Sales leaders often tell us that coaching is one of the most important developmental tools they have for helping sales representatives improve performance. Good sales coaching can have a direct impact on motivation, commitment, and goal attainment. But many organizations aren’t realizing those benefits.
One reason? Too many sales managers are put into coaching roles without a workable game plan. And that’s a big problem because on-the-job coaching by managers is the most effective method of sales enablement, according to an ATD survey.
Sales coaching and development strategies often focus on behaviors — specifically, changing behaviors. This approach tends to ignore the thinking that drives behavior. How people behave is situational and can be affected by many outside factors. How salespeople think, on the other hand, is at the heart of who they are.
Learn more about what a sales coach is, why organizations benefit from external and internal sales coaching, and how the Whole Brain® Thinking framework can help your organization develop better sales coaching — and better business results.
What is a Sales Coach?
Sales coaching plays a crucial role in driving sales team performance and achieving organizational success. Sales coaches provide guidance, support, and developmental opportunities to help professional sellers reach their full potential.
A sales coach acts as a mentor, motivator, and trusted adviser, working closely with people to improve their skills, knowledge, and effectiveness. Sales coaching activities commonly include:
- Providing guidance and support: A sales coach helps reps navigate challenges, overcome obstacles, and achieve their sales targets. They share best practices and sales techniques.
- Developing the team’s sales skills: Sales coaches identify areas for improvement, provide targeted training, and offer constructive feedback to enhance sales techniques, negotiation skills, objection handling, and closing strategies.
- Setting goals and performance expectations: Sales coaches collaborate with sales professionals on goals and performance expectations. Regular performance reviews and coaching sessions ensure alignment and accountability.
- Motivating and inspiring: Great sales coaches create a positive and supportive environment, celebrate successes, and provide encouragement during challenging times. Their belief in the team's potential inspires people to strive for excellence.
Sales coaches are often top performers with deep expertise in selling techniques and their specific industry. Many sales managers are player-coaches who maintain their own book while guiding a team.
A sales coach must also be a skilled communicator, display emotional intelligence, and lead and mentor employees while developing a strong culture.
Sales coaching exists in many forms, including managers or internal sales trainers. Your organization also can hire external coaches for one-off training or ongoing coaching. Here’s a brief overview of when external and internal sales coaching makes sense.
External Sales Coaching
External sales coaching is beneficial when organizations require specialized expertise that may not be available internally. This could include industry-specific knowledge, advanced sales techniques, or market insights.
External sales coaching is also a great option for organizations with large sales teams, those undergoing rapid growth, and teams undergoing fundamental changes to their sales methodology.
Internal Sales Coaching
Internal sales coaching is advantageous when organizations want to reinforce in-depth knowledge of the company's offerings, target market, and sales strategies. Internal sales coaches, including managers, can establish long-term relationships with sales reps and provide consistent coaching. Internal coaches can easily align reps with their career progression, the organization’s selling proposition, and overall business goals.
5 Benefits of Effective Sales Coaching for Organizations
Effective coaching is pivotal in driving sales organization success. It can have a profound impact on sales team motivation, job satisfaction, revenue, and the bottom line. Here are five key benefits of sales coaching.
Better Sales Team Performance
Effective sales coaching means that leaders give personalized guidance and performance feedback to their reports. They guide salespeople in skills development, help them refine their techniques, overcome challenges, and achieve higher productivity levels. This, in turn, leads to better success with closing deals, increased sales revenue, and stronger customer relationships.
Enhanced Sales Team Collaboration
Selling can be competitive without pitting teammates against each other. Sales coaching should encourage collaboration within the team through open communication, sharing best practices, and promoting a culture of continuous learning.
Effective coaches create an environment where team members support and learn from one another — when their teammates win, everyone wins. This collaboration leads to improved knowledge sharing, increased synergy, and better overall sales outcomes.
Improved Alignment With Organizational Goals
Effective sales coaching ensures alignment between individual sales goals and organizational objectives. Sales coaches work closely with sales professionals to set targets that align with the organization's strategic priorities. By aligning individual efforts with broader business goals, sales coaching helps employees achieve the key performance indicators for their roles.
Increased Motivation and Engagement
Sales coaching fosters a culture of motivation and engagement within the sales team. When sales professionals receive regular coaching and support, they feel valued, supported, and empowered. Sales coaches inspire individuals to set ambitious goals, challenge themselves, and continuously improve their skills. This heightened motivation translates into increased effort, enthusiasm, and a positive sales culture.
Higher Job Satisfaction and Retention
Effective sales coaching contributes to higher levels of job satisfaction among sales professionals. When individuals receive guidance, skill development opportunities, and recognition for their achievements, they feel more fulfilled in their roles. This increases job satisfaction, reduced turnover rates, and improved employee retention.
Sales coaching challenges employees to be better but in an environment that’s also supportive and growth-oriented. Employees can grow within the company rather than going elsewhere to advance.
Sales Coaching vs. Sales Management Coaching
Sales coaching and sales management coaching are distinct approaches that each contribute to the success of a sales team. Let’s briefly explore the differences in how they drive sales team performance.
Sales Coaching
Sales coaching focuses on individual development and growth. Even within structured sales training programs, coaching takes a personalized approach to each salesperson’s skills, knowledge, and performance. Sales coaching includes one-on-one interactions focusing on skill-building, feedback, and goal attainment.
Sales Management Coaching
Sales management coaching focuses on helping sales managers become better leaders, mentors, and motivators. This type of sales coaching gives managers the tools they need to drive team performance, achieve sales targets, and foster a positive culture.
Sales management coaching helps managers develop their leadership skills, master sales coaching techniques, and align their teams with organizational objectives. With this type of coaching, managers are better equipped to lead their sales teams going forward.
8 Tips for Coaching a Sales Team
Coaching a sales team effectively requires a combination of practical strategies and a supportive approach. Here are eight sales coaching tips you can try with your team:
Set Clear Goals
Start by setting clear and measurable goals for your sales team, such as volume of sales calls, leads brought in, and revenue booked. Ensure that these goals align with overall organizational objectives. As part of the goal-setting process, clearly communicate expectations and check for understanding.
From there, work collaboratively with each team member to figure out how their personal goals support these team and organizational goals. For example, individual goals might look different for a salesperson with an established book versus a sales rep being asked to focus on a new line of business.
Foster a Supportive Environment
The classic depiction of sales is a cutthroat environment where everyone is the enemy — even your teammate. While certain industries or company cultures tend to be that way, you don’t have to eschew collaboration, teamwork, and support to build a successful sales team. In fact, Yesware research found that sales teams that shared best practices were more likely to see account growth.
As a coach, you especially need to be supportive — encouraging open communication, practicing active listening, sharing knowledge, and challenging team members to solve problems. Foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement, celebrate successes as a team, and provide support during challenging times.
Develop Sales Skills
There’s always more to learn about sales, whether it’s basic skills, advanced techniques, or absorbing the latest insights in sales technology, customer needs, and industry trends. Provide ongoing training and development opportunities to help salespeople improve their product knowledge, technique, objection handling, and negotiation skills.
Encourage participation in workshops, webinars, and industry events so they keep expanding their skill set, stay current on the latest trends, and learn from peers and experts.
Tailor Coaching to Individual Needs
Recognize that each sales team member has unique strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles. Tailor your coaching approach to meet the individual needs of each team member. Provide personalized guidance, training, and resources that address their specific areas for improvement.
Adapt your coaching style to accommodate different personalities and preferences. This can include generational differences, especially in this era of multigenerational sales teams.
Provide Constructive Feedback
Regularly provide constructive feedback to your sales team members. Focus on strengths and areas for improvement. For example, offer praise and recognition for their achievements to motivate and reinforce positive behaviors. Give suggestions for how they can amplify strengths through professional development or by applying them in more advanced ways.
When addressing shortcomings or weak performance, be specific in your feedback, and don’t make it personal. Provide actionable suggestions for how salespeople can improve their sales techniques, communication skills, and overall performance.
Encourage Self-Reflection
Help your sales team identify their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for growth. Encourage them to set personal goals and take ownership of their career growth. Provide guidance and resources — such as a professional development plan template — to support their self-improvement journey.
Lead by Example
As a sales coach (and especially as a direct manager), demonstrate the behaviors and skills you expect from your team. Show enthusiasm, professionalism, and a strong work ethic. Be a role model for effective sales techniques, communication, and relationship-building. Your actions and attitude will inspire and motivate your team members — or demoralize and demotivate them.
Continuously Evaluate and Adjust
Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your coaching efforts. Because sales is such a measurable activity, you’ll quickly know whether coaching efforts are having the desired impact.
As you monitor progress, seek feedback from team members to understand their needs and preferences. Adjust your coaching approach to ensure ongoing improvement and alignment with individual and team goals.
Leverage Whole Brain® Thinking in Sales Coaching
Great sales coaching isn’t just about instilling the right sales behaviors. It’s also about helping salespeople think at their best, understand how their co-workers and customers think, and embrace cognitive diversity for better thinking and business results.
Think back to some of the most influential coaches you’ve had throughout your career. One of the first things you may have noticed was that they just seemed to “get” you. They understood what you cared about (and what you didn’t) and how you worked best. You communicated effectively, maybe even effortlessly. The two of you probably shared similar thinking preferences.
This is something that can be clarified and explored together using a validated assessment like the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument® (HBDI®), and it’s a great way to kick off a coaching engagement.
The Whole Brain® Thinking methodology is a scientifically backed approach to decoding and harnessing the cognitive diversity within organizations. This methodology is the basis of the HBDI® assessment, and it can help individuals and teams better understand their thinking and how everyone’s unique thinking preferences intersect with and support each other.
Whole Brain® Thinking is divided into four quadrants, for which each of us has a distinct preference:
- Blue (Analytical): Logical, methodical, good at problem-solving and making decisions.
- Green (Practical): Organized, structured thinking, applies knowledge to real-world situations.
- Red (Relational): Fosters relationships, effective at communicating and collaborating.
- Yellow (Innovative/Experimental): Creative, generates new ideas, envisions the big picture.
While most of us gravitate strongly to one or two thinking preferences, especially under pressure, everyone can and does succeed with each quadrant. Moreover, no thinking preference or combination is better or worse than the others.
Regardless of their own thinking preferences, successful sales coaches know how to move beyond their comfort zones to meet their coaches where they think. So before you kick off that next coaching conversation, ask yourself:
- How do my thinking preferences influence my coaching approach?
- How can I better align my coaching with the thinking demands of the sales job?
- How does my thinking align with the needs of my salespeople? Create a checklist together.
Whole Brain® Coaching Walkaround
When you do have those crucial coaching conversations, Whole Brain® Thinking can be a powerful ally. We’ve created a coaching walkaround that uses all four quadrants — helping sales coaches and salespeople answer questions about purpose, process, relationships, and the big picture.
Questions That Address Our Purpose (Analytical)
- What is our purpose?
- How will we analyze the coaching needs?
- What data do we need to gather?
- What is the focus of the coaching process?
- How will we measure our performance outcomes?
- What specific goals do we want to achieve?
Questions That Address Our Process (Practical)
- How can we define our process?
- How will the coachee be held accountable for changes they need to make?
- What specific expectations can we set?
- How can we stay on track against goals?
- How do we ensure follow-through occurs in a timely fashion?
- How do I monitor my performance as a coach?
Questions That Address Our Relationships (Relational)
- In what ways do we establish rapport?
- In what ways are we similar and different?
- How do we build trust to get work done and address tough issues?
- How can we keep communication open and effective?
- How can we honor each other’s values and differences?
- How will we handle conflict and differing opinions?
Questions That Address the Big Picture (Experimental)
- What is our vision of success?
- How much flexibility will this require for all of us?
- How can we make this process fun and creative?
- How do we look for patterns that reveal important issues to address?
- What other factors beyond the scope of our work might affect success?
These questions can help you and your team cover all bases as you set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound sales goals.
Turn Your Managers Into Great Sales Coaches
Sales coaching is one of the most powerful ways to develop your people, improve customer acquisition and revenue, and help your business grow. But it doesn’t happen overnight — or by accident.
Effective coaching simultaneously tailors the support and structure for each sales professional while ensuring everyone stays aligned with team, departmental, and organizational goals. To get this alignment, Whole Brain® Thinking is a powerful tool for improving your team’s thinking, collaboration, and results. Look at how you can combine a coaching mindset with the power of cognitive diversity to take your sales team to new heights.
Want to tap into better thinking? Request a consultation with a Whole Brain® Strategist today.
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