Sales Enablement through sales coaching is definitely not a new topic, it's been around for as long as we have had sales people. While the oft-noted sale of Manhattan by native Americans in the 1600s for $24 is equal parts fact and myth, can you imagine the look of the imaginary sales manager involved in this deal when the equally imaginary sales person filled in the sales details in Salesforce? Perhaps a bit more sales coaching could have resulted in a slightly better deal with less value left on the table. Perhaps I should stop reading historical novels? 😄
Tamara Schenk, over at CSO Insights, shared a blog post at the end of 2018 titled "Sales Coaching Continues to Head in the Right Direction, But Not Fast Enough.” In that article she noted survey results which measured the impact of sales coaching on win rates for forecasted deals. She notes a large improvement in win rates, 31.4% to be exact, for companies employing a dynamic sales coaching program versus companies taking a random approach. To clarify these terms a bit:
- Random approach means nothing is formalized and sales managers coach as they have time, interest, etc..
- Dynamic approaches take a formalized coaching process, combine it with techniques to drive adoption, and add in measurement of outcomes.
I'm not simply mentioning this because of the fact that Bigtincan was named a leader in the Sales Coaching and Learning space in 2019. I am mentioning it because:
- Video coaching technology alone will not teach a bad coach how to coach. Leaders at all levels must be groomed and taught how to teach, and coach, other leaders and staff members.
- Feedback must be provided. While incremental value is certainly derived in the act of repetition, it is important that the sales managers take the time to review the videos created by a video coaching system and provide feedback. While some companies claim to have automated the feedback loop you MUST still take time to manually review these coaching segments. If you do not, you will miss out on important coaching opportunities. Automated coaching feedback systems are still in their infancy and you should not risk the success of your sales enablement programs upon them alone.
Technology is great, and Bigtincan does have the best sales coaching and learning technology available today. However, as Tamara states in the article referenced above, you need a formal approach that is outcome-focused and led by the teams best positioned to deliver results. Done right, you'll be winning more deals in no time at all.
