Tips to improve one-on-one sales coaching

Considering the heavy impact sales coaching always has on sales effectiveness, one can easily consider it as an essential part of sales management.  The sales front of an organization might take a hit when its sales managers or leaders stop the process of sales coaching. Coaching hits the right target when it is more individual and organizational oriented.  Here are 8 effective tips to boost your one-on-one sales coaching process.

Fix a regular time and stick to it

In spite of your hectic schedule, it’s important to take out some time and fix a schedule for coaching each member of your team individually. Block out an hour weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly and create a regular tempo so that the meetings become a routine. According to Boise Sales Training sessions, a fixed schedule can help both parties to prepare and take the meeting seriously.

Keep the meeting structured and efficient

Prepare your agenda well in advance but leave scope for open discussions on requirements and ideas. Ensure that all pressing issue will be discussed. This will make salespeople more comfortable since they know exactly what to expect.

You can find out exactly how a deal is progressing just by asking 3 simple questions:

• Which step of the sales process are you in?
• How qualified is the opportunity on a scale of 1-5?
• What’s your definitive next step?

Personalize your coaching

Each of your salespeople may be facing different challenges. For a personalized development program, you have to assess each person’s strengths and weakness and develop program accordingly. You might have had a great success in sales, but your strategy might not work for another person. As a coach, you have to diagnose problems and help the trainee to overcome their problems and drive sales.

Tackle issues one by one  

It is not possible to solve all the problems of salespersons at once.  You can follow the strategy of picking the most critical of their issues and resolving them. When these issues are fixed, you can move onto other issues.

Accompany your team members

You need to know how your team members are performing when they make a call! Yes, you need to see how they presenting themselves and the product to the target audience through the phone. When they are doing presentations, you have to be present there to evaluate their strength and weaknesses. This is the best way to spot the areas where they need improvement.

Sales coaching, not inspection

Don’t convert the meeting into an inspection and avoid the temptation to make it a preaching session. Create a positive and supportive environment that is geared toward growth. Don’t focus merely on numbers, but look for areas where they’re doing well and appreciate them.  Your reason to be there is to help your representatives learn to diagnose and solve the challenges on their own in the future.

Coaching without assessments is a failure

First of all, you need to diagnose the problem and then, provide the solutions by analysing them rationally. Otherwise, there could be a chance for the coaching sessions to end up as a failure.  The best way to deliver good coaching sessions is to use research-based and validated assessment tools for assessments.

End with an action plan

You should have a proper action plan to begin the process.  Possessing a vivid idea about the follow-up behavior and the methods of measuring improvements is essential to make the coaching process a super success. Coaching is an integral part of sales management. Open communication with your sales team promotes healthy sales culture, and sticking to regular one-to-one meetings is a great way to foster it. According to a recent study, the performance of a sales representative can go up to a good, healthy 19% percentage if provided quality coaching.