We all know that we need more and better call coaching – that it can lead to big leaps in quota attainment, improve rep engagement AND leap tall buildings in single bounds. So why don’t we hear any real-life success stories? Why can’t your team find the time? Why are your top managers still avoiding it? And why are our teams still averaging 60% to quota?
Because call coaching is HARD!
In this webinar, Factor 8 Founder, Lauren Bailey, joins Andy Culligan, CMO of Leadfeeder, to share her sixteen most common call coaching mistakes, why we make them, and most importantly — how to fix them. You’ll leave this webinar with sixteen actions you can take immediately to boost your call coaching game.
Watch the video replay!
IMPROVE YOUR CALL COACHING SESSIONS
We all know that we need more and better call coaching – that it can lead to big leaps in quota attainment, improve rep engagement AND leap tall buildings in single bounds. So why don’t we hear any real-life success stories? Why can’t your team find the time? Why are your top managers still avoiding it? And why are our teams still averaging 60% to quota?
Because call coaching is HARD!
In this webinar, Factor 8 Founder, Lauren Bailey, joins Andy Culligan, CMO of Leadfeeder, to share her sixteen most common call coaching mistakes, why we make them, and most importantly — how to fix them. You’ll leave this webinar with sixteen actions you can take immediately to boost your call coaching game.
Essential Call Coaching Activities for Sales Managers
Download our Call Coaching Cheat Sheets to ensure you are regularly having effective call coaching sessions with your sales reps. You’re getting access to:
Categorize Your Reps – Use this cheat sheet to help you create a prioritized list of which sales reps to coach first and why it matters.
Plan Your Month – Use this calendar to track all of your upcoming call coaching sessions for the month to ensure you’re sticking to a schedule.
Call coaching shouldn’t be an afterthought! Learn the best way to coach your reps and how to stick to a schedule!
Download Cheat Sheets
Essential Call Coaching Activities for Sales Managers
Download our Call Coaching Cheat Sheets to ensure you are regularly having effective call coaching sessions with your sales reps. You’re getting access to:
Categorize Your Reps – Use this cheat sheet to help you create a prioritized list of which sales reps to coach first and why it matters.
Plan Your Month – Use this calendar to track all of your upcoming call coaching sessions for the month to ensure you’re sticking to a schedule.
Call coaching shouldn’t be an afterthought! Learn the best way to coach your reps and how to stick to a schedule!
Call coaching is literally THE hardest new skill for sales managers. Yes, it’s a new skill even if you’re not a new manager. Why? Because as a seller – hell, as a HUMAN – our job is to take action to get results. We are “me” focused and “results” focused. Coaching flips this on its head as we’re told to be “rep” focused and skill improvement vs. deal focused. Let’s be clear, you guys…
THAT.
ISN’T.
NATURAL.
And the better you were as a seller, the harder it was as a manager. Great sellers are competitive, a little selfish and needy (c’mon, own that), and ruthlessly devoted to the “W.”
In fact, the very best skill coaching (aka call coaching aka just coaching) is NOT focused on the deal. It’s about the rep’s development first and foremost. Focusing on the deal over the rep is where we get in trouble and make common coaching mistakes like, “The Laundry List” and “Be Like Me.” Why? Because we’re impatient to get the win, to save the deal, to bank the commission. Let me summarize in caps, as that makes me feel like I’m really driving the point:
GOOD CALL COACHING IS NOT DEAL COACHING.
If you can enter into the meeting 100% not caring if they win or lose the revenue and only if they feel better about themselves and are excited to improve, then you get it.
You’re also some sort of superhero because that’s basically impossible.
OF COURSE, you care about the “W”. You’re in sales!!
Over my years in sales leadership and training leadership, I’ve developed a lot of hacks to fix this situation. For example, I only use call recordings of past deals. This prevents my natural sales animal from emerging and ripping the headset off a sweet, well-meaning newbie and taking over the deal (and thereby completely deflating if not scaring my employee).
I also have a GREAT way to take notes during the call to help me vent my frustrations, but still appear supportive and encouraging to an underperformer (admit it, that’s hard).
There’s also a rule of thumb to NEVER break on what to coach, plus:
How many things to coach at once
How often to coach each rep
How to track it so improvement happens
How to make time to do more coaching
It’s a complex challenge we face in doing more and better coaching on the job. And going virtual didn’t help. Alas, it’s a worthy pursuit. Frankly, I feel a bit like the Captain Ahab of sales call coaching. I’ve evolved, improved, and added to my training solution pretty much every year for the past ten years. I keep searching for new and improved silver bullets to make the transition easier and faster. And we’re getting there, folks. We’ve created a comprehensive and effective program that changes behaviors and results (contact us if you’re interested in our sales call coaching training).
I would be remiss if I did not mention the call coaching framework we created here at Factor 8: The COACHN℠ Model. It ensures reps and managers have the most efficient and effective coaching sessions possible. Check out the image below (and save it to your desktop!).
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Coaching is a tough skill for most sales managers. But if you’re used to being in the office and are now managing a virtual sales team, you have some added hurdles. These tips are for you.
(Be sure to keep scrolling to hear my manager coaching tips at the bottom of this article)
#1 – Clearly Define Coaching.
In sales, we use the term coaching too often. We mean it for leaders who use a question-based or learning-based approach. The helpers and askers vs. the domineering tellers. Coaching as a style is different from dedicated rep, skill, or call coaching. When we clearly define when we’re doing sales coaching vs. our regular role of answering questions, running a huddle, or doing a 1:1, it’s easier to identify when to activate coaching skills.
#2 – Dedicate Time for Coaching.
When we were in the office, we could “drive-by coach” when we heard sales reps on the phone doing the good, the bad, and the ugly on calls. Now we need a dedicated hour with each rep one to four times per month. How often, exactly? Coach new reps and “B” reps at least twice a month. Prioritize your “A” and “C” reps next, with the “D” reps coming in last. Beware, focusing on the squeaky wheel!
#3 – Leverage Recordings.
If you don’t have call recording in place, prioritize it now. It will cut the time required for coaching by more than half. Have reps find their own recordings for coaching, mark them, and bring them to the call coaching session.
Listen to an example of a great call coaching session right here.
#4 – Coach the Rep, Not the Deal.
If you reframe coaching into time to build your reps’ skills, their engagement, and your relationship with them instead of winning deals, you’ll be on the right side of call coaching and have higher-quality interactions and outcomes.
#5 – Use Video.
Zoom works best for playing call recordings. Listen to the call, then do the call coaching. Using video will allow you to connect with the rep, gauge their facial expressions, and have a “face-to-face” conversation where you’re building rapport, not just skills.
#6 – Rinse and Repeat.
Schedule recurring meetings so you can keep the conversation going. We have a new BDR on the team who gets coached 2-3 times every week. We work on 1-2 skills at a time until we have it mastered and then we move on.
#7 – Use a Standard Model and/or Tool.
If you don’t have a great coaching tool like Ambition, ExecVision, Chorus, or Gong that keeps you aligned to a scorecard and standard of what “good” looks like, create your own scorecard and model. Go nuts and do it with a few managers, if you have access. For every rep skill we teach in The Sales Bar we include a mini Q&A scoring form and coaching questions. We also teach the COACHN℠ model – a standard approach to every coaching interaction that helps things become routine and easier.
You know I sell training right?! Seriously, the number one most difficult skill to train sales managers is call coaching. So get some help deciding what to coach, how to coach, who to coach how often. Build some confidence in your ability to coach (remote or face-to-face) and you’ll look forward to it much more. Funny how it will get prioritized that way.
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Is call coaching getting you the results you need?
Most sales leaders will admit that coaching on call is definitely an area for improvement. And let’s be honest, do we really set up our sales managers for success in this area? Most are managing more than 12 people, running custom reports, talking to customers, and attending meetings.
However, we have a solution to all of your call coaching training troubles — enter call coaching. We call it “Coaching As A Service.” A client asked us to develop it. We did, and it worked.
Now, it’s available to you. Check out the video below for a more in-depth understanding on what it is and why you should use it.
The best coaches don’t ever tell. They ask. They ask the right questions to help a rep to self-discover big breakthroughs. And, this is the most effective way for a rep to take ownership of their activity and results.
Here is a 3-step process to know which questions to ask reps during coaching sessions:
Learn to Speak ‘Coach’
Divide a blank page of notes into two columns. In the left column, while listening to a sales rep on a call, make a laundry list of everything you wish you could tell the rep. Don’t show it to them.
This is the “list of suck,” my friends. Every time you cringe, take notes on the left.
During call downtime, pick your top three potential focus areas and use the right column to translate these into questions.
For example:
“OMG, he went RIGHT through the Gatekeeper. Painful.”
Becomes:
“Hey, can you tell me your strategy with the gatekeeper?” or “Hey, what made you decide to skip over getting information from the gatekeeper?”
This gives the rep an opportunity to analyze the call themselves and then self-identify what skills may need improvement.
Tip: Ask questions that are specific and helpful. Asking, “How do you think that went?” is too broad for the rep to pinpoint areas for improvement. And asking, “Don’t you agree that you should have asked about an alternate contact and his direct dial information?” is not helpful either.
The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle of these two. While you’re practicing, try writing three questions for each target area. One is broad and high-level, one is extremely specific, and the third is your Goldilocks.
If you get to the end of the call with a laundry list miles long, it’s decision time. How to narrow it down? One of the best ways to know where to coach is to let the rep pinpoint what they want to work on.
Let the rep choose anything as long as it’s on your list (even if it isn’t in the top three!). If your rep decides what to work on, your chances of it actually getting focused on are more than double than if YOU pick the improvement area. I know. It’s really hard to let go of this. But trust me, your rep engagement will skyrocket if you’re coaching in areas they want to improve in.
Help Reps Self-Identify Areas Of Improvement
If you have a tricky rep who isn’t able to self-identify areas of improvement, you can help them identify it using these criteria:
What would most likely advance or lose the deal
What impacted the customer’s impression of us
What had the biggest effect on the call achieving its goal
But please, promise me one thing …
Your rep’s TONE is probably not something that impacts any of the above. If the only thing left to coach a rep on is the tone of their voice, this rep clearly doesn’t need coaching!
Pat them on the back and tell them they’re an all-star! Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how many managers choose to talk about tone. It’s their secret code for “I clearly have no idea how to help you.”
Ask Questions, Get Results
Now that you know how to speak coach, what will you ask your reps today?
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Did you know that one of the reasons your Inside Sales Managers aren’t coaching their Reps is that they, too lack confidence? Let’s peer inside the under-confident Manager’s brain for a minute:
“What can I teach him? He’s a top rep!” or,
“I’ve been at the company half as long as she has.” How about,
“Last time we tried to coach he pushed back so much. I’m not up for this today…”
Yes, even great Managers find it easier to answer the email, fix the report, and respond to the customer issue. So let’s promote some bad-assery with our front line Manager coaches. How? Just a few simple words:
“Your team is so lucky that they get your input on their calls.” Or
“Your reps really benefit from your insights. I love seeing you coach.”
Done. Bad-assery managed. Well done boss.
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