Sales coaching raises rep performance by 19% on average…but only if you also enable the marketing and customer success teams who feed your sales team!
In the first of our 3-part series on “sales coaching to improve performance,” we have shared some whys and hows around building a culture of coaching.
But what about everyone else who interacts with your customers and prospects?
Sales is not the only go-to-market team that can benefit from programmatic coaching. Customer success, sales and solution architects, and SDR and BDR teams can all reap the rewards of well-designed and executed coaching programs.
High-performing Customer Success teams do the same things as high performing sales teams – they dedicate time to learning, practicing, and coaching.
They work from shared playbooks, they role play with and learn from their peers, and they get consistent coaching from their leaders. They do not ‘role play’ in front of their customers.
But, in many organizations (too many), Customer Success teams are lacking a programmatic approach to coaching that is key in developing and maintaining the skills and knowledge they need. Sales skills are perishable, and it is no different for CS.
Sales engineers and solution architects need to have deep product and domain expertise. They play a key role in helping customers understand the value of your product or service.
But often, they are less adept at personalizing their product and domain expertise to the buyer’s role, goals, and industry context.
How often have you seen sales and technical sales teams misaligned on their messaging?
Shared playbooks and a shared approach to learning, practicing, and coaching together ensure that sales and technical sales teams stay focused on the buyer and aligned on how to articulate your product’s value.
Let’s not forget SDR/BDR teams. In many organizations, it’s an entry-level role, often filled by people who are early in their careers. Yet, they are making hundreds of touchpoints daily with your market.
Role playing objection handling is typically the bulk of the practice and coaching they get. An easy addition to help them develop their skills faster is to expose them to the same playbooks, team learning, and coaching opportunities the sales team gets.
In fact, regular cross-functional team learning and practice sessions not only accelerates the maturation of your SDR/BDR teams, but builds better rapport between teams and provides a big dose of vitamins to a culture of coaching.
Programmatic coaching and shared playbooks are valuable tools for all go-to-market teams.
By investing in coaching, you can help your team members improve their skills, knowledge, and performance, which will lead to increased sales, improved customer satisfaction, and reduced turnover.
