Sales Coaching Tips
Coaching Tip #1:
Encourage your salespeople to take a few minutes before every sales call to come up with TWO OBJECTIVES for the call. One objective should be based on adding value to the interaction. What information or solution can you provide that will help the buyer and their company? The second objective should be "revenue directed." Revenue directed means it will lead to a sale now or in the future. The job of a salesperson is to drive revenue by making something happen that would not have happened had the call not been made.
Coaching Tip #2:
"What get's measured, get's done." In sales it's important to keep score. It's vital that your salespeople are focusing their efforts on the right sales activities and behaviors necessary for success. As a sales leader, start out by identifying the critical events in your sales process. What steps must a salesperson take to move a prospect buyer into a happy and loyal customer? Once you've identified those key steps, require your sales team to track those critical events by reporting on them in your CRM or a weekly sales call report. Make sure you take the time to have weekly discussions with each salesperson regarding how they are measuring up to achieving those critical events.
Coaching Tip #3:
When you have an under-performing salesperson; there is typically one of two reasons causing the lack of performance.
It's either a lack of activity or a lack of skills. The starting point is to determine if the salesperson is "making the calls." Are they generating enough activities to drive sales?
Secondly, if the salesperson is generating an appropriate amount of activities then you will need to assess their selling skills. The only one way to accurately determine if selling skills are the problem is to observe the salesperson's performance while they are on-the-job. For an outside salesperson this means getting out on the street and doing ride-along's. For an inside salesperson, I suggest sit-along's, where you sit next to your salesperson and listen to them making sales phone calls.