Do you feel your sales coaching isn’t quite getting your sales team where it wants to be? Read on below for some simple steps for more effective sales coaching meetings.

Coaching is in place for one specific purpose, to help improve your team member whether it be productivity, client services, appearance, conversation or anything else that might be standing in the way of success.  It is not punishment, nor should your team members ever feel as if it is. Coaching should be a meeting that they look forward to, that they walk away from recharged and ready to take on the world.

Things Your Need For More Effective Sales Coaching Meetings

Here are a few key elements to running an effective coaching meeting:

• Preparation
  • Review tools/gather information. Determine focus for upcoming session
    • Pipeline
    • Call Statistics
    • Activity statistics
    • Monthly results
    • Personal and Corporate goals
  • Customize agenda to individual needs
  • Develop probing questions to uncover needs / gaps

• Activities
  • Head check – determine mental state before coaching. Are they willing, committed and able?

• • Ask for their agenda, what they are hoping to cover
  • Acknowledge that and ensure you will do your best to get through their agenda, but if you don’t have time in this session, you will schedule a follow-up before they leave today.
  • State your agenda, what you will be covering
  • Review prior session’s key objectives and activity goals
  • Discuss what they did and didn’t do and why
  • Review current pipeline to discuss where things are and expectations of what will be closing and when
  • Talk about what activities should be stopped, what are working and should continue and what are not productive and should be stopped
  • Discuss goals and strategies and tweak the current plan
  • Address open items (service, competition, career path)
  • Create action plan focus areas for upcoming week and or month (based on how often you meet)
  • Leave on a positive note so that your sales team member leaves excited about the upcoming plan and confidence in achieving it.

• Follow-Up
  • Send an email or document that reviews the session
    • Recap of agenda
    • Pipeline overview and expectations
    • New activities
    • Expectations of activity levels before next meeting
    • Clear structure around what they are going to achieve
    • If needed, schedule a follow-up meeting to review anything not covered

Coaching is a critical piece of running a good team, and more effective sales coaching meetings will help make it work right. Done well, coaching instills confidence, trust and appreciation between both the sales leader and the producer. Without a doubt, coaching  and communication is a critical piece of a successful sales team.

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