What is sales coaching?
Sales coaching builds on the training your sales reps already have and focuses on refining specific skills and improving gaps in performance. Coaching also provides a space to reinforce or highlight positive behaviours and skills. It should be iterative and personalised so every rep is best supported to effectively reach their personal sales goals while contributing to the performance of their entire team.
The difference between sales training and coaching
If your company already has a successful sales training programme, you may wonder how sales coaching is any different. The reality is that coaching and training are not identical methods of training. Instead, they are connected processes that build off of one another.
For example, sales training topics are usually centred around teaching your sellers about your products and what marketing techniques have been most successful in the past. This is a helpful collection of basic knowledge, but information that worked previously may become outdated or obsolete rather quickly.
Coaching adds another layer to the foundational knowledge provided in training. Unlike other sales training methods that deliver concise knowledge to an entire group or team, coaching is individually tailored to each seller. It’s a lot like making a tray of cupcakes. If training is the batter – uniform and fundamentally necessary – then coaching is the toppings, endlessly varied and uniquely delicious.
Examples of sales coaching
Sales coaching can look different to each seller, depending on the individual and the experience and knowledge they may already have. In truth, the sky’s the limit when it comes to figuring out what approach works best for your sellers’ sales coaching. Best practices can include:
- Evaluating a seller’s pitch delivery for positive attributes, as well as areas of improvement.
- Assessing a rep’s email communication with a prospective customer and locating points of improvement throughout the buyer’s experience.
- Debriefing with a seller after a prospect meeting to discuss what worked and what didn’t.
Ultimately, there is no one way to coach a seller. Your prospects and customers come with their own unique challenges, and coaching can prepare your reps to address them.
What does a sales coach do?
A sales coach is not simply another trainer or built-in professional mentor for your entire sales team. The job of a sales coach is to build relationships with sellers in order to improve their performance over time. After all, it is simpler to understand where a rep’s success comes naturally, and where it doesn’t when you understand a bit more about who they are as individuals.
The ongoing education and support provided by a coach can help reps improve in whatever areas they may need without the added pressure of direct comparison to their coworkers. Instead, coaches use unique and personalised sales coaching questions to foster a relationship that’s built on trust and empathy with sellers. As sales coaches create a safe and collaborative environment for performance enhancement, their coaching will vary between sellers. Because no two sales reps are the same, individual sales coaching is a necessary tool for growth and development.
Benefits of sales coaching
