Digging Into the Data: How Sales Coaching Affects Performance

Do your sales reps consistently hit their quotas?

Barry Trailer, co-founder of CSO Insights, shared some fascinating data on quota attainment during the Inside Sales Virtual Summit. He presented a compelling case for using consistent sales coaching to improve your team’s performance.

You can view Trailer’s presentation in the video below or read a brief summary in this blog post.

How sophisticated is your sales process?

Trailer identified four levels of sales process implementation:

1. Random

This doesn’t mean you are anti-process. It just means that everybody is doing their own thing. If you have 10 sales reps, you probably have 11 processes — one for each individual rep and the 11th process represents what the manager thinks they should be doing.

2. Informal

Your sales process has been documented. Reps have been exposed to it. They are expected to use it, but it isn’t monitored or enforced.

3. Formal

Your sales process is monitored, enforced and reinforced.

4. Dynamic

You proactively anticipate changes in the marketplace by constantly evaluating your key metrics and adjusting your process accordingly.

What is your coaching culture?

In its sales management survey, CSO Insights asked about each company’s attitude on sales coaching.

Coaching cultures fit into one of three categories:

1. They have no requirement for coaching. It’s left to the managers to do it on their own.

2. They have an informal coaching culture. They think coaching is a positive thing, and they encourage it.

3. They definitely recognize the value of coaching. It’s a formal part of their process. Rigorous coaching is regularly reinforced.

CSO Insights compared its data on sales process implementation with its data on coaching culture. It discovered that companies with a Level 1 sales process and a non-coaching culture had 48 percent of their reps meeting or beating quota, while companies with a Level 4 sales process and a positive coaching culture enjoyed a 63 percent success rate.

The data clearly show that if you focus on enforcing a formal process and consistent coaching, your numbers will improve dramatically.

See how XANT accelerates sales through science in the video below.

Image credit: Jim Larrison