Top-performing sales teams train continually. In fact, sales teams that commit to an hour of weekly skills coaching per team member see 15-20% average sales performance gains. 

The ABC Fitness sales team, under the leadership of Lee Robinson and Aaron Verasammy, has committed to just this type of commitment to continuous skills development. Rather than putting all the burden on front-line managers, they focus on team-based practice.

Lee emphasizes, “We build a mindset for continuous improvement and team-based practice from Day 1 with peer role plays on micro-skills like rapport building or the first five seconds of the cold call.”

Aaron notes, “Frontline managers with so many competing pressures can struggle to sustain skills coaching. The team-based practice offers a solution, fostering growth and adaptability.”

Despite being a company with hundreds of millions in revenue, ABC has maintained a growth rate of just under 20% for close to six years running.

The sales team is driving much of this growth and team-based coaching continuous skills development is a key enabler. Here are three keys to effective team-based coaching.

1. Agreed-On Team Activities

To build a high-performing team, a structured, agreed-on set of coaching activities is essential.  It allows everyone to focus on refining skills rather than trying to figure out the coaching format.

The ABC team uses a range of agreed on, team-based activities including:

• Roles Plays: Lee Robinson shares, “We set up role play groups where you’re role-playing with your buddy the first five seconds of a cold call, rapport building, your five power questions, trial closes and other micro-skills”
• Call Reviews: Lee notes, “Then we move onto end-to-end call reviews to refine all skills from call openings, discovery, and positioning, closing.” ABC does call reviews in groups of four so there are multiple perspectives.
• Workshops: Workshops are used for cross-team learning and refinement Aaron notes, “This is where we work on nuances of what really are best practices, so integrate and support practice across the team.”

2. Sales Reps as Coaching Leaders

A second key is positioning sales reps as coaching leaders to accelerate development and collaboration. Robinson emphasizes, “The reps know what good looks like. Leveraging your top performers as well as wins from a team member who just closed a large or important deal is critical for peer-led coaching.  As a leader, you do not want to be giving most of the feedback.  You do not have the same level of credibility” 

Peer-led feedback encourages team members to evaluate each other, fostering shared excellence. Top-performing reps act as mentors, sharing insights on deal strategy and technique.  Your top performers give these techniques credibility

Robinson adds, “Rather than me trying to capture that on a quarterly basis, we have just a simple monthly stand-up…and each rep will own that.” This approach empowers reps and celebrates shared expertise and fosters a culture of learning.

3. Quarterly Skills Plans as a Guide

A third key is a quarterly skills plan that aligns ABC’s approach to ongoing, team-based coaching to specific sales revenue goals.   Aaron offers an example: “A couple of quarters ago, our closing percentage was quite high at 39%…but the only way we were going to hit our goal this year was to increase our ASP.”

The leadership enacted a strategy to focus this approach to skills coaching on high-value conversations, persona strategies, and competitive differentiation, yielding measurable results: “We actually materially moved up our ASP by $1,200…almost 80%,” Aaron shares. 

Sustaining success requires embedding continuous learning into the culture. Robinson states, “Once you have all of those things in place…it’s a culture,” emphasizing onboarding, workshops, and peer-led coaching. 

Commitment to continuous skills development is key, as Verasammy notes, “Our mindset is that we practice, practice, practice all the time, which means the team is agile and ready to shift skills development to the behaviors most important to impacting sales goals.”