How to consistently scale & operationalise sales coaching
I’m betting you landed here as you recognise the massive value of coaching your sales teams. But, I also bet that you or your management team fall into one of these 3 categories:
We want to prioritise coaching but don’t know how to go about it
Some coaching happens but it’s a bit haphazard and there’s certainly no consistency across teams
We have a structured coaching program but it’s an admin nightmare with no visibility
Firstly you are not alone, we’ve all been there. Competing priorities, a fast growing team, time pressure, they all play their part in making it hard to start and maintain coaching your team at scale.
So, no matter whether you are at stage 1, 2 or 3 above, there are a few simple things you can do to build sales coaching into your operating rhythm and give it the gift of consistency so you can scale it across all your teams.
Start with a Map
I’m a big fan of analogies, so here goes.
You are about to embark on a big journey. Your destination is known and clear but you’ve never been there before. So off you go and ‘feel’ your way there… Don’t be daft, of course you don’t!
You crack out Google maps (or if you’re old school, you dust off your map) and plot your route. You get directions on how to get there.
It’s the same for your coaching journey. If you want to achieve a successful, scalable coaching framework, you need a map that everyone can follow.
A map that helps you identify where you are going, where you are at any given moment and what you need to do to get to your destination.
A map that enables you to plot where everyone is on their journey to the same destination so you can give specific support to each individual.
The painful, admin filled days of trying to remember where each of your team (and their teams) are on their journey, of having notebooks or OneNote files, of chasing people over email or slack should be relegated to history. It is certainly not an efficient operating model and most definitely is not scalable.
So, I hear you cry, what is this magic map of which you speak?
Introducing the forever humble but all powerful sales competency framework (AKA skills matrix, development framework, etc…).
To scale you need Consistency
In order to scale efficiently, you need to be consistent and repeatable. Everyone should be pretty much on the same path - different styles should be embraced, some may walk, some may run, some may stop for lunch, but the same path is taken none-the-less.
Your competency ‘map’ needs to become your common language, the common path across multiple programs:
All training should be built and delivered around it.
Knowledge should be indexed and shared around it.
Reviews and QBRs should use it as the backbone.
Every Sales Manager should run their 1-2-1s around it.
Coaching should be driven around it.
This link back to a common framework makes it much easier to build into the operating rhythm of sales which in turn, makes it more scalable and faster to adopt.
You have to make it relevant and consumable for sales teams
Sticking your sales competency framework at the heart of everything is still not enough. We also need to make sure it’s relevant to it’s audience. For sales, that’s metrics. We live and die by our metrics, so align all your KPIs (leading & lagging) to the skills or behaviours that drive them.
For example, the conversion of meetings to opportunities would be aligned with Problem Discovery and Solution Positioning. Call to Meeting ratios would be aligned to ‘Prospect Qualification’ and ‘Conversation Quality’ and so on.
In doing this we create even further consistency.
You now know that when someone is struggling to create pipeline, you need to coach, support and develop them around Problem Discovery. That’s exactly the same thing as Ben in the US is doing with his team. So is Hannah in ANZ.
Given we aligned our sales competency framework to everything we measure, we can now also measure the effectiveness directly across all activities.
Training resource x is designed to drive improvements in problem discovery. Problem Discovery is linked to converting meetings into pipeline. Across all reps who consumed this, we can now see an improvement in both skill and results.
The gap analysis and correlation to improved outcomes can now be done at an individual, team and organisation level, all because we aligned to a common framework.
You have to make it simple and easy
If ‘Death of a Salesman’ were to be rewritten today, it may contain only one narrative… ‘admin’.
If something requires additional admin or processes to achieve then it is NOT scalable, is unlikely to be adopted and is therefore a complete waste of time.
Asking busy sales managers and reps to have their CRM open alongside a printed or excel copy of your competency framework and then to update this and send it in so you have a lovely record of progress is literal madness. Throw in needing to trawl the LMS or Content Repository for anything to help and you have a non starter.
Instead, present the information in an actionable format, already interpreted and guiding them towards the focus areas. This ups the consistency and scalability ante significantly.
Having a simple, easy to use, interactive platform means there’s no admin or data capture. No chasing or delays. At an organisational level you can see the value and insights live.
You can have your finger on the pulse of your coaching program, know it’s being followed and that it’s delivering results. Define >> Develop >> Measure
“Most importantly they have an enablement application (e4enable in our case), that allows them to align the training with our sales competency framework, set appropriate development objectives and track progress against the areas they need help with. It’s kind of like a “big magnet” that pulls all of the sales coaching conversations, agreements, objectives together – so it becomes easy to manage, and is an enjoyable & consistent process - that’s the way we got these good habits to stick.”
- Elia Giovanni, Director of Sales Enablement, Apogee Corporation