Think about your own salespeople. There are many reasons they fail to close business. Too often, they fail simply because they don’t muster the courage required at the beginning of the sales process. When they are prospecting, they are not prepared to ask the right questions, and they aren’t ready when their prospect asks them unexpected questions.

Closing should refer to the whole sales process, not just the end. Closing is about asking questions versus pushing a client in a certain direction. “The sale should close itself” – the process should be natural, not forced. If you’re a good negotiator and influencer, the close should happen on its own. According to Objective Management Group, the pioneer and leader in the sales evaluation arena, there are 13 specific skills that lead to success. In essence, closing is not about expert closing techniques; it is about having excellent qualifying skills.

Let’s focus on the top two attributes that are essential for closing:

1. Gets prospect to agree to make a decision: In your sales process, do your salespeople even ask the prospect if they are willing and able to make the decision? It is not uncommon for salespeople to deliver a proposal or a quote only to find that their “person” is not the ultimate decision-maker. Is that because they did not ask about the decision-making process? Or did they fail, in general, to communicate that they would deliver the proposal with the agreement that a decision would be made, Yes or No? Or did they even fail to clarify if the problems uncovered were compelling or costly enough to make a decision now or soon?

2. Not Likely to take “Think it Overs”: We call these TIOs, and they are the death of most unclosed deals. They can come in the form of “I really like your proposal and will get back to you,” or “Let me think about it and talk to the team.” These are all understandable responses, right? Not if you have utilized this expert closing technique: “When I deliver the proposal that addresses all of the issues you have shared, within the budget we discussed, I ask one thing – and that is for you to make a decision, yes or no. I would prefer to hear yes, but no is okay.” Think about your own pipeline and deals lost. How many of them are attributable to the dreaded “Think it overs”? When faced with this response, skilled salespeople know how to go back to the pain and the cost of not fixing the problem. They are able to remind the prospect of the urgency they shared, why it is a priority, and balance that with the right amount of patience.

Closing is not about the close. It is about understanding and helping the client solve their problems and take advantage of opportunities, acting in the role of a valued business partner.

by Alex Cole-Murphy with contributions from Objective Management Group and distributors

• The stage of the opportunities in the sales process
• Next steps to move the opportunities through the pipeline
• Likelihood of winning the business based
• Future sales revenue of all the opportunities in the pipeline

There are typically three challenges associated with the use of CRMs and pipeline management:

1. Validity – The true accuracy (validity) of the predictive nature of the CRM depends on ensuring that a milestone-centric sales process has been mapped and integrated into the CRM being used.

2. Credibility – Even if the right sales process is mapped and documented, there is still the element of GIGO—Garbage In, Garbage Out. If the sales team is entering opportunities into the pipeline just to appease management, without ensuring that the opportunities meet the criteria for each step in the sales process, companies will still face predictive problems with their pipeline. Furthermore, sales team engagement with using the CRM can often be a struggle.

3. Lack of helpful business intelligence – Entering data and obtaining raw numbers is one thing, but building the CRM for reporting that informs sales leaders on how salespeople are performing against their Sales Success Formula is another. Without comparative data, managers are merely monitoring activity without identifying whether there are problems in the process.

What a company should seek for sales process improvements are sales stage critical numbers and ratios, enabling sales managers to clearly and more accurately identify choke points in the sales process for each individual. Additionally, the data can and should inform managers and the organization if training and coaching are required to improve the sales team's effectiveness and results.

To make substantial sales process improvements, every company must invest in sales enablement tools, systems, and technology. However, data alone will not drive improvement. Solving these issues requires the following five steps:

1. Build a milestone-centric sales process that is part of the CRM and adhered to by the organization.

2. Create Sales Success Formulas for each salesperson based on their historical performance and agreed-upon sales goals. These formulas identify all the steps of the stage-based sales process and the sales team’s success in converting from one step to the next.

3. Monitor and update sales effort and execution data so that coaches can "catch issues early" for lead preservation and sales process improvements.

4. Use the data to develop intentional coaching strategies that help salespeople address specific challenges in either effort or execution.

5. Utilize metrics to measure success individually and collectively:

   • Percentage of salespeople hitting effort targets (outreach)
   • Percentage of salespeople improving conversion ratios at each step of the sales process
   • Average sale increases
   • Shifting the 80/20 rule to a 70/30 or 60/40 distribution
   • Improved validity and credibility of pipeline predictions
   • CRM adoption rates approaching or reaching 100%

Further validation: 87% of elite salespeople (the top 7%) follow a consistent and effective sales process, compared to only 20% of weak salespeople. To implement sales process improvements, start with these five steps.

Eloquently stated by Howard G. Hendricks:
“The measure of you as a leader is not what you do, but what others do because of what you do.”

This mindset of developing others is the hallmark of great leaders and effective sales coaches. How does that translate into actions and behaviors? An effective sales coach monitors the performance of their salespeople to identify areas for improvement and reinforces behaviors that lead to success. They also build confidence in representatives by providing them with the tools, skills, and training they need to succeed. This is what they do, but the importance of sales coaching lies in the how of coaching—helping a salesperson discover for themselves what is hindering their success by asking insightful questions and providing feedback at critical times. Practicing for upcoming calls, offering feedback on potential questions and challenges they may encounter—these are integral parts of the coaching process.

Here is a short list of opportunities a sales coach has to support their team, illustrating the importance of sales coaching:

• Make sure they have written goals.
• Help them follow those goals with a plan.
• Encourage them to take responsibility for their behaviors and success (no excuses).
• Provide tools and training to build strong self-confidence.
• Help them understand and develop supporting sales beliefs.
• Encourage them not to shy away from tough questions due to a need for approval (desire to be liked).
• Support their recovery from rejection.
• Provide opportunities to practice and get comfortable discussing money.
• Help them understand their own buying cycle and how it influences their sales process.
• Improve effective listening and questioning skills.
• Offer tips for building rapport and bonding early with prospects.
• Help them get comfortable uncovering budgets and price tolerances.
• Guide them in understanding why prospects buy.
• Increase their win rate with qualified proposals and quotes.
• Teach them the importance of reaching the decision-maker for decisions.

Much like a salesperson follows a stage-based sales process, a sales coach is more effective if they follow a coaching process.

If a sales coach does not provide insights, feedback, demonstrations, or encourage role-play, the salesperson may practice on clients without the chance to improve before critical calls. Sales coaching is all about helping salespeople get better at asking questions, listening to understand, drilling down, discovering motivation, securing commitments, practicing skills, refining strategies, and demonstrating effectiveness in qualifying, presenting, and closing situations. It is a daunting responsibility, but also highly rewarding when coaching leads to improvement and success.

Tips to ensure the most effective coaching approach:

• Determine specific coaching needs.
• Coach consistently with planned repetition.
• Keep sessions short.
• Determine the content or agenda in advance (pre-call plan).
• Prepare (the sales rep should practice the pre-call plan).
• Always agree on outcomes and actions to take.

Need more information on sales coaching? Click the button below to download our free eBook on the 9 Keys to Successful Coaching! 

It is an important distinction in sales – understanding the salesperson who can sell versus the one who will sell. A recent post by Dave Kurlan, on the Difference Between Selling Skills and Effectiveness does a great job of illustrating that difference. Think about your own business and those who consistently produce beyond the expected. There is something more than just their skills that drive their behavior and success. There is the Will to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals.

Why Sales Coaching Matters

This distinction between the can and will is why sales coaching really matters. Sales training can help develop a new producer so that they understand how to prospect, prepare, qualify and close business. But it is often the Coach who helps that salesperson uncover their will and their desire to sell, who stokes the fires by asking the right questions and helps them establish extraordinary goals. Sales coaching matters because it is personal, based on the salesperson’s situation, drive, hopes and dreams.

Sales coaching is also important to every organization because salespeople reporting to a manager with strong Coaching skills tend to have 26% more closeable late-stage opportunities.

But we also know from the data warehouse of Objective Management Group that less than 10% of sales coaches know the personal goals of their salespeople so while they may be well intended, how can a sales manager coach a salesperson until they know why that salesperson comes to work every day or what compels them to pick up the phone and make that next prospecting call.

Most sales coaches moved up through their company because they were good producers and they because of that, they are adept at translating the how to sell effectively, but may not be as skilled in helping to uncover a salesperson’s will to sell. Sales managers need a coaching system so they know when to coach their salespeople and follow an intentional sales coaching process to make it effective.

Here are 9 Skills in our Sales Coaching Skill Development Plan:

1. Debriefs effectively after significant calls
2. Effective on joint calls
3. Asks quality questions of their salespeople
4. Understands the impact of a salesperson’s Sales DNA
5. Can demonstrate an effective sales system
6. Is effective at getting commitments from salespeople
7. Consistently coaches skills and behaviors
8. Understands the impact of a salesperson’s Will to Sell
9. Effectively onboards new salespeople

Just like salespeople, there are many sales managers who can do the job of coaching – they have the skills, but perhaps are not motivated by achieving success through the development and achievements of others. Those who lead and manage salespeople can lack the will to succeed in sales management. It’s an important distinction for every company to consider as they hire and develop their team.

Find out more about why sales coaching matters: https://blog.anthonycoletraining.com/sales-coaching-skills

The dictionary defines a conundrum as “a confusing and difficult problem or question.” I believe it is safe to say that we can put sales coaching into that category.

In today’s blog, I want to give you some sales coaching tips that will improve your sales coaching skills.

Let us start with the fundamental truth that any sales organization is perfectly designed for the results they are receiving. And if an organization does not like those results, then the most important thing for them to consider is their appetite for change. And when it comes to sales coaching, many sales leaders quite frankly lose their appetite. Why? 

Because coaching salespeople is costly (time not money) and scary (any time you put people into the equation that tends to be the case).

If you want to improve your coaching, you would do well to avoid the four most common mistakes that so many companies make with sales coaching:

1. They assume that high-performing salespeople will naturally or automatically become high-performing sales leaders. There is very little data to support such a claim. The jobs are quite different. The logic is flawed.
2. They don’t use a predictive sales-related assessment (we prefer the Objective Management sales manager assessment) on the pre-hire side to make sure the sales leader candidate will be strong on setting standards, coaching, managing pipelines, holding people accountable, recruiting new sales talent, etc.

They hire sales leaders who really don’t want the job. I mean they might be right for the job, but the job is not right for them. 

1. Why? Because they love selling and their heart is not in it when it comes time to coach and holds their team accountable.  
2. They don’t train their sales leaders. While most companies do not hesitate to train their salespeople, they don’t give much if any thought to training the specific skill sets that a sales leader must master to be successful.

Here is another word of the day – insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting outcomes to change. So, do you have a conundrum on your hands? Or do you have a sales coaching problem that has become a priority that you have to fix?