All posts tagged Sales coaching

Let’s Do a Debrief

With the turmoil of the last 18 months due to the pandemic and the resulting impact on the economy and business conditions, selling organizations should be examining their sales practices to ensure they are using the right tools that will enable their sales teams to close more profitable sales. One of the first areas they should focus on is their process for debriefing their sales team’s sales calls. Nothing can have a bigger impact on sales growth than getting ‘debriefing’ right.

What are the effects of ineffective sales debriefing taking place, or worse, no debriefing at all?

-Sales pipelines with rosy forecasts that never seem to translate into closed business.

-Too many proposals for unqualified prospects.

–No accountability for salespeople to execute their sales calls according to the standard set by the company–asking the right questions, getting to decision-makers and using desired sales strategies, etc.

-Lack of debriefing leading to lack of knowledge by management that informs them where salespeople need improvement and what kind of help they need to get stronger in the sales process.

Consistent, strong debriefing of salespeople helps a sales organization:

-Forecast revenue more accurately

-Predict with greater certainty a salesperson’s success or failure with a potential sales opportunity

-Understand what help will be needed by their salespeople to achieve better results

There are many ‘must do’s’ on the part of the debriefing manager to be effective. Here are just a few of the most useful guidelines:

  1. Have a set agenda – When you use the same format, week in and week out, salespeople know what to expect and prepare for.
  2. Salespeople must be prepared to discuss ‘what happened, obstacles that came up, etc.
  3. The manager’s two favorite questions will be:  “How do you know that?” and “Why?”
  4. The manager must always ask, “What’s the next step with the prospect?”   
  5. Always end with ‘lessons learned’ and a commitment from the salesperson on how they will apply the lesson.
  6. The debriefing manager must emphasize that their role is to serve as a resource to the salesperson for solving sales problems, offer coaching and insights into the buyer’s psychology and suggest alternative tactics and strategies that align with the company’s desired sales process.
  7. To make sure the salesperson does not take any coaching personally, stay away from any criticism of their sales actions or thinking. Be sure to stroke them for everything they did right. 

 

There is another part of debriefing that is important that I haven’t covered and that is the use of role-playing in developing salespeople. And that will be the subject of my next post–stay tuned!

 

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Five ‘Do’s’ For Effective Sales Coaching

Recent data shows that salespeople aren’t receiving nearly enough coaching from their managers and too often the coaching they are getting isn’t resulting in closing more business. Here’s a list of five ‘Do’s’ for sales leaders and managers who want to create a productive sales coaching environment.

1. DO be consistent in scheduling all one-on-one coaching sessions with salespeople. Being consistent sends the message to salespeople that these sessions are important and intended for their development and improvement. Establishing a rhythm and consistency of coaching is key to communicating that message.

2. DO have an agenda for every coaching session. Using a structured agenda helps salespeople feel more comfortable and less threatened when they know what to expect in a coaching sit down. This leads to more open and straightforward conversations regarding their sales opportunities.

3. DO make sure the salesperson comes away from every coaching session with a lesson learned from the sales calls that are discussed. Lessons reinforce positive sales behaviors and prevent a future repeat of negative, ineffective behaviors.

4. DO make sure, as the salesperson’s coach, to role-play the ‘salesperson’s’ part of the sales call. By doing this, the coach is modeling the expected sales strategies and tactics. (“This is how I want you to do this.”) When this is done, a standard is established,expectations of the salesperson can be set and they can be measured and held accountable for meeting that standard in their sales calls.

5. DO listen for the salesperson’s beliefs that may sabotage their sales calls and prevent them from achieving their desired outcomes (e.g. fear of asking detailed questions about budgets, reluctance to ask about the prospect’s decision-making process) Bring these self-limiting beliefs to the salesperson’s attention and help them discover how they are being held back, not by uncooperative or hostile prospects, but by their own thinking.

These are just a few elements of effective sales coaching. I will be posting a list of ‘Don’ts’ in the near future.

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Asking Great Sales Coaching Questions

From working with companies and sales organizations over the years, I've encountered and observed many sales managers and CEO's or Presidents who served in a sales leader role. I've learned many great things from them. However, some were not so good.

Many of them were and are strong, competent, knowledgeable business professionals. However, many were less than stellar sales coaches.

The reasons for this shortcoming were varied of course–lack of time, lack of desire, too much ego, not enough ego or simply not knowing how to go about it.

If there is one area of sales coaching that sales leaders could look to, to immediately increase their effectiveness and see a positive impact on their team's performance and results, it would be the competency of asking better questions of their people.

As an example, let's take a sales coaching conversation with a salesperson to review their sales pipeline. As a sales leader we're primarily interested in the following:

1)  The quantity of deals they have in their pipeline
2)  the quality of deals they have in their pipeline
3)  The velocity of the deals in their pipeline
4)  The forecasted revenue from closed business in the next 30-45 days
5)  The action items being worked on to move specific deals forward to either a yes or no

There are lot's of questions to be asked about items 1-4. Let's say we want to focus on #5. What's a good question with which to begin the conversation?

When it comes to sales coaching questions, remember that vague, ambiguous, wishy-washy language will result in vague, ambiguous, wishy-washy questions that will yield zero information and waste everyone's time. If you want to ask effective, impactful questions, remember the 3 C's:  Clear, Concise, Concrete.

Alright, so if we want to start the conversation re #5–what strategies, tactics is the salesperson working on to move a deal forward, what's the question? Try this–Instead of asking "What do you have going on?", ask this "Looking at your pipeline, when it comes to moving a deal forward or unsticking a deal that's been stuck, what opportunities can I help you move forward?" Much better.

Clear, concise, concrete. This question will get you to a 'data point' from which you can ask more great questions.

Actually, there are 4 C's to great coaching questions. The fourth "C" is Consistency. When you ask the same questions from meeting to meeting you are training your salesperson to be prepared to answer those questions and knowing what to expect in the session.

This was just one example of a great sales coaching question. Can you think of others?

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Great Sales Coaching Question!

What's the difference between these two questions?

"How did your week go?"

"How many new opportunities did you add to your sales pipeline?"

If you answered, "The number of words." you're correct. If you were being serious and answered that the second question drives to a specific piece of data, you're also correct. And more, a specific piece of data that gives more context to a salesperson's sales performance and effectiveness in a week's time than the first question.

Only 15% of sales managers spend as much as 25% of their time on coaching  and the little they do spend coaching is not very effective. These numbers only serve to emphasize how important it is that sales managers be highly competent at asking great sales coaching questions.

If you are a sales manager (or a company president or business owner who serves as their own sales manager) who is looking to improve your sales team's performance, pay more attention to the types of coaching questions you're asking of your salespeople.

When beginning a coaching conversation with your salespeople, use clear, concise and concrete questions. This is not the time for 'warm and fuzzy' questions or inquiring how your salesperson is feeling. Those can come later on in the conversation when action items  are committed to by the salesperson and you want to know their comfort level in executing the strategies so you can offer more coaching to ensure effective performance. Role-playing the sales situations or strategies with your salesperson will help here.

Want to ask great sales coaching questions?

Remember:

Clear.

Concise.

Concrete.

 

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