Sales manager coaching can be a difficult process, particularly when performed internally. But an external, experienced sales coach can offer transformative training techniques and tools, which will ensure that you can make even an average sales team or manager into a sales superstar.

It’s so very easy to focus on retaining your top performers – they are, after all, bringing in the business. Yet your average performers can still learn and grow, even if your current sales training techniques aren’t getting through to them. Often there’s too much of a focus on numbers when it comes to key indicators of performance. There’s no denying that quotas must be met, but focusing on other areas of performance, such as behavior, can bring about changes in the long-term. You can also pair top managers with top sales teams. While this may seem counter-productive to what you want to achieve, it can also drive average sales managers and teams to step up their game. 

Your top team will set a new standard, and other teams will have no choice but to try and follow suit. When it comes to sales coaching for managers, a lot of good can come from teaching them to listen to and understand their team’s strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. It’s all too easy to chastise someone who isn’t doing something correctly, but a good manager will always display empathy and understanding for their team. This can lead to an average employee feeling more valued and, therefore, becoming a better performer.

Overcoming The Challenges Of Managing A Sales Team

Management sales training is something that all leading sales teams should receive as standard. No matter how skilled a talented salesperson is, the dynamics between operating as a professional selling in teams differ from those who are managing a group. This shift requires guided development from an experienced coach.

These concerns are also true for sales management professionals who are managing sales teams for the first time. Salespeople, due to the nature of the job they do, need a high level of autonomy to provide performance, while also requiring management with the mental strength to offer encouragement for them to hit targets. This can be an intimidating experience for the management of any experience, particularly if you’re coming into a group of salespeople that has issues or has been struggling to meet quotas. Competition is a big part of the sales business environment, and this can easily devolve into issues between rivals. This can have a detrimental effect on your company if your sales teams are operating in the B2B selling environment, with the competitor companies winning customer account deals as a result. 

Sales management training and coaching can teach you to better understand and listen to your sales teams’ needs, helping you to build more meaningful and genuine relationships, and can help you better understand the importance of emotional intelligence. Sales training of managers is key to getting the most out of sales teams. This could help you understand where you need to invest, such as putting high performers through an IT leadership postgraduate course, as well as knowing what makes your team tick and what processes need to be changed.

Overcome Sales Stagnation

Sales coach training can be an incredibly effective tool in the arsenal of any B2B business owner or sales leader. Having the sage advice of someone who has ‘been there, done that’ can provide the much-needed impetus to a sales team feeling dejected and deflated by sales stagnation.

You may already have an in-house sales training course, or you may have already made a significant financial investment in prior training courses for your sales team. So what went wrong? Well, it may be the case that nothing went wrong at your end. Sales processes and techniques can go in and out of fashion in under a decade. This isn’t necessarily because of complacency on the part of your sales team; it may actually be driven by external changes (which could be measured with a PESTLE analysis), or unexpected changes in the behaviors of buyers. It could also be because of a competitive threat from existing or new competition in the market.

It’s vital to understand these issues so that a sales coach can implement strategies to counteract these negative influences. Whatever the case, a good coach will offer more than just training – they will offer your organization a measurable training model. They will be flexible in their approach too. Is the problem rooted in the individual approaches of your sales team? Or is there a negative behavioral influence at work that has impacted the organization’s framework? A talented coach will be able to offer a bespoke service to cater to the needs of your organization.

The Importance of Being Client-Centric

Deal coaching is a form of development that can help sales teams in a B2B environment. While a lot of training can revolve around a focus on figures, there’s one element that’s oh so important to driving sales and revenue in both new and existing customers: client centricity.

Recent statistics from Gallup Data has shown that approximately 71% of B2B customers do not feel engaged. While engagement figures may not seem as important as revenue figures, they are a key indicator of success within B2B companies. Those with clients who are feeling engaged are achieving 50% higher revenue/sales, and 34% higher profitability. This leads to a simple conclusion: fail to keep your clients engaged and they’ll be on the lookout for your replacement. This is where sales coaching with a focus on client satisfaction can be key. 

You don’t need to splash the cash on this type of sales training; you just need to find a coach with the right experience to help make meaningful adjustments to your current sales processes and organizational framework. A coach can help your sales team understand the importance of putting your customers’ needs at the centre of everything that they do. This not only has benefits to relationships with your current clients, but it will also change the way in which your sales team deal with potential clients while trying to close deals.

Is It Outsourcing Training More Effective Than In-House Training?

Sales management coaching has become a highly sought after approach to staff development. However, many companies already have in-house training programs for their sales staff. What benefits would an external coach bring that a training program run by a sales manager cannot?

When a sales manager runs in-house sales training, it can serve as a good reminder as to why certain behaviors or actions are more valued than others. However, the manager is also tied to a sales quota. This is unavoidable. Sales mean pressure, so a manager is going to plan and run training programs through that lens. Because of this numbers orientated approach, key elements that drive better sales performance are missed: namely, the personal and professional growth of individual salespeople. A sales coach is external. They’re divorced from the numbers and the emotions that come as a result of chasing those numbers. For this reason, the coach can focus more on the development of individual salespeople – both from a professional and personal standpoint. This direct approach has shown to have had positive results in the long-term and is seen as a far more effective way of driving change. 

But wait: doesn’t that lack of pressure mean that the coach won’t care if the coaching actually has an impact on sales performance? Perhaps some poor coaches won’t care, but a good coach will care passionately about improving sales performance. When they start to put together a program with your organization, the right coach will work to establish a measurable outcome that both parties agree is satisfactory. This makes the coach accountable for their actions.