We have an example for you. Well, two examples, to be specific.
If you have siblings, then this first one is for you. Imagine the siblings you grew up with. Call them to mind. Was Little Brother Robby good at baseball? A real miniature sports pro all around as you all grew up? What about Little Sister Suzy? Did it feel like she was a prodigal musician from the moment she was born? Clarinet, guitar, piano; you name it, she played it.
Now think of you. What were your strengths growing up that contributed to your success today? Were you a master of persuasion? The type of kid that was always able to talk themselves out of any sibling-related tiff or incident in the classroom?
Let’s get into the second example. This is for those of you who grew up without younger siblings stealing your favorite shirt and older ones torturing you in some way. If you managed to avoid those sticky situations, think of your group of childhood friends. You know, the ones who you spent every waking moment with, in school and at home.
Was Becky a hard worker? The type to always persevere and never give up on an assignment or job she didn’t like? Was Tim a kid genius, acing standardized tests and somehow knowing the answer to everything?
Case in point, we are all different. We all learn differently and shine in different areas of expertise. Like the above scenarios, sometimes any group of people can grow up and spend time in similar if not identical environments. But they still are different; great at certain things and need room for improvement at others.
Why is your sales team any different now? Hear ye, hear ye: they’re not. This is why you need sales performance coaching.
What is a Sales Performance Coach?
What is a Sales Performance Coach?“Pardon me?” you’re thinking. “My team doesn’t need sales coaching training, or whatever it was you just said. We are the best of the best. The cherry on top of the sales sundae.”
Excellent. You’re already starting to get the point.
If you have such great reps, then they have a lot of individual experiences that feed into their success, yes? Yes. Why aren’t you sharing all those experiences, techniques, and sales hacks with the rest of your team then? They may be the best, but they still need to keep refreshing their memories and improving their existing skills.
Look, we know you run an incredible business. That’s beside the point. The point is that there is always room to grow, room for improvement. And a sales coach brings that out in your sales department.
Sales coaches empower. They elevate the performance of your sales reps. With the right sales coaching tools and their own experiences, your coach will impact your company altogether. That impact (or series of impacts, really) have a domino effect in driving revenue, reaching goals, and more.
Sales performance coaching gets the job done, but it goes deeper than that. The best sales coaches come in and get to know your team. They help your reps to reach their personal selling goals and spend time on overarching organizational goals too.
“Cool,” you’re thinking. “Sounds impressive at best. How possibly can they do all of that?”
It’s possible with the use of data. They measure rep performance with data. From there, they see where you need help and come up with game plans to help you. Cool, indeed.
Does Coaching Improve Performance of Sales?
Industry leaders have proven over and over again that sales performance coaching will improve your overall sales success.
They are quite literally coaching for sales performance. And the numbers don’t lie, which you will read more about below.
But first, let’s chat about some of the basics at play here.
First, coaching is not the same as teaching. As far as the sales environment goes, teaching is when you lecture to someone so they can learn the elementary stuff. Coaching, on the other hand, allows your players to become pros.
The big difference comes down to the fact that sales coaching engages your team. They don’t leave them with tidbits of information and call it a day.
Second, coaching a sales team starts with your average performers. They have a much higher success rate than your other reps. Top talent already has it going on, and your lower performers won’t be as willing to let a sales coach motivate them. It gets discouraging.
Third, sales performance coaching gives your reps a chance to learn on the fly. There is always the option of attending a lecture that drones on for hours with little-to-no retention when your rep comes to work the next day.
Sales coaching models work in a real-time environment. That means your team will learn sales coaching techniques that apply directly to their everyday work life.
Some Notable Impacts of Sales Performance Coaching From Top-Performing Companies
Those are all true facts about sales performance coaching. But maybe you’re a numbers person. We don’t blame you for that; you are in sales, after all. Plus, there’s no way to know if you should invest in something new for your business success if you don’t have all the research in front of you.
Well, the wait is over. Below, we have five statistics on why sales performance coaching works— again and again and again.
Companies that offer top-of-the-line sales performance coaching for their sales team win 28 percent more
“Winning.” The word sounds nice. It looks nice. But the nicest part about it? When you get to experience it for yourself.
And in the cosmos of business, where competitors bare their teeth at you around every turn, you need to win. You want to beat them. And you can.
Companies that use sales performance coaching among their team enjoy 28 percent higher win rates. This is in part due to the technology that excellent sales coaching programs use, like video.
Your sales manager can pose a problem to your reps who need coaching. Those reps record a video response to the problem with a solution. Then, their fellow workers watch all the responses and offer feedback.
It is much easier to reflect on where you can do better next time when you capture it on video to rewatch whenever you need to.
Companies with high-quality sales coaches experience 16.7 percent annual revenue growth
History repeats itself. We know that. And it goes farther than reading through a school-sanctioned history textbook when you first figure this out.
Yes, history repeats itself. And that fact feels even more true when you look at it in the light of sales. Think about your last business plan or your most recent marketing plan. You have an entire section on market research. This means you are analyzing your competitors. You are looking at your strengths and weaknesses to see how you can drive more revenue.
Now, look at leading companies in your industry. Technically still your competition, but perhaps on a larger scale.
Do you know what these companies are doing right to drive revenue? To make themselves stand out as sales moguls? They are using sales performance coaching. They turn to sales management coaching for a quality leader and sales performance coaching for streamlined company growth.
Their reps know everything about your brand’s value proposition. They know how it stands apart from your competitors and learns how to defend it to your customers if they have any objections.
Those companies, the ones with great coaching experiences? They experience a 16.7 percent annual revenue growth because of it. If you want to experience that in your own organization, it’s time to level up your sales coaching game.
Poor sales coaching programs means up to 60 percent of salespeople will quit their jobs
How many reps do you have in your sales department right now? Do a headcount. We’ll wait.
Got the number? Okay. Cut it in half. Now trim it down even more than that. Not an ideal number, is it?
If you have low-grade sales performance coaching programs, as much as 60 percent of your salespeople could quit. Your team wants to feel like their higher-ups value them. That they recognize what they bring to the table. It makes them want to bring a whole feast to the table the next time around.
This counts for your sales managers too. They want sales manager coaching as much as your reps want sales performance coaching. So honor that wish. Make it come true for your staff.
Also, consider the fact that sales managers almost always start off as reps. If you want a qualified leader at the forefront of your sales efforts, you need to bring them the resources early on in their career.
And let’s face it. You don’t want 60 percent of your sales professionals to up and leave. That would mean you wasted time and hope in training them to be the best versions of themselves. They will share that same sentiment with you. And if you have a workplace culture with that type of bad reputation, word will spread. Finding top talent to begin with will become much tougher.
74 percent of successful companies say sales coaching is a frontline manager’s most important role
Let’s up the ante a little bit more. So now you know that you could lose 60 percent of your sales force if you do not have the right sales coach. But that number jumps a lot when you look at how important industry experts think sales coaching is.
A staggering 74 percent of leading companies stand by sales coaching as a frontline manager’s most important role. Try that one on for size.
High-quality sales performance coaching and consistent mentoring is what your managers have to optimize. What happens if you and your sales managers don’t see this is a priority? It could mean that potential customers box your business into that unseemly package labeled “underperforming.”
So stay abreast of that. Make sure that you train your managers to give their all for your employees. Let the idea of high-performing sales trickle down the hierarchy and inspire your whole department to win more.
75 percent of sales businesses throw away valuable resources due to low-quality sales performance coaching
75 percent of sales businesses throw away valuable resources due to low-quality sales performance coachingWe have one more statistic here for you. And it’s another one that’s going to up the ante. That is, both in number value and in importance as to why you need sales performance coaching for your team.
Here goes. 75 percent of sales companies waste their crucial resources when they go about sales coaching the wrong way. That’s three-quarters. Ouch.
What do we mean by “the wrong way,” though? Simply put, we are talking about when you don’t have structure with your coaching approach. Or, when you rely on either formal or informal coaching by itself, without the other mixed in.
You need a combination of formal and informal coaching efforts. For formal coaching, think of the tactical and operational sides of things. This may include initial training after you hire a rep, sales methodologies and certification processes.
As for informal, think more along the lines of in-the-moment coaching opportunities. One-to-one meetings, prep work for a client call or feedback among peers.
Your formal coaching is the foundation, but your informal coaching happens on an as-needed basis. The two feed into one another. They work together for everyone’s ultimate success.
Conclusion
That sounds lovely: “They work together for everyone’s ultimate success.”
And aside from sales performance coaching, there are two other things that work together for your business’s ultimate success.
Here’s the recipe:
- Your business
- Wizard of Sales
All you have to do is mix the two of us together. Then you can sit back, relax and enjoy the benefits.
Wizard of Sales can help you generate higher-quality leads, recruit top talent and improve your sales training program. We can keep you up-to-date on the latest industry news. Best of all, our ad and sales wizards at Selling Revolution know what it takes to customize and revolutionize selling solutions for your business.
But before you enter full-blown leisure mode, can we ask you for a favor? There’s just one more thing you need to do before we can get started.
Click here to book a call with Wizard of Sales today.