You can be a great salesperson but that doesn’t necessarily translate into being a very good sales coach.
This is a common theme among many sales managers who find it difficult to mentor their teams and transition into a leadership role.
Moreover, it has become increasingly difficult in the present remote work model where reps are working from home and the exchange of ideas and feedback aren’t spontaneous and organic between the team.
However, with a clear plan in mind, the right sales coaching software and tools, and by following the best practices, sales managers can effectively up their game as trainers and coaches.
Proven Sales Coaching Techniques to Amp up Your Sales!
To save you the hassle, we’re listing down seven proven sales coaching techniques that the most successful sales coaches swear by.
- “Earn” the trust of your reps
A designation may command respect; trust, however, is not a default. It ought to be earned.
As a sales manager, the most critical part of the priority list is to win the trust of your team members. Unless they trust you, they won’t listen to you. They will often undermine your suggestions or implement your advice with less commitment, which will render down its efficacy.
So, take different initiatives to earn the trust of your sales reps.
Now, this doesn’t mean playing some trust games and indulging in fun activities. (Although, these might help!)
Even small steps on your end like asking your team members how they are doing and complimenting them on their good work can take you a long way in winning their trust.
Help them when they are stuck, give them the needed break if they are stressed, reward them for every win… there are many things you can do.
If you have their trust, you can influence them. And when you can influence them, you can significantly improve their performance. Remember positive reinforcement always works better than being needlessly critical.
- Ensure the team gets the right training
Even if you’re in charge of coaching your sales reps, understand that you can’t do it alone.
Impactful and sustainable outcomes demand more resources. Your team needs the right training with the right program to address their weaknesses.
So, invest extensively in their training. On-board dedicated trainers who deliver the best sales coaching. Provide your team with access to seminars and conferences on sales. You also need to ensure that they get facetime with customers during the training period. Sales readiness platforms such as Dialworks can help you craft a more effective training program with actionable data on where your sales reps are lagging behind and where they need to improve based on actual sales calls.
- Arm your reps with the tools they need to succeed
With the right tools, your sales team can expedite the trial and error to achieve better, more dramatic, and sustainable results. Investing in a Learning Management System to store all your sales collateral and training materials can help you streamline your online training. Layer this with a sales readiness platform or a sales coaching tool to try out the learnings in a real world environment. Nothing beats hands-on experience to speed up your ramp time.
- Give them a clear career path
An employee will never care about the company as much as the business owner does. This reality is even more scathing if the dreams and aspirations of the employees aren’t adequately regarded within the organization.
A simple solution here is to understand the career goals of your sales reps and care about their personal and professional growth.
Talk to them and understand in which direction they want to steer their career. For example, if they don’t like handling certain types of calls or they would rather deal with different sets of clients, assign them what they would actually like to do.
Small changes like these have the potential of resulting in a big improvement in their sales calls very soon.
- Don’t set unattainable targets
This is one of the simplest and most important sales coach tips that most companies fail to adhere to. Unrealistic targets will add to your team’s stress, hampering their productivity and efficiency. They will end up putting in minimal effort as the goal seems unattainable to them. So, ensure to set attainable targets for your sales reps that can be achieved and subsequently measured.
- Evaluate regularly (and without judgment)
Assess and evaluate your sales reps’ performance not to judge their capability or decide whether to keep them or not but with genuine interest towards their improvement (This includes providing them with objective feedback).
Second, do away from the old practices and methodologies to evaluate your team’s performance. Instead, leverage actual performance on call using a Sales Readiness Platform like Dialworks and a conversation intelligence solution that can save you hundreds of hours and lots of money, also providing you with unbiased insights into the training needs of your team.
- Create a culture of accountability
While being caring, empathetic, and compassionate towards your team is important, it’s equally important to mix that up with candor. You should be very clear about the KPIs of the team, whether it’s closures, number of calls, number of meetings booked or a mix of all of them.
Always be (politely) honest and open with your reps. If something is wrong and they aren’t performing well, let them know about it and give them a course of action to correct their course. This will foster a culture of accountability wherein the team knows the responsibilities they have, they will always be answerable to clear cut KPIs.
Wrapping it up..
These are seven sales coaching techniques that sales leads swear by.
Admittedly, you can’t implement them overnight. Moreover, they won’t magically show the desired results.
But these sales coaching techniques are concrete, well-proven, and assured to turn your sales reps into a complete pro.
For more guidance on structuring your Sales Training program, book a free consultation with our Sales Training Expert!
