There’s a reason sales coaches are so popular. They can do amazing things for businesses – but that requires that the rest of the company is willing to build a learning culture. Too often, business owners rely on their sales coach to fix everything that’s going wrong in their business. And when things don’t go their way, they’re quick to blame the coach. In this blog post we will be covering how to invest in coaching for growth in sales organizations.
However, research shows that coaching is the most effective investment when it comes to improving sales reps. But not all reps are equally receptive when it comes to coaching. So thinking closely through which employees you target when investing time and money in coaching. So who Has the Biggest Potential for Growth in Sales Organizations? let’s find out!
What group of employees should you invest most time in for future growth?
A normal tendency we see is that managers focus their coaching on the sales reps that are struggling the most and the reps that are performing the best.
Of course, it’s important to assist the salespeople who are having trouble, and it makes sense that the individuals who are struggling most have the greatest potential to learn. But that may not always be the case.
Managers also use a lot of time on the highest performers. They are the ones that bring in the most revenue and they usually have the biggest impact on the company results. Managers also like to use time with the best performers, just because it is more fun.
Research shows that as a manager, it can be smart to think through which group of your employees to invest the most time in.
Data from Harvard Business Review shows us interesting numbers on where to invest to get the best growth in the sales organization. The research involves world class coaching of thousands of sales reps. The results were that the effects of the coaching were marginal on both the strongest and the weakest performers in the organizations.
So who are we left with? The ones that are not bad at sales, but they’re not great either. The middle performers.
These are the sales reps that will see the biggest improvement from coaching.
The middle of the pack performers make up the majority of sales reps, which means this is where you’ll see the biggest return on your investment in sales coaching.
For sales managers these facts can be a little hard to absorb. Many managers are concerned with equal training for all employees, but the biggest gain comes from coaching the middle performer. The poor performers still need coaching, but they often need both skills training and opportunities to practice. Once they improve their skills the sales coaching will be more effective.
Digital coaching
How can you take advantage of modern technology to help coaching and secure growth in the sales organization?
By providing sales reps with the resources they need to improve their performance, all the salespeople will have access to the same quality of coaching, regardless of their position in the company.
This can also make it easy for managers to target the middle performers of their sales force, and follow up and ensure that they’re getting the most out of their training.
This way, the sales manager will save a lot of time from one-to-one coaching and focus on those that need it the most. Digital coaching can also be a more cost-effective solution for sales organizations. By using technology to deliver coaching content, companies can save on the costs of hiring sales coaches. It is an ideal solution for organizations that want to improve their performance, without breaking the bank.
conclusion
So our conclusion is that sales managers should focus their coaching efforts on the middle performers in their sales force. These are the reps that have the most potential for growth and will see the biggest return on investment. Digital coaching can help sales organizations achieve this by providing sales reps with the resources they need to improve their performance, at a fraction of the cost of traditional sales coaching.
In Future Ready, we believe that everyone deserves a chance to succeed in sales and customer service. With smart technology, we make learning an integrated part of the everyday workflow. We can help your company future-proof its workforce by providing employees with the opportunity to learn new skills on their own time, without disrupting their day-to-day routine. Want to see how Future Ready can benefit your business? Contact us for a free demo! Our team is excited to show you how our innovative platform can help your employees stay ahead of the curve and improve your bottom line. Thanks for reading!
Looking for more sales coaching resources, check out our blog post on 3 steps for successful onboarding of new employees!