We can’t say it enough: coaching is everything. Yes, you’ll hire for qualities associated with success. And yes, you’ll provide a grounding onboarding program. But after that, data-based coaching is the best path to improving your team. Here are a couple of ways to put that into practice.
Conduct weekly 1:1 call reviews
One-on-one call reviews get reps thinking critically about how their calls could be improved. Be sure to conduct a weekly review of at least one or two calls for each sales team member. This should be an ongoing and consistent activity on your team. It’s one of the best ways you can give each of your reps tailored feedback.
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Have the rep request feedback on their best and worst call of the week before the meeting. Or have them pick a single call and comment on three things that went well and three things that were challenging.
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Look for coaching opportunities on calls that might fall through the cracks. The Coaching tab provides you a digest of calls for each rep, along with interaction alerts for coachable behaviors, such as too much talk time on a discovery call.
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Set up alerts to notify you of calls where key trackers or topics come up (e.g., the competition, pricing) that align with your coaching focuses.
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Review the calls beforehand, so you can form your own view on how it went.
“The prep is almost more important than the actual one-on-one, because if we're spending all of our time listening to a call, I could have done that whenever it was convenient for me and then come prepared for that meeting, and I want them to do the same.” - Hannah Newberry, Sales Manager, Gusto
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Make comments on the call that are either public (so everyone can learn best practices), shared between only you and your rep (reserved for critiques), or private to you (for notes that you’d prefer to address live).
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Review the calls with the rep in your weekly one-on-one meetings. Start by letting them give their take, and ask questions to guide them to reflect on what happened and why. Don’t be too quick to jump in with advice.
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Focus on the data at hand, so that no one has to rely on opinions or personal anecdotes about the calls.
“The first thing I always try to do is allow the rep to give their read on the conversation... getting their read and understanding why they took the approach they did, seeing if they're going to be self reflective and understand that, ‘Yes, maybe I missed here’. That can immediately tell you how you need to be coaching in that moment.” - Greg Allen, Commercial Sales Manager, Log Rocket
Amplify the benefits
Why not multiply Gong’s benefits by sharing what you've learned with your peers? It’s time to ante up at management team meetings and one-on-ones to point out topics and initiatives that need attention. You can also share proven coaching methods that work in your context. If you have an enablement partner, bring them into the conversation.
For example:
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Play a call snippet that exemplifies a pattern you see across your team or others at your organization.
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Have the meeting’s participants make notes. (Writing their thoughts down avoids groupthink.)
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Give each participant 2-3 minutes to share their observations and suggestions for coaching solutions.
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Summarize the group’s discussion (i.e., points of consensus and disagreement).