go away?
   • What happens if you don’t fix…?
   • How much is it costing…?
   • Is that a problem?
   • Do you want to or have to fix it?

As sales leader and coach, you must track their activity and look for ways to coach and improve revenue by improving technique. For instance, your salesperson may be great at getting a first meeting, but not adept at uncovering real opportunities. There is your area to coach them. If you track these vital numbers, you can start to improve the areas where they fall short.

Review The 7 Activities for Sales Success with your sales team and ask them which sales skill or habit is most important today andfor the next 30 days. Then have them commit to adopting or changing that one behavior or practice and track their success.

Excerpt from Objective Management Group’s recent webinar on The Data Behind Sales Managers of Elite Teams. The third chapter of this guide addresses a fundamental question: What qualities matter most for building an elite team. Through a deep analysis of sales evaluations and coaching frequencies, we uncover the impact of consistent coaching on various aspects of sales performance.

In prior posts we discussed how to lay the foundation for a coachable sales team, and how frequently managers should provide coaching. In this segment we’ll explore what managers of top performing teams do differently and which manager qualities matter the most for building highly effective sales teams.

Based on extensive evaluations and predictive analysis, we identify three key attributes of an elite sales team manager:

1. Coaching their teams to get a prospect’s commitment to make a decision
2. Supportive coaching beliefs
3. Having a passion for coaching

We’ll delve into each attribute, explaining how they significantly contribute to the development of high-performing sales teams and why they are crucial for sales managers to cultivate.

We have examined the OMG Sales Evaluations of over 44,000 salespeople and their managers with a specific focus on which management coaching elements are associated with elite sales teams. First, we identified the top 10% of salespeople, ranked by OMG’s Sales Percentile. Then we ran their managers’ evaluations through a predictive decision tree analysis to see which management competencies lead to the greatest increase in high performing salespeople on a team. This is what we learned.

Managers who are effective at helping their salespeople get prospects to commit to a decision have +40% more top performers than managers who are ineffective at coaching on decision making. Why is this so predictive of success?

If your managers are helping their team to regularly get commitment, then they’re probably coaching on several supporting skills also. Getting a prospect to agree to a decision means the salesperson has uncovered a compelling reason to buy, thoroughly qualified the opportunity, and presented a need and cost appropriate solution at the right time. This takes active listening, many insightful and challenging questions, and the ability to pushback appropriately on potential stall tactics. These skills aren’t intuitive. They need to be drilled through repeat practice with a manager the salesperson trusts.

High performing teams also have managers with strong supportive beliefs relating to coaching. What are supportive beliefs? They are the assertions that sales managers consciously or unconsciously bring to their work.

Strong managers believe that coaching is important. They might believe that they’re responsible for their team’s daily activities. They understand the different motivational styles on their team and flex appropriately. They believe it’s important to debrief sales calls and help the salesperson understand what went well or poorly.

A manager’s belief system is so important that sales teams with managers who coach on prospect commitment and have supportive coaching beliefs have +70% more top performing salespeople than managers who don’t have supportive coaching beliefs.

Finally, high performing sales teams have managers who have a passion for coaching. Sales teams with managers who help their teams get commitment and believe coaching is important and have a passion for coaching have +80% more top salespeople than managers who don’t have a passion for coaching.

A manager can coach for the right skills (prospect commitment) and believe that coaching matters, but still not love coaching. What does passion for coaching look like? Simply put, it’s where the manager wants to spend their discretionary time. Think about a team where the manager is responsible for several salespeople and their own quota. When they have 15 free minutes do they use it to develop their own clients or to help their team practice their skills? Both are good options – but electing to spend extra time coaching shows a passion that can help the entire team reach their full potential.

Sales managers who do all three are a diamond in the rough. Only 9% of sales managers in OMG’s database of millions of salespeople are strong at getting commitments, improving beliefs, and coaching with passion.

Conclusion

The secret to enhancing sales performance and surpassing sales goals lies in fostering a coaching culture that starts with the right insights. It's not just about using the right coaching techniques and striking the perfect frequency; the foundation of an effective coaching culture is built on trust, offering frequent support, and taking a genuine appreciation in the needs of your team. By optimizing your approach to coaching, sales managers can make a real difference in their team's performance and establish a coaching culture that fuels continuous growth and success.

This blog article is based on a three-part blog series on Coaching found on OMG’s Research Blog. Anthony Cole Training Group is a distributor of OMG sales evaluation products.

Request a sales manager evaluation to find out if anyone on your team has these skills or the potential to develop them HERE!

Excerpt from Objective Management Group’s recent webinar on The Data Behind Sales Managers of Elite Teams. The second chapter of this guide addresses a fundamental question: how often should sales managers coach their teams? Through a deep analysis of sales evaluations and coaching frequencies, we uncover the impact of consistent coaching on various aspects of sales performance.

OMG clients often ask “I know coaching matters, but how often do I need to coach? And is there such a thing as too much coaching?” From our 30 years of sales evaluations, we know that some managers are extremely consistent coaches. Others tend to be more ad-hoc, letting their salespeople either come to them or addressing issues as they arise. Which style leads to better results?

To answer this, we’ve examined the OMG Sales Evaluations of over 11,000 salespeople and their managers with a specific focus on coaching frequency and how that relates to sales performance.

How much coaching is ideal?

Our data clearly show that any coaching is better than no coaching for salesperson development, and that high-frequency coaching has the biggest impact. Less frequent coaching – quarterly, monthly, or bi-weekly – all tend to yield similar gains over no coaching at all, often falling around a 2-5% improvement in Sales Percentile.

However, the real impact kicks in when coaching occurs weekly or several times per week, perhaps even daily.

• Salespeople who are coached weekly have +9% higher Sales Percentile than salespeople who are never coached. Sales Percentile increases +17% when the salesperson is coached several times per week.

What sales competencies does consistent coaching improve?

• Salespeople who are coached several times per week or daily show a +34% gain in Responsibility versus those who do not receive coaching at all, and a +19% gain in Motivation. Notable gains are also seen over those who experience on-demand coaching, +22% and +10% for Responsibility and Motivation, respectively
• Additionally, Sales Process improves +28% (over no coaching) and +11% (over on-demand). These salespeople are better at time management, achieving consistent results, following key sales steps, setting milestones, and tracking results using a scorecard.

What’s happening here? Managers who regularly coach their salespeople are modeling a clear sense of responsibility and commitment for their team. That approach sets expectations and creates a similar attitude for salespeople in their approach to their position.

What else does frequent coaching impact?

Beyond improvements in the salesperson’s attitude, frequent coaching also creates tangible gains in the salesperson’s Tactical skills. Most notably, salespeople who receive consistent, frequent coaching show +50% greater proficiency in using Sales Technology than those who do not receive any coaching, and +16% greater proficiency compared to those who receive on-demand coaching.

How often are sales managers coaching today?

While the ideal is an active manager-salesperson coaching dynamic, this rarely occurs. Only 10% of salespeople report being coached multiple times per week or more. In fact, a complete lack of coaching is reported almost as often (8% of the time)! Even weekly coaching only occurs 20% of the time. Most managers coach on-demand.

This blog article is based on a three-part blog series on Coaching found on OMG’s Research Blog. Anthony Cole Training Group is a distributor of OMG sales evaluation products.

Find out how your team rates on Coaching HERE!

This blog is an excerpt from Objective Management Group’s recent webinar on The Data Behind Sales Managers of Elite Teams. The first chapter of this guide emphasizes the critical role of trust between a manager and their sales team to ensure coachability. We reveal data that demonstrates how salespeople who trust and have a strong relationship with their managers exhibit higher coachability and overall performance.

Want To Make Your Salespeople More Coachable? First Gain Their Trust

Coaching is necessary, but alone it’s not enough. Sales Managers need to make sure their teams are receptive to the coaching that they receive. How can managers do that?

To answer this, we analyzed OMG Sales Evaluations of over 11,000 salespeople and their managers. The data clearly shows that how salespeople view the quality of their relationship with their manager has a profound effect on their performance. The heart of the impact, unsurprisingly, lies in how open they are to the coaching efforts of their manager.

What does it mean to be Coachable? And why does it matter?

OMG’s Coachable finding explains to what degree a sales leader should be able to coach a frontline salesperson. Salespeople who score low on Coachability are less likely to make the changes necessary to improve their performance. And being coachable does lead to better performance – our data shows that the most coachable salespeople have +13% higher OMG Sales Percentile than the least coachable salespeople.

OMG’s Coachable finding explains to what degree a sales leader should be able to coach a frontline salesperson. Salespeople who score low on Coachability are less likely to make the changes necessary to improve their performance. So, how can managers make sure their salespeople are coachable?

Salespeople are significantly more Coachable when they trust, respect, and have a relationship with their manager.

Each component of trust, respect, and relationship-building matters. Salespeople who trust their sales manager’s intentions score +26% higher on Coachability compared to salespeople who do not trust their managers. Similarly, salespeople who respect their manager are +20% more Coachable. Salespeople who have a relationship that is strong enough to withstand constructive criticism are also +20% more Coachable.

Trust, respect, and a strong relationship between a salesperson and their manager also improves the salesperson’s Outlook and Responsibility:

• +19%: Salespeople who have a relationship with their manager score +19% better on Responsibility than salespeople who do not have a relationship with their manager.
• +13%: Similarly, salespeople who respect their managers score +13% better on Outlook than salespeople who do not respect their managers.

What does this mean in practice? Salespeople who score well on Responsibility are more likely to hold themselves accountable for their results, rather than blame external factors like competition or the economy. Salespeople who score well on Outlook believe that they can be successful in sales. Combined, the two create a virtuous cycle for performance improvement - the salesperson acknowledges that their own shortcomings are impacting their results and believes that they can perform better. This opens the door for a trusted manager to begin a targeted, frequent training plan.

Find out how your team rates on Coaching HERE!

When you are in an airplane, you may or may not pay much attention to what is going on in the cockpit. You may happen to glance at the massive control panel with all the switches, gauges, nobs and buttons, but it’s just a glance… before you hustle on to your seat to get settled in for the flight.  But the pilot does, thankfully.

When you are getting ready to start your day, you may not pay a lot of attention to what is happening in the cockpit of your sales aircraft or to “the dashboard” that provides critical information about the state of your business. Normally, you jump in the pilot’s chair and fly off into your day. You have a pretty good idea of where you are going THAT day… so you probably don’t give much attention to the “preflight plans” for the rest of the week, month or quarter. If this doesn't apply to you, it may apply to some of your salespeople. 

But, if you stop to think about your flight/business in longer terms, you know that, over the year, you will probably hit a lot of turbulence. And if used properly, your business dashboard, like the control panel of a 757, could provide you with the critical information that you will need to make the vital decisions required at those critical moments. In other words, it would be nice to have a system of alerts to give you warning BEFORE you are on the verge of crashing.

Have you looked at YOUR dashboard lately? Have your salespeople been checking theirs? What does it tell you? What alerts or warning systems do you have in place to let you know when you are losing altitude and attitude? How do you know if all systems are working properly and that your sales aircraft will get you safely to your destination – on time and on target? What should you be monitoring and doing every day (priorities) in your “preflight inspection” to make sure that you improve the probability of “getting there”? Think about these questions in regards to you and your salespeople.

Here’s my suggested short list of selling priorities:  Prospecting, talking to people, scheduling appointments, conducting qualifying (and disqualifying) appointments, presenting and getting decisions. Just like for each engine of the aircraft, each of your priorities should have a gauge (a standard of performance) and a RPMS, or required ground speed (a set time frame), necessary for safely lifting-off and landing your aircraft at the proper destination.

Having a thoroughly monitored dashboard of sales priorities to help you execute a safe landing (your goal) is a MUST! Share this blog with your team to start the conversation about their own "dashboards."