According to Brainshark, businesses with proactive sales coaching plans achieve 28% higher win rates.
The thought of higher win rates lures many sales managers to invest in sales coaching software to accelerate business growth via accelerated sales coaching.
Wrong!
Don’t go that way…
The better approach to purchasing sales coaching software is by understanding what and why sales coaching software?
Don’t have enough patience to read the questions and then decide? Then switch to a trial round.
Here you won’t find anything too fancy for your taste—only plain, blunt, to-the-point answers to each question.
My plan is to give you an accurate picture to help you decide if you(sales managers) should think of investing in sales coaching tools.
Let’s begin…
Table of Content
- What is sales coaching software?
- What are the 5 must-have sales coaching software features?
- Why sales coaching matter to your business?
- What are the most critical sales coaching questions that’ll help your reps hit the quota?
- How do sales coaching and sales training differ?
- What are the six key skills reps need to master with the help of sales coaching?
- How to apply analytics for better sales coaching?
- Is sales coaching possible in virtual and remote selling environments?
- What’s the most critical aspect of sales coaching nowadays?
- Do companies need to implement a coaching culture for the success of sales coaching software?
What is sales coaching software?
As promised, we’ll keep it short and straightforward.
Sales coaching is a technique that helps sales professionals sell better by sharpening their ongoing practice and skillset.
Software that enables and accelerates the sales coaching process is called sale coaching software.
A sales coach can perform the same coaching functions better and more effectively using the software.
What are the five must-have sales coaching software features?
Now, let’s reiterate this.
A sales coaching software won’t coach the sales rep.
But the software is created to conduct sales coaching better, for example, using insights, real-life examples, etc.
So here’s what you need to do an excellent job with sales coaching:
- Video-enabled tool
- Sales Playbook library
- Automated call quality feedback and manual feedback
- Keyword filters
- Call transcription and moments
Why sales coaching matter to your business?
- Better business- Expect skyrocketing revenue and a significant improvement in business objectives.
- Build strong sales teams– Build a team that is different from the rest and wants to achieve business targets faster than usual.
- Low churn– According to an article in HBR, “estimates of annual turnover among U.S. salespeople run as high as 27%—twice the rate in the overall labor force.”
Coaches don’t make reps stay but motivate them to stay with a company that cares about their professional development. Coaching also promises results, which indirectly leads to more incentives, which motivate employees to stay in the company.
- Knowledge Foundation– Many teams leverage sales coaching information to build a knowledge repository. And which team loves to hoard information the most? – Marketing and Product development team– they adore knowledge repositories.
Pro tip: Recording the coaching sessions is of paramount importance!
What are the most critical sales coaching questions that’ll help your reps hit the quota?
While sales coaching software comes in, doing the process correctly is critical to get genuine results from the combined effort.
Here are seven questions every sales coach should ask a sales representative:
- Where do you face challenges in the sales cycle?
- What is your opinion of your sales performance? And Why?
- In the call, what went well, and what could have been improved?
- Is your company and your peers helping you? Are there any gaps?
- How would you use sales strategies to improve your sales results?
- What would you like to change about your next sales call?
- In 5 years, where do you see yourself as a salesperson?
How do sales coaching and sales training differ?
Before purchasing coaching software for your sales team, you must know whether the team needs sales training or coaching software.
Here’s a core difference between the two-
| Sales Training | Sales Coaching | |
| Stakeholders | Caters to mass | Caters to a small group of people |
| Approach | Generalized approach for all salespeople | Personalized approach, catering to individual goals and progress. |
| A hierarchical model of trainer and trainee | No hierarchical approach compulsory | |
| Topics & Discussions | Learning new techniques and creating a sales foundation | Coaching is sharpening pre-existing techniques. |
| Team size | Training is meant for large team size | Coaching is preferred for smaller teams or in 1:1 mode. |
| Scalability | Scalable | May or may not be scalable |
| Repeatable | Repeatable and reliable | Repeatable and supports training topic recreation. |
What are the six key skills reps need to master with the help of sales coaching software?
- Independent- Less dependent on the sales manager
- Better storyteller– Learn from the veterans and peers
- Data-driven– Make decisions and take actions with the help of data
- Active listener– Listen to understand, not to speak
- Objection-handler– Become a pro objection handler within a few sessions.
How to apply analytics for better sales coaching?
Any sales coaching software will enable you to use insights and data to help you understand where you are going wrong.
It’ll provide call quality feedback (automated). Offer AI scores to help you know where you are going wrong.
Moreover, the call moments will guide you in understanding what you’ve missed and could have been continued.
The more analytics-driven the sales coaching program is, the better the coaching program is directed and framed.
Someone with good pricing discussion knowledge may not have to sit for a pricing session again.
Is sales coaching possible in virtual and remote selling environments?
Virtual selling is already a possibility, which means virtual coaching shouldn’t be too difficult.
Virtual coaching is more productive and effective than physical ones. Why?
- Sellers don’t need to travel- Save time
- Time-zone constraints are over- Time-zone friendly
- No cost associated with training- Cost-effective
- Faster onboarding of new reps- Faster ramp-up
What’s the most critical aspect of sales coaching nowadays?
A sales coach and coaching software are definitely necessary.
Yet, by a significant margin, DATA takes away the lead.
In today’s scenario, data takes precedence over all aspects of technology.
No matter how good your coaching format is, you’ll never be able to leap forward to your competition without data.
Having said that, analytics and scoring methods too depend on data and indirectly compound the coaching effort.
To succeed with sales coaching software, do companies need to implement a coaching culture?
You’d want to start with a coaching culture first. Everything else can wait, even the sales coaching software.
Coaching culture is the responsibility of the sales coach or the sales manager.
As long as the coaching culture is established, persuading a rep to be attentive and participate more.
How to set the coaching culture?
- Try to sell the problem you are trying to mitigate
- Ask for feedback before creating a sales coaching plan
- Share your detailed plan with team
- Focus on individualized and personalized coaching
- Train internal coaches and invite external coaches
- Understanding the importance of sales data and insights
Well, that’s all for today. Once you have read through the sales coaching questions mentioned above, you are all set to make the decision. Good Luck!
