Sales Coaching from the Coachee’s Point of View

What would make a recipient of sales coaching find value in the process? The belief that sales coaching will have a real impact in his future success.

To determine, for both the sales managers and the coachees, whether or not sales coaching made a difference, we interviewed 121 professionals and their managers at a major North American financial services firm. We asked, “What difference did the coaching conversations with your manager make in your success?” Our rating scale ranged from 0% where the manager had no impact or played no role in an opportunity to 100% where sales coaching made all the difference.

The results were significant. Participants in the coached group said their manager “made a significant difference” (72%) compared to “a little difference” (33%) for the non-coached group.

The impact of manager involvement through sales coaching is strong linked to sales success.

Sales Coaching: Is It Worth It?

Sales coaching takes time and effort. Managers need to set aside time from busy schedules to plan and then work with their salespeople; coachees must take time away from their customers, worry about lost opportunities and make the effort to change behavior and adopt new skills. Is there sufficient payback?

Our research says “yes.” We surveyed 121 professionals and their managers at a major North American financial services firm. The control group of 47 participants did NOT get individual sales coaching; 61 participants received sales coaching. Each coachee’s average score for 38 individual skills were placed on a scale from 0-100%. The results? The Coached Group scores were nearly 20% higher.

The bottom line? Sales coaching is directly linked to skill application. Provide reinforcement sales coaching for your critical initiatives and your coachees are 20% more likely to adopt and apply the new skills you have identified as key to sales success.

The Link Between Inside Sales and Customer Loyalty

In a recent inside sales training quarterly poll, 36% of sales leaders stated that "ensuring the best customer loyalty and satisfaction" was keeping them up at night.

A 5% increase in customer service loyalty can boost profits by as much as 25% to 85%. Research has shown that satisfied clients lead to greater profitability and growth.

Read more about some of the best inside sales and referral selling programs, practices and make the link between industry leading business sales and service...

Are You Getting New Clients as Fast as You Would Like?

Getting profitable new clients has never been more important.

Our recent Sales Performance Poll shows that generating new sales opportunities through improved inside sales performance is ranked as the highest priority by almost 4-to-1 as compared to other key sales challenges.

Savvy sales professionals do not delegate this task solely to the marketing department.

While there is much written about what to do once you are in a new sales meeting, there is little to help sales professionals get the initial meeting.

1. Would you like to create more new inside sales opportunities?
2. Are you having difficulty gaining initial client appointments?
3. Are your prospecting messages missing their mark?
4. Are gatekeepers stalling your progress?

If you are facing any of the above challenges, then we may have some solution selling training and sales coaching best practices for you.
Learn more about getting meetings with qualified new clients...

Search for the Right Inside Sales Training Resource. Right Now.

Introducing a powerful new Search Tool to help you track down the right Inside Sales Training & Best Practice Resource right now. Search this blog and the vast collection of corporate training communities and related best practice blogs with a single click.

Step 1 - Locate the Search Tool to the right of this post

Step 2 - Type your keyword search phrase. eg. Performance Culture

Step 3 - Click Search

Step 4 - Review the results, sorted by:

This Blog | Sites Linked to this Blog | Recommended Blogs

See illustration below. Enjoy.

Inside Sales Best Practice Resources

From time to time, we like to provide visitors and subscribers to this blog with a refresher on where they can find helpful resources devoted to best practices in the area of Inside Sales Performance and related areas.

We hope you find these resources insightful and relevant:

• Sales Training and Coaching Best Practices
• Inside Sales Training and Coaching Best Practices
• Executive Selling Best Practices
• Solution selling training programs
• Sales Negotiation Training Best Practices
• Strategic Account Planning Solutions
• Sales Territory Management Best Practices
• Value Selling Training Best Practices
• Consultative Selling Training Best Practices
• Sales Coaching Solutions
• Sales Presentation and Sales Communication Solutions

Enjoy!

Drive Inside sales performance by deploying referral selling practices

Below is an abstract of a white paper focused on deploying referral selling best practices in an inside sales (or field, even strategic account sales for that manner) environment.

There has been a longstanding mantra in sales: The more "No's" we get, the closer we are to a "Yes." Well, not in our book. It's old news, tired and worn out. It's time to retire and bury this mantra.

Think about it: Why would you spend your valuable time talking to people and attempting to sell to executives you know will say no? This mantra about getting no's emanates from prospecting techniques that no longer work. It's an old-school sales formula: make 100 cold calls, perhaps talk to 20 people, set 8 to 10 appointments, and get one deal—if you're lucky or well-versed in solution selling best practices. Really, 100 cold calls? That's a lot of no's, and a lot of time. It's not a winning strategy.

Download the entire Referral and Inside Sales White Paper PDF...