Together, we know more than we know as individuals. That’s true of coaching and it’s why team coaching exists. It’s a powerful way to engage the entire team and leverage the data you collect through Gong. Team members can share their knowledge during call reviews and openly talk about solutions to sales cycle challenges and obstacles.
Here’s how you can make group coaching sessions valuable and engaging for team members:
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Weekly team call reviews highlight the importance of offering and receiving feedback in front of the team, so everyone learns together. Review one or two calls in depth at weekly team meetings. Stop frequently to replay call segments and ask team members for their comments and suggestions. You can choose them from the one-on-ones you review yourself, or ask team members to send calls in themselves for the weekly or bi-weekly team feedback sessions. If there were one or two particularly teachable call segments in your one-on-one sessions, let the rep know you’ll use them in weekly call reviews with the entire team. Have the entire team listen to them together and discuss what could have been done differently.
Remember to record these team-wide weekly call review sessions, as they may come in handy later. They’ll contain lots of great coaching moments!
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Before a team meeting, suggest a topic or skill for discussion, such as competitor mentions or objection handling. Ask your team to suggest calls relating to that topic that the whole team can listen to and dissect at the meeting.
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Create a call library folder of team-reviewed calls. Capture everyone’s observations as Gong comments and refer to the calls in that library folder in future coaching and onboarding sessions.
Keep the sessions relaxed. This isn't a performance review or an exam. Sometimes the best way managers can keep things relaxed is by leaving the room. This encourages the team to talk more freely about difficulties and challenges. Your team members will respond differently to their peers than they will to their manager … in a good way! It’s worth shaking things up a bit so your team gets to experience peer-led feedback sessions as well as manager-led feedback sessions. Consider adding in that element as you read through the suggestions below.
Get the most out of each session with these tips:
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A closed-laptop policy minimizes electronic distractions. Use paper notebooks and have everyone put their laptops and tablets away.
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Record the session in Gong so team members can review it again later and you can use it for future onboarding sessions.
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Assign someone to chair the meeting and keep everyone on track with the agenda.
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If you like topic-focused meetings, choose the next one during a meeting. It's good to keep the same topic for 3-4 weeks so your team can see progress over time and have everyone offer up a call for review.
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For each call you review, follow these steps:
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Fill everyone in on the context of the conversation.
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Play the call from the point it was tagged.
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Go around the room and ask participants for constructive feedback, observations, and insights as to how the call could have been handled better.
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Save the best calls in the appropriate call library folder.
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