Research shows that 80 percent of your company's brand perception is based on how customers feel about your salesperson. Yikes! Those front-line sellers are your company to all those decision makers. And, unless they're well trained, you'll never get another chance to show off your great technology or leading-edge services.
So what are you doing to ensure your salespeople are ready for prime time–at all times? Is your sales training a one-shot event that you're glad to get out of the way? If so, you're wasting your money.
Ongoing sales development doesn't need to be expensive either. Sales coaching, by your own sales managers or external coaches, provides a great way to keep your salespeople at the top of their game. There are two forms of coaching, which if done concurrently, can transform your sales results.
On-the-Call Coaching
This form of coaching is essential for new hires because it helps them get up-to-speed quickly and ensures that they're doing things the "right" way. Plus, it helps experienced sellers get even better.
My good friend recently was hired as an inside salesperson for a firm that specializes in lead generation for the complex sale. Following the initial training program, her manager listened in to her phone calls on-and-off for the first several weeks. After each call, the manager pointed out her strengths and gave her tips on how to improve. Because of this, she began to see results almost immediately.
When I was a sales manager, I spent as many days traveling with my reps as possible. For the most part, my role was as "observer." While it would have been easy for me to be the "expert" or the "closer," developing my salespeople was my number one goal.
Prior to the calls, they would tell me what they knew about the account and their objective for the meetings. Afterward, we debriefed the call. Rather than telling them what was wrong, I used a Socratic method of questioning that enabled them to discover where they could improve.
This type of sales development training is highly effective if done on a regular basis. It's essential to do if you've invested in a sales training program and want to make sure your salespeople internalize the new knowledge and skills. It's also essential for newly hired reps.
Strategic Coaching
This type of coaching is account-specific. It teaches your salespeople to think and act strategically while pursuing the business with a targeted company. Typically this type of coaching starts out by "landscaping" the account with the rep, identifying:
- What's going on in the business (e.g., goals, trends, issues, key initiatives).
- Who's involved in the decision-making process.
- How they’re currently handling things relative to your product/service offering.
- Your strengths and weaknesses in the account.
- The potential opportunities and threats to getting the business.
Together you create and implement a plan to penetrate the account, uncover needs, neutralize competitors or whatever has to be done to get your initial order or grow your business.
While in sales management, I used strategic coaching to take my good reps to an even higher level of performance. Sometimes they think there is only one way to achieve their sales goals. But when you do strategic coaching, together you can come up with multiple ways to get the desired results.
When both on-the-call and strategic coaching becomes an integral part of your sales development training, that's when you'll really see sales take off. Salespeople can't do it by themselves. They need a good sales training program combined with ongoing coaching to maximize their talents.
Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, is a recognized sales strategist in the highly competitive business-to-business market. She helps her clients crack into corporate accounts, speed up their sales cycles and win more contracts. Sign up for her free ezine and receive a BONUS "Sales Call Planning Guide" at
SellingtoBigCompanies.com.