7 Sales Coaching Tips Sales Leaders can Use to Build a Stronger Team

One of the most important skills you can have as a sales leader is the ability to effectively coach your sales reps. Research from CSO Insights has shown a positive correlation between sales coaching and quota attainment. In the CSO Insights study, 98.4% of sales reps hit their quota when the sales coaching exceeded expectations. 

The purpose of sales coaching is to reinforce positive sales techniques while correcting negative behavior. Most sales experts agree that the most effective sales coaching is repetitious and individualized. 

This article provides seven sales coaching tips you can use as a sales leader to build a stronger team and improve sales performance across the board. 

1. Stay on Top Sales Metrics to Understand Where Sales Reps Need Help

Sales metrics, or key performance indicators (KPIs), are powerful data points every sales leader should take advantage of. Many sales metrics are used to understand the health of your sales organization, but they can also inform you about the strength of your sales team overall and the performance of individual sales reps. 

When a sales leader stays on top of their team’s sales metrics, they can more easily identify opportunities for extra sales coaching. Sales metrics also help sales managers reinforce positive behaviors that lead to success, especially for remote teams. 

2. Use Visuals 

Multiple studies have found that visual learning yields better comprehension and retention of information. It is also true that a majority of people, nearly 65%, are visual learners. Great sales leaders take advantage of these facts and implement visuals in their sales coaching as much as possible.

In addition to using visuals in coaching material, many sales managers find it helpful to use visuals to illustrate team performance. For example, some sales leaders use performance leaderboards to show where each sales rep stands within the team. This method is a strong motivator for sales reps that fall at the bottom of the leaderboard and want to improve. 

3. Review Call Recordings

Call recordings are one of the most important sales tools an organization has at its disposal. They often serve a variety of functions within a sales team, but they are particularly useful for sales coaching. 

Call recordings are a treasure trove of insights about sales performance and customer interaction skills. They can be used in two ways. A sales leader can review call recordings to identify sales reps that need extra coaching. They can also playback the recordings during coaching sessions to give sales reps a firsthand look at their strengths and weaknesses. 

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Call For Backup

As a sales leader, you take pride in being responsible for the success and improvement of your team. But that doesn’t mean you have to do it all alone. The greatest sales leaders are able to recognize when it’s time to call for reinforcements. 

If you feel like your current method of sales coaching isn’t working, don’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s common for sales managers to rely on the expertise of other departments within their organization, including the product team, marketing team, and customer service reps.

If you want to be an effective sales leader, you must take advantage of every resource available to you. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And it certainly wasn’t built alone. 

5. Talk Less, Listen More

There’s a good reason why it’s called “sales coaching” and not “sales lecturing”. The coaching aspect means both parties need to participate in order for it to be effective. 

Oftentimes, sales metrics can only provide a limited understanding about your sales reps strengths and weaknesses. As a sales leader, you must allow your sales reps to explain their challenges in their own words. If your coaching sessions consist of you talking 90% of the time, you’re likely missing out on a ton of useful information. 

Talk less and let your sales reps engage more in the conversation. By actively participating in their coaching session, sales reps may feel more motivated to put the lessons from the session into practice.

6. Understand What Motivates Your Sales Reps

Everyone loves a fat commission check, but that’s not always enough to motivate your sales reps into improving their performance. This especially true for sales reps that are doing okay (i.e. making enough to pay the bills), but could be doing great. 

Some sales reps like the pure competition. Some are career driven and seeking a higher position within the company. Some are in it just for the love of the game. As a sales leader, it’s essential to know your sales reps on an individual level. Why are they in sales in the first place? What are their long term goals? 

By understanding the motivations of your sales reps, you’ll be better equipped to take an individualized sales coaching approach. The more you can tailor your sales coaching, the more likely it is to be effective.  

7. Plan for Success 

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This is true in life, and especially true in sales. 

It’s simply not enough for your plan to be to “reach quota” or “sell as much as possible”. The best sales leaders are much more specific than that. 

An effective sales coaching approach is one that is well thought out, consistent, and uses a formalized process that can be evaluated on how well it’s working. Without a concrete coaching plan, you are bound to waste resources and time. 

How Spinify Makes Sales Coaching Easier

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If you want to give the best sales coaching to your sales reps, BOOK A DEMO of our solution today!