Much like a good sports coach, a good sales coach gets involved in all aspects of the job, including both the selling skills and the mental state of his or her salespeople. Certainly, the coach trains, develops and mentors their salespeople to become better at the role of selling. But the most important role of the sales coach is to help their salespeople achieve their personal goals. To achieve their goals, salespeople need both skill and knowledge – and someone to coach them to excellence. How good are you at coaching your salespeople to be their very best?

Here are 7 sales coaching best practices to master to improve your coaching:

 #1 Sales Coaching Best Practice: Debrief Effectively

An effective and proactive coach is in a constant state of debriefing their people. Whether their salespeople are returning from an initial appointment with a new client, presenting a solution to a new client, or renewing a current relationship, a coach must constantly have real time intel as to how the salesperson is performing. One sales coaching best practice is to have regularly scheduled debriefing times in their ideal week calendar. During the sessions, the effective sales coach will be armed with great questions to find out what happened, how things happened, and why they happened. Questions about the prospect’s compelling reason to take action, their willingness to invest, their ability to make a change from a current provider and the decision-making process are the questions that must be asked in addition to the technical aspect of the sale relative to product and service offerings. Based on the answers, the sales coach must begin to develop insight as to where the choke points are in a salesperson’s approach in order to coach them for skill improvement. 

#2 Sales Coaching Best Practice: Effective on Joint Calls

While on a joint call, there are roles for everyone. That is why doing pre-call meetings, before the meeting are so important. The sales coach has to make sure that his salesperson is prepared to conduct the perfect sales meeting and the coach’s role is to be defined as supportive in nature, not the main character. This means that when the coach is on the call and the sales professional is making mistakes, they must let them. and oddly, this is a sales coaching best practice.  An effective coach will not rescue them as they understand that is how they will learn.  Now a good coach will not let them blow the sale of a life time.  But they will not bail them out and rescue them when they forget to ask a critical question.  Once the call is over, the sales coach conducts the post call debrief with the sales person. The effective coach will first ask their sales person to tell them how they thought it went.  The coach can then compare comments made to their own observations and from that, share their insights as to how well the sales professional performed. 

#3 Sales Coaching Best Practice: Ask Quality Questions

Having a conversation with someone is much more pleasant then going through an interrogation.  This is important for the effective coach to remember if they are focused on asking questions.  After two or so questions, the sales person is going to feel like the coach is picking on them rather than coaching them to improve. Let’s say that a sales person has a tendency to miss finding out about the competition. The coach could ask them: “Did you find out about the competition?” or they could ask “When you asked them how they were going to undo the current relationship, how did they respond?” Which question is going to give better insight as to how the salesperson is executing on their sales system? Open-ended questions tend to make coaching sessions more conversational which why they are a sales coaching best practice. The open-ended questions will help the sales person identify the gaps between what is expected and what is getting done. 

#4 Sales Coaching Best Practice: Demonstrates an Effective Selling System

Great sales coaches really know their sales process and selling system. They know it so well that they own the content and process. The sales leader exhibits the sales skills expected of the sales team in everything they do. They ask open-ended questions. They help people discover the issues. They make sure that the other person wants to fix the problem. They check for the ability to invest time to fix the problem, and finally, they get commitment. An effective sales coach must demonstrate what they expect. This mastery of the system is what allows the coach to identify incorrect behavior when they observe their salespeople in a prospecting situation or role-playing session with peers. If the sales coach does not know, then you can’t possibly expect their salespeople to know.

#5 Sales Coaching Best Practice: Effective at Getting Commitments

Gaining commitment is a sales coaching best practice for the on-going development and improvement in a sales team. Even with top producers, a sales coach must gain their commitment to execute at high levels and discuss with them their personal goals, and their commitment to attain those goals, through committing to the required sales activities. Sales people commit to what is important to them. It may be important to salespeople that shareholder value increases, but as a sales coach, don’t count on that. What motivates most salespeople is their own set of personal objectives, goals and ambitions. The coach’s job is to help them discover the goals they are committed to and then help them discover their ‘current state’. And when there is a gap, (such as their current sales pipeline and closing ratio will not help them buy that new house they were hoping for), then an effective coach helps them discover the ‘pain’ of the eventual outcome of their current state and the change that must take place to achieve their goals.

#6 Sales Coaching Best Practice: Consistently Coach Skills & Behaviors

Most sales coaches do not understand the difference between performance management (discussing the sales activities, i.e.; the numbers) and coaching (how the activities are being executed). Coaching focuses on how someone did what they did. Every sales leader’s calendar should have consistent scheduled times for coaching their people. Effective coaching focuses on skills and behaviors, the how of what people do. Sales coaching should include the following:  asking questions, drilling down on those answers, getting commitments, helping salespeople overcome objections and helping salespeople with their own performance issues. Coaching is not about how to structure a deal. That is teaching. Coaching is rolling up the sleeves and getting into the art and science of the sale, rather than the mechanics of the product and service design of the offering.

#7 Sales Coaching Best Practice: Effectively On-board New Hires

On-boarding a new salesperson is critical as it will determine both the immediate and long-term success of new hires. Here are three sales coaching best practice on-boarding steps:

1. The sales coach must communicate their vision, objectives and expectations to the extent that if the salesperson was asked, they could repeat without hesitation and in great detail.
2. The sales coach must schedule weekly coaching sessions with their new hires to help them create and execute on their plan and learn, implement and inspect their effective selling process.
3. An effective coach can use their huddle data, pipeline growth and notes from pre- and post-call debriefing sessions to see if their new hire is exceeding activity and behavior expectations.  From that critical early data, they can begin to identify and teach and coach to the salesperson’s choke points.

Our coaching tip for you, the coach, is to select at least 3 of these sales coaching best practices and focus on them, improve your own skills and by doing so, you will help your salespeople improve their levels of performance. Let’s go, Coach!

But to me, it is important to back up the bus just a few stops and ask the question – who is your competition? Most training participants would say the name of another service provider that their prospect could choose at the conclusion of the sales process. Some other introspective training participants would say their greatest competition is themselves, meaning they need to stay out of their own way and deal with some head trash that interferes with them doing some of the harder things in sales. They recognize that they must become “comfortable with being uncomfortable” in order to be more assertive and ask more questions (and some of those questions need to be tough questions).

I can’t argue any of the above – they are all valid points. It is just that I believe something is missing. I have long held a deep conviction that the fiercest competition you will face in selling is what I refer to as “prospect indifference.” This is the dreaded moment at the conclusion of the sales process when they prospect says “we are just going to hold tight for the time being.”

Sometimes this is caused by fear of the unknown – with the prospect concluding maybe it is better to deal with the devil they know (the flawed incumbent provider) than to roll the dice with the devil they don’t know (you and your solution). Other times prospect indifference is the resistive inertia or the gravitational pull back to the incumbent. Regardless of why it occurs it is stiff competition.

Here are five keys to dealing with prospect indifference:

1. You better be bold in your approach and your conversations. You must be willing to rattle the windows a little bit as you probe for the impact of the problem the prospect is dealing with.
2. You better be sure that you know the difference between a problem that is just a problem and a problem that has become a priority that must be addressed.
3. You must be in front of all the decision makers – and one of those decision makers must be the person who is feeling the deepest impact of the problem.
4. You must provide “emotional transportation” to your prospect by using a story to move them to a future point where the problem has been solved to measure their reaction to that future state.
5. You can’t be afraid to lose….and you must recognize that the best time to lose is early rather than late.

So, know your competition. And deal with your competition – even if it is you!

What is Constructive Sales Feedback?

There are many opportunities in the day of a sales coach to provide sales feedback so what makes it constructive?  Constructive sales feedback should include:

• Asking enough questions
• Listening to understand
• Drilling down on answers
• Discovering your salesperson’s motivation
• Getting commitment on next steps
• Having them practice their skills for development
• Refining and improving strategies
• Demonstrating effective skills in qualifying, presenting and closing
• Helping your salespeople improve skills, not just close the deal at hand

The importance of constructive sales feedback involves helping salespeople self-discover what they are doing wrong or should be doing differently. Strong sales leaders will ask questions versus tell a salesperson what to do.  In coaching sales behaviors, how you say something can be more important than what you say. Instead of saying “You should have asked your prospect about their current provider”, you could ask “What did you find out about their current provider?”  Asking questions will allow salespeople to self-discover, which is a key result of constructive sales feedback.

When Should Managers Provide Constructive Sales Feedback?

According to Objective Management Group, our sales evaluation partner and pioneer in the industry, many sales managers believe that coaching means helping salespeople with pricing and technical questions on an ad hoc basis. Strong and effective sales coaches, however, schedule multiple coaching conversations with their salespeople each week to provide constructive sales feedback, improve their skills and help them win more deals. It is important that sales managers set aside specific time for intentional coaching, not just coaching to a specific deal or proposal. Sales managers should put time on the calendar weekly for 1 on 1 coaching with salespeople that can be used to prepare for an upcoming call or debrief after a recent sales call.

There are many opportunities for a sales coach to provide constructive and important feedback to their team:

Why doesn’t coaching occur as often as it should? One of the most difficult skills for most sales managers to overcome is their need for approval from their salespeople. Coaching is different than managing and requires clear direction, discussion, examples and demonstration of what is expected of a salesperson. This can be hard for a manager, who also wants their team to like them. They may not want to come off as critical. The importance of providing constructive feedback and coaching sales behaviors is a critical part of the development of a sales manager. A strong sales leader and coach must be adept at asking great questions, listening closely and staying focused on developing salespeople to be their best. Their primary focus is developing their salespeople and achieving goals through the efforts and success of others.

Huddles Help Coaches Focus on Critical Sales Performance Metrics

Huddles as defined by Verne Harnish, founder and President of Gazelles, are:

1. A communication process or system that allows for sharing of real-time information
2. An opportunity to focus on "burning platform" issues for a team or company
3. A way to bring sharp focus and attention to a critical business driver
4. The most important 15 minutes in any company meeting

Each company should determine the most important few sales activity data to capture in their huddle regularly each week or month such as contacts, appointments, proposals, COIs etc. If a sales manager does not schedule a regular and timely means to monitor what is going on in the field, in real-time, they cannot coach or adjust the play or get in front of any client issues or trends. Huddles provide real-time information so that sales managers can make real-time decisions and provide real-time feedback or coaching. This is vastly different than waiting for month or quarter end reporting on results because huddles capture what is happening now, this week. The sales performance metrics that are captured in Huddles can then be used to coach salespeople to impact current deals.

Coaching with Sales Data Insights from Where’s Walter

We suggest a technique that we have labeled as “Where’s Walter” pictured and explained below.

Coaching a salesperson’s activities can be simplified into two areas: their effort vs. their execution. Effort is described as evaluating if they are doing whatever it takes in the area of outreach and working hard to attain their goals. Execution evaluates their effectiveness in the sales process.  Are they doing the right things to take a prospect through an effective sales process or do they have a problem?

Using Where’s Walter for Sales Data Insight

As a coaching approach, we recommend sales leaders place their people into one of the four boxes noted above and then have these conversations below with the salespeople in each quadrant. These are guidelines of course but should be adjusted. One word of caution, do not soften too much. Coaching is hard work and leaders must be tough and direct at times to identify real areas of concern and development.

Execution Results & Effort
“ Bob, thank you for the results you are generating. You must be thrilled as this will help you achieve your personal goals and objectives. Just as important though, I also want to thank you for your consistent effort. You may not realize this, but others on the team look to you and follow your lead.  The way that you execute on sales skills “week in and week out” sets a great example for the rest of the team. Thank you. Now, Bob, what else can I do for you?”

Execution Results but Lacks Effort
“Bob, I want to thank you for the results you are generating. You must be thrilled as this will help you achieve the personal goals and objectives you have for your family. I am worried about one thing though; can we talk about that? Bob, how long is our sales cycle?  (120 days). Okay, so based on that and looking at our success formula, then the results you are getting today are a result of what? (The activity I did a while back) That’s what I was thinking and that is why I am concerned. Based on the activity here (show them the data), you are headed for a slump. Is that where you want to be?”

Effort is There but Poor Execution Results
“Bob, obviously based on the numbers you see here, you are not on schedule to achieve the extraordinary year to which you had committed to manage yourself. But this is where I’m confused.  The data I have- that tells me about your effort- indicates that you should be at or above your goals, but that isn’t the case. My experience tells me that it can only be because of one of two things: either the data you are entering is not accurate or you are failing to execute properly. Which one so you think it is?”

Lack of Effort and Results
“Bob, I have to tell you that I cannot figure this out.  Your effort and results are a total surprise to me. If several months ago, someone said to me that you would be failing, I would have said ‘no way.’ (Show Bob the job posting you used for the position he is in and his resume then show him his current sales activity and results.) Bob, I take a look at this (job info) and I think – ‘This is what I hired.’ I look at this (the results) and I’m thinking ‘This is what I got.’ Bob, did I make a mistake?”

Using the Where’s Walter platform gives sales coaches a framework to use performance metrics from Huddles to generate conversations, identify areas for salespeople to focus on and most importantly, gain insights for immediate coaching to improve skills, performance and results.

Many leaders do not understand that the ‘game’ is the game of selling.  Managers and internal trainers must really understand the game of selling.  It takes strapping a headset on, making hundreds of dials, asking for introductions, getting rejected, selling big cases and starting with small sales, to really understand the game.  Otherwise, it is like taking flying lessons from a pilot trainer that did all their flight learning in a simulator.

Most sales managers end up in that role because they were good to great salespeople and the company was looking to:

1. Replace a manager
2. Find a way for professional advancement
3. Look for a way to keep a salesperson that is slowing down and has a ‘book’ of business

Rarely if ever does that person go through an intense, fully integrated sales management training development program to help them effectively execute the required skills of an effective coach. Nor do they have a good handle on “what” to do; the sales coaching best practices. The 7 critical coaching competencies from Objective Management Group, our sales evaluation partner and pioneer in the industry, are listed below. How effective are your sales leaders at executing these activities?

Peter Jensen is an Olympic coach from Canada and author of the book “The Third Factor”. Peter states that first two factors for success in anything are nature and nurture. The Third Factor, specific to coaching, is: You must have a coaching bias.

A strong sales leader must have the coaching bias and they must love to coach the game of selling.  They must have a love for seeing and hearing people develop into the best versions of themselves.  That is what it takes to be successful at coaching.  It must be about helping others gain the spotlight, success and financial rewards or a job well done.  It requires sacrificing ego and the need to be right for the other person to discover their path, develop their skills and become the expert.

The challenge for most sales managers or sales leaders is to have the ability to exhibit and execute these skills of being a strong leader:  Strong identity, self-assurance, credible authority, knowledge and a foundational vision, mission and goal orientation.  Strong leaders do not need to be in the spotlight, do not act like they know it all and ask questions instead of always providing answers. These are the important sales coaching best practices that drive effective sales coaching.

There are assessments in the marketplace to help people identify if they have what it takes.  We use Objective Management Group’s Sales Manager Insights Evaluation.  Three key findings are identified and scored:

1. The Will to Manage
2. The Sales Manager Sales DNA
3. The Sales Manager Tactical Competencies

The evaluation provides an index percentage that tells the evaluated sales manager how they rank against others who have taken the evaluation.  Our 30+ history has verified that most sales managers have less than 10% of the skills needed to be an effective sales coach.

In summary, most companies with a manager level in their organization fail to get their salespeople to perform for one of the following reasons:

• The manager doesn’t have what it takes- the skills to be effective at sales coaching
• The manager doesn’t take the time or doesn’t have the bandwidth to handle the job, maintain a book of business, take care of operations and anything else that might be in the job description
• There isn’t a consistent ‘Sales Managed Environment’ to execute to so day in and day out, it’s an inconsistent coaching process.

Do your sales leaders understand the game of selling and have the coaching bias that can make them and effective coach?