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The Case for Sales Coaching

IN OVER 50 YEARS' combined experience training and coaching salespeople and their sales managers, we find that many of our clients share the same goals: to increase market share, revenue, and profitability.

Market share improves when sales performance improves. Sales performance improves when sales teams are better trained and coached, because it creates a cycle in which salespeople feel better about themselves and their career, experience more success, stay longer, and achieve even higher levels of success.

"Of all the codes Gallup has been asked to crack dating back 80 years to our founder, George Gallup, the single most profound, distinct and clarifying finding - ever - is probably this one: 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager" (Clifton and Harter 2019, 12).

Employee engagement drives retention, higher levels of buyer engagement, revenue, share price, and market share. The Gallup research validates everything we have learned over many years of helping companies improve the performance of their sales teams. Sales managers matter, you matter, and you can make a big difference!

Figure 1.1 Relative Impact on Engagement

Dynamic Sales Coaching is Better than Random Sales Coaching

While implementing sales coaching programs for our clients' sales leadership teams, it is not uncommon for them to express very early in the process, "We're different. We are unique. We are not like everyone else."

You know what? They're right! We know that different companies take different approaches to sales coaching. Miller Heiman's CSO Insights 2019 Sales Enablement Report identified four different approaches (Miller Heiman 2019a, 34).

1. Random: 42.9% of companies take a random approach, in which sales coaching is completely left up to sales managers.
2. Informal: 20.0% take an informal approach, in which there may be guidelines.
3. Formal: 24.5% implement a formal approach.
4. Dynamic: 12.6% are dynamic, meaning that they have a formal sales coaching process and methodology, and enablement services tailored to individual salespeople.

Figure 1.2 Approaches to Coaching

Take a moment to reflect on your own experience. Does your company have a formal approach where there is a clearly defined sales coaching process and methodology that you have been trained on? Does your company take an informal approach in which there may or may not be guidelines? Or is it more random? We know there is a high probability that your company takes a random approach in which the sales coaching process and method is left entirely up to you.

Let's take a look at how sales coaching impacts win rates. Generally speaking, you don't get half a sale. You either get it, and you entered "closed-won" on your pipeline tracker, or you entered "closed-lost." It's all about the win rate.

So, what impact does the approach to sales coaching have on win rates?

• Companies with a random approach to sales coaching have a win rate of 41.8%.
• Companies with an informal approach have a win rate of 47.8%.
• Companies with a formal approach have a win rate of 48.9%.
• Companies with dynamic approach have a win rate of 55.2%.

Figure 1.3 Coaching Approach and Win Rates

Dynamic sales coaching showed double-digit improvements in sales performance on both quota attainment (21.3%) and win rates (19.0%) over the study's average (Miller Heiman 2019a, 36).

What is the delta between random and dynamic? The dynamic approach outperforms the random approach by 32.1%. All the data from CSO Insights and Gallup are consistent with our own experience working with many large sales organizations on sales performance improvement programs.

In summary, we wrote this book to help you impact the level of engagement of your sales team, reduce the randomness in your sales coaching, increase the formality, and move you closer to a dynamic sales coaching process and methodology that will ultimately help you to win.

Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.

-Vince Lombardi

The Benefits of Reading (and Using!) This Book

If you're like us, whenever you consider investing your most precious resource - your time - in reading a book, you are probably asking yourself: "What's in it for me? This book better be worth it!" We realize that, as a sales manager coaching your team, there are many challenges you are going to face. Here are just a few.

Delivering Consistent Sales Performance as a Sales Manager

Quota achievement has improved a bit in the last few years, but it remains an extremely challenging environment, with only 56.9% of salespeople making goal (Miller Heiman 2019a, 3).

Shortening the Time to Proficiency for New Hires

Even if you have a great new-hire sales training program, the results are still going to depend to a wide degree on the sales manager, who has to know, demonstrate, reinforce, and coach what was covered in the sales training.

Developing the Untapped Potential of Your Sales Team

Many companies categorize their salespeople into "A," "B," and "C" players. "A" and "C" players together often compose about 10-15% of a typical sales force, while "B" players make up about 70-80%. Coaching will more effectively optimize the productivity of your "A" players. For "C" players, it will either "help them out," or it will "help them out." That's not a bad thing. Sometimes there are people in a sales role who are not a good fit for that role and it may be in their best interest to get on a path that might be more suitable for their skill set. The biggest opportunity is with the moveable middle, the "B" players. If you can incrementally improve the performance of the largest segment in your sales force, you can have a dramatic impact on the bottom line.

Developing Your Sales Team Through the Phases of Building a Business and Career

We find that many of our clients share similar goals when it comes to hiring, onboarding, training, coaching, and retaining talent. In that continuum, the first goal they have is to make sure people can survive and make it. After they have had success, the focus shifts to productivity. The best companies will then leverage those productive salespeople to be peer-to-peer coaches, ultimately grooming them to become future sales leaders. Teams that develop their sales leaders in this way are better positioned to be more competitive and gain market share.

Figure 1.4 Stay Longer

Increasing Retention

Turnover in sales has increased to 18% (Miller Heiman 2019a, 4). The impact of this attrition includes the opportunity cost of having a territory/market vacant, plus the time it takes to source a new salesperson to move into the open role, compounded by the time it takes to get them to a desired level of productivity. Effective sales managers, in contrast, have a higher retention rate. They have more experienced, more productive, salespeople in the field longer, resulting in higher customer loyalty. They spend less time sourcing and onboarding new hires and more time coaching their sales team.

Leading a Diverse Workforce

This is the most diverse workforce in history. Millennials and Gen Zs typically like and expect ongoing feedback, positive reinforcement, and coaching to their strengths. You know what? So does everyone else! Even Boomers! We know more about the science of leadership today than we ever have. Leadership style and work environment affect our brains, our physiology, our culture, and our success (Pink 2009). Effective sales managers today must be able to communicate consistently and effectively while flexing their style, so they can be the coach that each unique salesperson needs.

Getting Competitive Results on "Great Place to Work" Surveys to Help Attract and Retain Talent

Your reputation as a workplace will determine the prospective talent you attract or repel. Your reputation lives in social media (and society generally), but it can be measured using employee engagement assessments. Using the sales coaching process and techniques in this book will help boost your scores in areas such as:

• I feel my work is recognized.
• Feedback is timely and consistent.
• My sales manager supports me.
• I know what my sales manager expects of me.
• I feel supported to pursue opportunities and grow.

Delivering Competitive Customer Satisfaction and "Net Promoter" Scores as a Customer Service Manager

The Net Promoter score is an index measuring the willingness of customers to recommend a company's products or services to others. It is used to measure the customer's overall satisfaction with a company's products or services and the customer's loyalty to the brand. Although the performance...