Even your best reps can benefit from sales coaching
There’s no such thing as too much knowledge. Growth is a continuous process, so learn how you (+ your team) can benefit from sales coaching.
Most sales teams employ successful salespeople. But even the best sales reps and most effective sales managers can benefit from sales coaching. Learning is a fluid activity – you can never be too skilled or too knowledgeable. Plus, an ever-changing industry calls for constant evaluation and integration of new techniques, technologies, and selling structures.
The most successful people prioritize continuous growth and learning
The job market is rapidly evolving, and those who prioritize lifelong learning are the ones that will get ahead – in sales, in life, and everywhere in between. Just think, Barack Obama reads for one hour a day in his office, and Warren Buffet proclaimed, “There’s one investment that supersedes all others: Invest in yourself.”
Continuous learning means you can embrace failure and mistakes – you don’t know everything, and realizing that can lead to milestones in your self-investment and future learning. You don’t know what you don’t know until you know it! So making learning a priority even as an adult, a working professional, an entrepreneur, or at any moment of your life is important for professional and personal growth.
Of course, this applies to sales reps too. Successful sales reps are humble and willing to learn new techniques and new ways of doing things. They don’t hesitate to attend conferences, sign up for courses or participate in sales training or sales coaching, which brings us to our next point.
What is a sales coach?
Sales coaches are not just teachers. They’re mentors, cheerleaders, guidance counselors, and sources of inspiration. Sales coaches know that frequent failures often later lead to success – pending you invest in yourself and continue growing and learning.
Coaches have the power to share their experiences – not just teaching but explaining what they’ve done wrong along the way and how they fixed it. The professionals dedicated to sales coaching can detail out how they’ve made it to the point where they’re at, helping your business grow and decide where to focus its efforts.
Why do sales reps, managers, and sales teams need sales coaching?
Sales coaches can help sales reps improve performance by learning new techniques, listening to others’ experiences and tips, and garnering feedback by repetition. Coaching can help sales reps hone in on the right skills and practices to develop, rather than just focusing on numbers or the end game, which sets them up for continued success.
Coaches can help sales reps with self-evaluation, which is sometimes the best marker of the pain points and successes, helping reps decipher what needs work and what should be celebrated.
Sales coaching can help sales managers efficiently train their teams and determine where and how their employees can improve. Managers can learn how to better streamline sales processes and sales pipelines for improved success and more sales. Coaches can show managers how to lead with strength and empathy, especially during a time of remote work when leadership can be more difficult. The best coaches help managers grow their confidence and show them how to best lead their teams.
When it comes to teams, coaches can help sales reps build trust with managers and vice versa, helping the whole team bond. By analyzing data and reviewing results as a team, together, you can build a group of employees that learns what works, what doesn’t, how to best sell, and how to count on each other.
Sales coaching is key for team building, especially in an era of working remotely.
Coaches set you up with plans for success
Sales coaches can help all sales team members (managers included) create actionable plans and provide support along the way as you follow them. They can then evaluate your performance, offer constructive feedback, and make suggestions for improvement.
When you’re able to step away from the results, like making the sale or hitting that number and instead focus more on your process, learning new ways to sell and better methods of tracking your progress, those numbers and sales will continue to grow.
Coaches can help managers, sales reps, and sales teams set goals and create processes to achieve them, evaluating their wins and losses along the way.
The best plans should be put in writing, in a document that both the manager, sales coach, and sales rep all have access to, making it easy for everyone involved to track progress and success.
Sales coaching can introduce new sales methods and sales technology tools
In order to keep up with the fast-paced sales industry, it’s essential that sales reps, managers, and teams are privy to new and updated selling techniques and the tech tools that can help them do so.
So many new apps, browser extensions, and organizational tools are available to help salespeople stay organized, sell more effectively, and increase productivity. Sales coaches can make sure teams know about these tools and how to best use them.
For example, Surfe is a valuable tool that saves salespeople time, a bridge between LinkedIn and the CRM that makes sourcing prospects a simple and organized process. Calendly is an organizational resource that knows how precious your time is, scheduling meetings and keeping your calendar sorted. LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes sure your outreach is personalized and your sales pipeline is focused and streamlined.
If Surfe isn’t already part of your tech stack, we encourage you to give it a try. Head over to our site to book a demo or sign up for your free, 14-day trial.
There are endless options for tech tools, which is why sales coaching can help sales reps sort through the shuffle and select the technology options that can most benefit them, help them work through their pain points, or simply make their lives easier, which, at the end of the day, all contributes to a happier and more successful sales team.
Good sales coaches vs. bad sales coaches
The best coaches provide guidance and evaluation without judgment. Coaches should use their knowledge to personalize advice, action, and direction to the individual team, manager, or employee. Coaching is not a one-size-fits-all plan of action. The best coaches keep it professional but personal, helping each rep or team best overcome their own personal challenges.
The best coaches help you learn something new, see things differently, and grow your perspective. Mediocre coaches won’t.
Sales managers, sales reps, and sales teams should feel comfortable with their coaches and like them. You don’t have to be the best of friends with your coach, but you must respect them and their guidance; otherwise, plans of action will be difficult to take seriously.
Investing in a coach means investing in the success of your business
One easy way to determine if sales coaching is working is by looking at performance metrics. Productivity growth and increased ROI are simple metrics that show if coaching is having a positive effect on your team.
Higher employee retention is also a positive outcome of successful coaching, as employees that feed their needs are being met, that they are growing in their professional roles, and have actionable goals in mind are happier and don’t want to change jobs or leave the company.
Investing in the right coach could make for happier, more productive employees, a team that cohesively works well together, and create mutual respect between employees and managers. This leads to more sales, higher numbers, and general professional success, which has a trickle-down effect on everyone involved.
So continue to grow, continue to learn, and invest in sales coaching for your team and your business. Once you see the positive outcomes, you’ll realize that even the best sales reps, managers, and teams can all benefit from sales coaching.