How to Create a Coaching Culture [“Sales Shot” Workshop]
How to Create a Coaching Culture
[“Sales Shot” Workshop]
[“Sales Shot” Workshop]
Whether it’s a talent-driven market or an economic downturn, we need to offer more than our competition to retain our best employees and keep them engaged and motivated through good (and bad) times. Companies and teams with a coaching culture are known to achieve higher quotas and lower attrition rates. After all, if you help your employees become successful at work and they’ll keep coming back!
You’ll hear from leaders at some of the most employee-centric organizations on how they’ve achieved a coaching culture and why it’s crucial to employee retention.
During this panel discussion, you’ll hear:
Whether it’s a talent-driven market or an economic downturn, we need to offer more than our competition to retain our best employees and keep them engaged and motivated through good (and bad) times. Companies and teams with a coaching culture are known to achieve higher quotas and lower attrition rates. After all, if you help your employees become successful at work and they’ll keep coming back!
You’ll hear from leaders at some of the most employee-centric organizations on how they’ve achieved a coaching culture and why it’s crucial to employee retention.
During this panel discussion, you’ll hear:
Lauren Bailey Sales Leadership Insight, Sales Rep Tips, Sales Manager Life Savers, Hiring + Retention, Difficult Conversations
Layoffs, Recessions, and RIFs (Ooooooh, my)
It’s a crap situation folks, no way around that. But if you’re in a revenue role and you smell it coming, or just got your notice, here are our top 5 tips to help you recover from a sales layoff:
Try this: When I ask if you know someone who leads a new or growing sales team in the banking industry, runs an insurance house, or manages a team that sells into government, did your brain find someone? Could you feel it scanning deeper than, “Know anyone hiring?” When you help people picture someone they know, you’re more than halfway to a referral.
I’m also a believer that putting it out there in the universe is necessary step #1 in bringing what we want to us!
Numbers Are The Love Language Of All Sales Leaders!
Get yours in order! What percent did you increase market share? Was there a spike in metrics under your leadership? How many quarters did you exceed quota? How about your team? Did you win any records? Awards? Listen, if the very best thing you did was reach quota consistently realize that is a WIN! If you’re still there, start running reports to shore up your data.
What else did you do? Customer satisfaction? Product development? Process documentation? Testimonial acquisition? New customer types? Lead with numbers and close with some voice of the customer. They’ll be lining up to talk to you!
In short, approach this well-deserved break like the freaking diamond you are. There’s an international shortage of professional sellers – especially virtual sellers. Find an industry and company that’s thriving and package yourself as a FIND! I’m confident that YOU are something you can sell.
Good luck out there! If we can help you brush up on your selling skills at Factor 8 with free virtual sales BDR, AE, or Account Management training, please email us at info@factor8.com and mention this blog.
If you’re a woman in revenue leadership, please apply to join the #GirlsClub Sales Leadership Certification Program as a Protégé (new or aspiring manager) or Mentor (5+ years of leadership experience). Our amazing sponsors will help foot the bill.
Join one of our upcoming Virtual Sales Training Masterclasses! We offer different classes for BDRs, SDRs, ISRs, account executives, and account managers all focused on areas like prospecting, objection handling, running virtual sales demos, closing, and more!
Email us at marketing@factor8.com for a FREE seat in any of our masterclasses.
Lauren Bailey Sales Rep Tips, Prospecting, Customer Referrals + Relationships, Sales Pitch (SWIIFT), Empathetic Selling
When the economy gets shaky and buyers get nervous, we see meetings fall off calendars, and deals go dark. It can feel scary for sure – especially when we see our new hire classmates cut from the team.
Here are some tips to keep on keeping on selling during a recession.
That includes getting cell phone numbers. Start with everything currently booked. Call and email them today to confirm and leave your cell number. Ask them to text and leave theirs. It’s OK to be honest. Try something like:
“Hey Ted, LB here. Looking forward to Tuesday and just want to confirm we’re still on. I’ve had a few folks literally disappear in the past month with this uncertain economy. VERY glad that’s not you. Listen, I’m going to leave my cell. Will you please be kind enough to return my call or pop over a text to confirm Tuesday at 11 Central? Thanks! It’s xxx-xxx-xxxx. One more time: xxx-xxx-xxxx. Talk soon.”
This move helps you keep the connects you have, shows concern, and gets you cell numbers. Winner! Do it for meetings you are setting up this week as well.
“OK, I’ll hit you back on Tuesday at 11. I’ll be ready to cover A, B, and especially C. Will you bring XYZ? I’m sending over a calendar invite to hold our place. It has a bridge, but I want you to have my mobile as well. My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx, can I grab yours?”
You won’t get it every time, but I’ll estimate 9 out of 10. Boom. No more going dark.
I stole this great tip from Doug Landis in our recent webinar, How To Build Pipeline And Keep Selling During A Recession. Nobody buys vitamins during a recession, they buy Advil. Truth is, my service of sales and leadership skills is definitely vitamins – the stuff that’s good for you we are supposed to take and tell our doctors we do…but isn’t usually prioritized. Yes, even though taking your vitamins helps you AVOID taking the hard stuff down the line, human nature is human nature. So if you’re normally plugging things like employee morale and retention, it’s time to restate.
Advil helps us avoid pain. Pain we’re already in. What does your product solve that fixes a pain? Uncertain times lead to fear buying (one word ya’ll: hand sanitizer. Wait, here’s another: toilet paper.) These memories are fresh. People stop buying anything that isn’t essential, doesn’t pull them out of pain, or won’t protect them from horrible recession-related risks. Find the Advil in your solution and lead with that.
(Watch LB’s tips on changing your value prop during a recession below)
What industries aren’t suffering right now? Automotive is strong (have you SEEN prices!?), healthcare and insurance are always winners, banks are flush, who else? Buy a new list or pull the bottom of yours out and go long.
Can you highlight a cancellation clause? Payment terms? Low-cost trial? Nobody wants to be the guy who spent too much and trapped the company in a big spend if this whole situation gets worse. Help them see this purchase will deliver them from pain and not get them in trouble.
Now is the time to build deeper relationships. When someone says they can’t buy now, don’t hang up the phone! Get to know them, their company, their situation, their partner! Sometimes the best you can do is build pipeline, so build the strongest damn pipe your manager has ever seen. That means rock-solid projections of how many, how much, when they can buy, and every step it will take in the purchasing process. Get it one step short of a signature and be best friends with everyone along the way so they can’t wait to sign.
We’re talking about asking more questions, building more rapport, showing more empathy, finding more contacts, going wide in the account. You should know every past competitor considered and why they failed, exactly how your solution will be used, the three purchases in line in front of you, the one guy who’s most doubtful. Getting the picture? About triple the info you normally have when you call it.
Remember…A recession or economic downturn is inevitable and also temporary. Do your future self a favor by staying positive and keeping momentum going so you’re ready to hit the ground running when things get back to “normal”!
Jennifer Devins Lead Qualification + Follow-Up, Team Engagement + Culture, Sales Team Challenges, Sales Rep Tips
According to data from LinkedIn, 90 percent of sales and marketing professionals believe their strategy, processes, content, and culture are not aligned.
From our experience, that number isn’t hard to believe at all.
And it’s really frustrating to see, because organizations that don’t align marketing and sales miss out on so much potential:
So how do you get your marketing & sales teams in sync? Here are some tactics you can start implementing today to improve marketing-sales alignment.
The best way to think about marketing-sales alignment is this:
Ultimately, Marketing and Sales aren’t two separate teams. They’re one team: the Revenue team.
At the end of the day, Marketing and Sales have the same goal. They simply use different tools and tactics to get there.
Marketing-sales alignment is just an intentional, strategic agreement to work with – not against – each other. There are a number of ways this can take shape, depending on the organization:
Because every organization is different, how to prioritize and apply these tactics will depend on your specific needs and your team structure. However, no matter which approach you take, the key is to focus on building cohesion and unity among your revenue generators.
We all know that Marketing and Sales don’t always get along. They have their territories and AORs and may not like it when the other steps on their toes.
However, this tension is detrimental to an organization’s ability to grow. Here are some stats to prove it:
Why does marketing-sales alignment lead to these results? Some of the key benefits of marketing-sales alignment include the following:
Big vs. small picture
Generally, marketers look at large-scale audiences, and salespeople focus on individual prospects. Both are important for effective revenue generation. If you lose sight of the individual prospect, you’re going to start to seem out of touch. But if you focus only on a handful of people, you won’t be able to scale.
Data vs. anecdote
What do your customers want? This is a key question that every organization wants to answer, and marketers and salespeople generally use different approaches to arrive at one. Marketers rely on data, which reveals big-picture trends. Salespeople rely on individual anecdotes, which can reveal key information that may get lost in the data.
Focus your efforts
When you have Marketing and Sales working in tandem, each of them can focus their efforts on the same industries, verticals, and segments. For example, Marketing can create content that they deploy through paid ads, social media, and email. Sales can then see who engages with that content and follow up with personalized messages.
If they convert, Marketing gets attributed revenue. Sales gets warm leads. It’s a win-win for everyone!
Improve the customer experience
Marketing-sales alignment also results in a seamless experience for prospects and customers as they move from one stage of the buyer’s journey to another. You don’t want them to hear one message from marketing materials and another from a salesperson—that is jarring and reduces their trust in your organization.
So how do you know whether your marketing and sales practices are aligned (or mis-aligned)? What are some of the metrics you should be tracking?
Here are a few I’d recommend:
Another thing to keep in mind: if you’re having vastly disproportionate success or failure in one team versus the other, then that’s a big misalignment red flag. If one team is dropping the ball, that’s real opportunity you’re missing out on.
Now let’s get into the nitty-gritty: how do you improve marketing-sales alignment within your own organization? Here are six steps that will get you on the right track.
1. Get buy-in at all levels
Before everyone gets aligned, you need to get buy-in—from C-suite, to marketing and sales leadership, to the salespeople on the ground.
The best way to do this is to communicate the value: how will marketing-sales alignment help them be more successful? You can reference info shared above to help you make that case.
2. Maintain clear, open communication
Alignment doesn’t happen by accident. You need to clearly and proactively maintain open lines of communication so everyone stays on the same page:
This approach also allows you to quickly identify gaps and get ahead of any problems.
3. Share and translate respective goals
One of the reasons marketing and sales teams so often misalign is because they have separate goals and success metrics. The best way to combat this is to create shared goals.
For instance, hold Marketing accountable for the revenue they drive (not just the value of the opportunities). They’ll quickly take an interest in sales enablement.
For Sales, hold them accountable for what they do with Marketing leads. Even if they’re bad leads, they should follow up with them and then communicate the issues so that they can be fixed.
4. Establish service-level agreements (SLAs)
Now for this next tip, keep in mind that different organizations have different levels of formality. Whether a formal, contract-style service-level agreement (SLA) is right for you depends a lot on your culture, team size, and the current state of relations between your marketing and sales teams.
However, one thing is the same for all organizations: set clear expectations for both teams.
An SLA should define the common goals for Marketing and Sales and include key deliverables:
SLAs can help establish mutual accountability and start to build trust with everyone.
5. Coordinate content marketing with sales
This is one that’s often overlooked but very important. Marketers often generate content without asking the key question: will this provide value to our target buyers? Or, is this something a buyer is even interested in?
That’s where salespeople can help. After all, they’re on the front lines with customers every day. Often, they can provide a gut-check on content, provide potential topics, and, most importantly, share real-life questions prospects ask during the buying process—which can lead to some great topic ideas.
Additionally, salespeople with active presences on social media can help promote key content and support your marketing efforts.
6. Invest in technology that supports alignment
Finally, it’s important to have the tools and technology in place to enable marketing-sales alignment. This is even more critical in a post-COVID, remote environment.
Some examples of these technologies include:
The more technology you have to align your team and the more ingrained that technology is in their workflows, the more aligned everyone will become.
At the end of the day, Marketing and Sales aren’t separate teams. They’re one team: the revenue team. Get them aligned so you can manage and move forward together!
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Jennifer Devins Team Engagement + Culture, Team Performance + Confidence, Strategy + Planning, Empathetic Management, Remote Leadership, Sales Leadership Insight, Sales Rep Tips, Sales Manager Life Savers, Coaching, Prospecting
Regardless of the industry you’re in, there’s no escaping the dreaded R-word: Recession.
Some industries might be struggling more than others (over 58,000 tech workers have been laid off since 2023), and those ‘other’ industries might not even be feeling the effects at all. But the bottom line is: you never know when you might be impacted by a recession or by the mitigating factors in a nervous and challenging economy.
Whether you’re in the thick of it or preparing for the worst, if you’re in sales the good news is you’ve got plenty of ways to protect the pipeline you’ve built and keep building on strong momentum.
Factor 8 Founder Lauren Bailey recently chatted with Doug Landis – advisor to the biggest and brightest SaaS startups and current Growth Partner at Emergence Capital, and Zach Miller – a 20-year enterprise-selling veteran and Vice President of Sales at Highspot. Together they compiled essential tips for both reps and managers to keep building pipeline, continue selling, and boost company culture and morale during an economic downturn.
WATCH: How To Build Pipeline And Keep Selling During A Recession
Spoiler alert: DON’T wait to implement these or fall into the analysis paralysis trap! Vigorous execution of these strategies ASAP is the best way to get ahead.
If you’re a rep, the likelihood of the CFO getting involved in your sale just got higher. They’re often now the ones making the final decisions when it comes to implementing new tools and products and adding it to their existing budget. You may also want to get comfortable selling to procurement.
Don’t wait around for your managers to offer you more development, ask for it! If you’ve got goals you want to accomplish or skills you want to learn, do some of your own research first. Find the people who know what you want to know and utilize existing resources. Don’t make excuses to your own success – get out there and make it happen!
DOWNLOAD: Essential Virtual Selling Tips Guide
It might sound counterintuitive – but how many times do you think a decision maker has heard about all the money they’ll save if they just invest in [x] product? Probably about over a billion dollars worth! Finding ways to surpass the ROI and value your product adds by highlighting what they’re missing is the A+ solution right now.
Example: If you don’t buy today, you risk losing out on $100,000 a quarter.
(Looking for more tips on virtual selling? Factor 8 can provide the training and resources you need to excel. Learn more about our training and coaching services here. )
As a leader, it’s important you have a pulse on your reps’ activity without micromanaging. Both of you are in a critical atmosphere right now when it comes to sales – so make sure you aren’t waiting until there’s a problem or all hands are needed on deck before getting involved. Mitigating risk is important on both sides of the transaction!
What’s the one thing you still have full control over? Your time! This is your best resource to utilize and protect. You may be inundated with “fire drills” from your reps – but making sure to prioritize and block off your schedule is still a crucial part of ensuring responsibilities are front and center.
READ MORE: Top 8 Sales Management Productivity Hacks
Quota is probably not the best way to motivate your reps right now if things are tight. So what can you do to keep culture motivated and morale high? Rethink your incentive structures! Shift from focusing on closed business to most leads, highest number of calls, or celebrate the smaller wins that might have previously been overlooked. When employees feel successful, they’ll also feel good about going back to work.
READ: Creative Tips for Rewarding Top-Performing Sales Reps
Remember: the economy is cyclical, so this downward turn isn’t forever. If you’re having a tough time adjusting to the new normal, take a deep breath and remind yourself this is a great opportunity to invest time into your personal training, building pipeline, and preparing for when business is back to booming. You’ll be ready!
Struggling to maintain your schedule? Do you want to take your team to the next level? Check out our Virtual Sales Manager Training Bootcamps.
[“Sales Shot” Workshop]
Let’s face it, it’s a nervous selling economy. So, LB brought in the big dogs to share the million-dollar strategies for selling during a recession: Doug Landis – advisor to the biggest and brightest SaaS startups, and Zach Miller – a 20-year enterprise-selling veteran. Sales leaders will learn 5 critical tactics to keep sales momentum and seller morale strong. Reps will discover 5 essential skills and techniques to protect their pipeline and commission! Bonus: Learn how and why to involve marketing and customer success in the strategy.
Share this video with every sales, customer success, marketing, and enablement leader, and book 30 minutes following to discuss your tip takeaways and how to roll them to your teams.
Let’s face it, it’s a nervous selling economy. So, LB brought in the big dogs to share the million-dollar strategies for selling during a recession: Doug Landis – advisor to the biggest and brightest SaaS startups, and Zach Miller – a 20-year enterprise-selling veteran. Sales leaders will learn 5 critical tactics to keep sales momentum and seller morale strong. Reps will discover 5 essential skills and techniques to protect their pipeline and commission! Bonus: Learn how and why to involve marketing and customer success in the strategy.
Share this video with every sales, customer success, marketing, and enablement leader, and book 30 minutes following to discuss your tip takeaways and how to roll them to your teams.
[Webinar Recording]
Ted Martin, Chief Revenue Office of Factor 8, gives logistics sales leaders advice on how to better retain their sales reps/brokers. He breaks down what reps say is the #1 reason why they would leave their current company and what leaders THINK would cause their employees to leave based on survey results from the Factor 8 Sales Team Retention Survey. Ted also explains how to better improve retention by incorporating ongoing training and development.
This recording is from FreightWaves’ Sales + Marketing Summit.
Ted Martin, Chief Revenue Office of Factor 8, gives logistics sales leaders advice on how to better retain their sales reps/brokers. He breaks down what reps say is the #1 reason why they would leave their current company and what leaders THINK would cause their employees to leave based on survey results from the Factor 8 Sales Team Retention Survey. Ted also explains how to better improve retention by incorporating ongoing training and development.
This recording is from FreightWaves’ Sales + Marketing Summit.
[Webinar Recording]
Lauren Bailey, Founder and President of Factor 8, gives logistics sales representatives advice on how to add faster revenue starting with the very first call. She also breaks down sales tactics for managers to better understand the sales cycle and help reps develop strategies for closing business whether the market is hot or not.
This recording is from FreightWaves’ Sales + Marketing Summit.
Lauren Bailey, Founder and President of Factor 8, gives logistics sales representatives advice on how to add faster revenue starting with the very first call. She also breaks down sales tactics for managers to better understand the sales cycle and help reps develop strategies for closing business whether the market is hot or not.
This recording is from FreightWaves’ Sales + Marketing Summit.
Lauren Bailey Sales Training + Development, Sales Manager Training, Women in Sales
If you’re familiar with Factor 8 or #GirlsClub, you may know that I founded both companies, but you may not know how they are intertwined.
Here it is: Factor 8 eLearning and live training classes are repeatedly ranked as the #1 and #2 favorites of #GirlsClub participants!
Of this, I’m tremendously proud. To have the “required management skills” come out on top with a program that includes Mentors, famous guest speakers, intimate interviews, speaking opportunities, and more… tells me we’re doing something right over here.
While we’re on the subject of good news, a few more “#GC” stats I hope you’ll help me celebrate:
Our mission is to change the face of sales leadership by helping more women earn leadership positions.
So how’s #GirlsClub different from the training you already know from Factor 8?
Conversely, with Factor 8 programs, your sales team is your cohort. It allows for more customization and deeper dives into situations and needs, customized curriculum and activities, and hands-on coaching for managers and reps. Factor 8 programs usually last a year and can also include certification (with a bit more stringent requirements for demonstrating skills).
We also don’t include all the confidence-building and community portions of #GirlsClub in The Sales Bar for Factor 8 clients. In short:
Factor 8’s goal is to move the number and change lives.
#GirlsClub’s goal is to build confidence and change lives.
We don’t mean to disclude the guys (in fact we award our favorite “Ally” male supporter each year). But I chose to keep #GC women-dominated to create a safe space.
Studies show women won’t speak up in male-dominated environments nor will they take a risk until they feel 100% confident. So we talk about that stuff. We ask female role models about discrimination, wearing beachwear on company award trips, and yes, even sexual harassment (folks, nearly EVERY woman has had a story). Yuck.
There is a day in the future when my two companies will blend more and I don’t confuse people with my double persona. But for now, what we’re doing with #GirlsClub is really working and I’m not messing with it.
Get it now and want to help or get involved?
#1. Identify female talent and encourage them to get into management. They won’t feel ready. Send them to us. Applications open each Fall and our new cohorts start in April. Learn more at: https://wearegirlsclub.com/apply/
#2. Sign up to Mentor (1 hour/month & 6-month commitment) + free access to the entire program and community. Contact us to learn more about being a Mentor: https://wearegirlsclub.com/contact-us/
Lauren Bailey Sales Leadership Insight, Sales Manager Life Savers, Sales Training + Development, Hiring + Retention, Sales Rep Training, Onboarding, New Managers Tips
Great news. You’ve got proof of concept, found your ICP, and gotten some funding. Now it’s time to build out your BDR team.
Bad news. Once you win the war for talent, the real work of sales training begins. Since most SaaS startups aren’t hiring classes of 15 reps and a trainer, you get the task of onboarding one or two at a time. And then again. And again. And again.
Here are some sales manager tips to save your sanity when onboarding new BDRs:
This approach will help your reps be more independent while saving you at least twenty hours per rep. Each hire can help make the document better and old hires can support the new.
Make updating the document and improving it part of their work assignment so it stays current and off your to-do list.
May this also help you resist the temptation to hand your new rep a script and wish them good luck on the phone. Millennials are searching for career development and time with their boss at work, and they make their employment decisions based on this. Spend a few bucks, give them some structure, buy them some training, and you’ll see the payoff in their faster success and tenure!
We’ve got your back! Contact us today to learn how you can incorporate sales training into your new BDR onboarding process to speed ramp time and improve retention.