Shared sales playbooks are a key to top sales performance, but only when aligned with individual skill development needs.
That’s the view of Mark Guthrie, VP of UW Solution Sales at Verisk. He stresses that playbooks must be embraced at the individual level: “As organizations create playbooks at a macro level, they only become actionable and effective when individuals truly embrace them.”
Research from Gartner, the Sales Management Association, and CSO Insights has shown that 1 hour of targeted skills development per team member per week raises sales team performance an average of 15% to 20%.
Here are Mark’s four key practices to get individuals to embrace individual coaching to achieve that 1 hour per week’s target and maximize sales performance impact.
1️⃣ Individual Skills Development Plans (ISDPs)
Sales playbooks provide structure but only drive impact when tailored to each rep’s needs. “Playbooks at a macro level aren’t actionable until individuals embrace them,” says Mark.
Verisk’s Individual Skills Development Plans (ISDPs) align best practice playbooks with each sales team member’s skills and roles to support better execution.
The ISDP identifies key skills strengths and skill development areas. It positions a sales manager as a coach who can align each team member to close skills gaps, boost confidence, and build expertise.
2️⃣ Constructive Coaching Conversations
For individuals to embrace coaching it needs to be an ongoing process, not a one-time event. “Coaching is an all-time thing,” says Mark, “it is the repetition of coaching conversations that shifts behavior and creates a different type of performance expectation.”
And, sales managers also need to have the right coaching conversations. “Coaching conversations have to be positive and productive,” continues Mark, “Everybody wants to know when they’re doing a good job. So start with the positive encouragement. And, then to improve productivity, team members have to be open to receiving constructive feedback.”
3️⃣ Coaching in the Flow of Work
A third key to getting individual team members to embrace playbooks is embedding skills coaching into daily work. Verisk embeds coaching in deal strategy discussions, pipeline reviews, and post-call reflections. It has to be practical or reps check out
“We’re fostering productive feedback across teams,” says Mark, “We are just looking at ways to use call recording and AI-driven insights to refine messaging, then connect it to peer coaching to enhance learning and dynamically develop skills.”
4️⃣ Building Toward a 360-Degree View of Sales Performance
Finally, a strong coaching culture goes beyond manager to individual coaching to also collect 360-degree feedback. “Over time we want to move a 360-degree approach to skills growth around sales and business goals, integrating feedback from managers, peers, and customers.”
Creating coaching opportunities within and across teams fosters continuous learning, accountability, and long-term success for all sales professionals.
Mark’s approach is that skills coaching can unlock significant sales performance gains, but only when designed in a way that individual sales team members embrace.