10 Best Sales Coaching Tools in 2021 (Software and Educational Resources)

In an age where almost everything a business does nowadays is digital, there’s a need to take a step back to assess how we do things and the impact it makes, like selling. Selling was more of a one-to-one thing, even door to door. Now everything is digital or by phone, and some businesses never see a single customer they sell to. 

In addition to that, businesses aren’t getting the results they so very much need to meet their goals and take their business to the next level. Some are stagnated and aren’t growing at all. 

When it comes to the art of selling, it may be time to go back to the basics. This is where a sales coach can make such a difference. It’s time for businesses to invest in a selling system that will not only give their sales team the one-on-one they so desperately need but provide the special sauce needed to take their revenues to a whole new level.

What is a Sales Coach?

A sales coach helps a business improve performance and increase revenue by providing coaching strategies that help sales teams excel in their field for optimum performance. In the process, they cultivate mutually beneficial, long-term business relationships. Sales coaching is crucial to any team because it reinforces best practices, establishes standard processes for selling, and helps develops a salesperson’s full potential.

Essentially, sales coaching empowers sales teams to improve selling skills and close more business. Sales coaching is usually done one on one and is not always received well by sales teams. But whether it’s missed quotas, inconsistent messaging, or lack of sales readiness, there’s always something that could stand being improved when it comes to sales. 

Most sales managers will tell you they’re either already doing sales coaching or don’t have the time to do sales coaching because of all the other hats they’re wearing during the day. But the truth is, to take sales to a different level, sales coaching must be consistent within any organization.

How Do You Know If Coaching Will Be Worth It?

Anything important to you is worth the effort. In sales coaching, if a company isn’t growing, then sales coaching is worth the effort. But with anything, it’s important to set your goals to know just where it fits in the grand scheme of things. When you can determine how much your goal is worth to you, you know if it’s worth it. 

The same thing applies to coaching. Your company’s overall goal is to excel in sales. How much is it worth to you to do that? How much will it cost you in time and money? If that’s pretty high on the list and coaching can help in this area, then coaching just may be worth quite a bit.

Sales coaching has many benefits:

Improves Employee retention Rate. Sales coaching is a form of professional development that each salesperson can look at as an opportunity for them to grow in their sales production and grow in leadership. Nine in 10 employees say professional development is important and will motivate them to stay on a job.

Provides an opportunity to share best practices. When taught sales strategies are proven to work with at least one sales representative, it’s a strategy other team members will want to be taught to them.

Maximizes investment. Billions of dollars a year are spent on sales training, with very little to show for it. Effective training in sales has proven to be consistent, long-term reinforcement. Sales coaching yields such a better outcome because of this.

Sales Coach ModelsSales Coach Models

Managers have many choices when it comes to sales coach models, but they’re not enthusiastic about many of them. Some weren’t designed for the right people, others were designed for specific methodologies, some are overly structured and don’t allow for flexibility. When it comes to finding and using a suitable model, it’s always good to get feedback from your team since they’re the ones with who the model will most impact.

Sales Coaching Techniques

Use these commonly used coaching techniques when it comes to coaching:

Use sales data. To avoid the confusion of knowing what data to use, use team data and individual sales data to determine where things need to improve.

Mix up the coaching style. Coaching can take on different styles: strategic coaching, big picture style, tactical coaching, coaching in a specific skill area.

Get buy-in. Involve the salespeople in the improvement process. Get their feedback. Don’t try to change their behavior by telling them what to do. Ask them what do they think about their performance and how they think they can improve.

Leverage from your best. Let your best sales rep share what they’re learning with everyone else. Let them give a presentation and stand out as leaders. Others will want to follow.

Sales Coaching Tools (Software and Educational Resources)

Many sales coaching tools exist that can make your sales coaching techniques less complicated. These tools are a combination of software and educational resources that can be used separately or combined.

Showpad Coach

Showpad Coach is a training software that helps sales coaches organize and manage the coaching activities for their entire sales team and new team members. 

 analytics

With Showpad Coach, you can review data that relates to their team’s performance, identify what type of support each person needs, create videos, and customize and tailor support for each person along the way.

HubSpot Sales Coaching for Managers

HubSpot Sales Coaching for Managers is a free program for sales managers that helps them to coach better and support their team. It’s a series of lessons that focus on how each team member can meet their goals.

ExecVision

ExecVision uses a conversation intelligence program that focuses on team members’ conversations with clients and potential clients and identifies opportunities for improvements. Transcriptions of each call make it easy for the sales coach to have teachable moments with any of his sales team.

Mindtickle

Mindtickle

Mindtickle consists of training modules on a mobile platform that an entire sales team can utilize and grow from on an individual basis. It provides the sales coach the opportunity to develop, coach and improve the performance of the sales time regardless of where they are geographical. 

Gong

Gong focuses on the sales team’s interaction with their customers by using conversation intelligence capabilities. This way, sales managers can hear the conversations, replicate actions and identify areas at each stage of the conversation that can be an opportunity to learn from and improve on.

Lessonly

Lessonly is a simple program but proven to be effective in helping teams to learn, practice and do better work. The sales team can share knowledge, develop skills and reinforce best practices.

Salesken

Salesken is a conversational intelligence program that gives sales managers and the sales team a detailed analysis of their sales call. The analysis includes the emotions and the objections. The real-time cues during the calls help them see what they should have done better and ultimately better engage with their customer. 

Ambition

Ambition is an industry leader when it comes to coaching and gaming software for sales teams. Ambition is on a mission to ensure that sales reps close more deals by providing the tools to motivate and stand accountable to their goals. It integrates with CRMs to show easily viewable action insights. 

Jiminny

Jiminny is the perfect platform to get insight into team members’ conversations with their customers and potential customers. They record, transcribe and analyze sales successes and learning so the team can feel empowered to see their way to success and improve on their revenue goals. Jiminny provides complete visibility of sales performance and actionable data that helps your team to grow.

Selling Revolution-Selling SystemSelling Revolution-Selling System

Selling Revolution is a management-level service system that helps home service owners build a better business through communication, culture, and leadership. Selling Revolution focus on the four key business drivers for home service businesses: performance, operations, sales, and marketing. 

Further, the Selling Revolution-Selling System:

  • Teach leaders how to deliver training
  • Help build training schedules
  • Help teams to implement goals, budgets, and forecasts
  • Help you modify your strategy as you grow
  • Help you attract select and keep your best salespeople
  • Help leadership to stay focused
  • Help teams close more sales, increase average sales and profitability

Conclusion

How much is your ultimate goal worth to you? Sales is a business’s bottom line. Without sales, there is no business. As a business, you’re always trying to grow it to make it better. You’re always looking for leads. You’re not just looking for leads … you’re looking for better leads.

Sales coaching is definitely worth the time and money it requires to do it right. It’s time for you to take the time to invest in processes that will catapult your business to the next level to earn optimum revenue through your sales. The Selling Revolution System is a system that gives a futuristic look at processes that have proven to work. Book a call with us today so we can start the conversation with you.