3 Steps to Data-driven Sales Coaching

More than 100 people registered for our webinar ‘How to sell more with data-driven sales coaching.’

Since this topic was so popular, we’ve summarized the webinar ‘take-aways’ into 3 steps. Each step includes a list of key sales reports to help you guide coaching meetings.

Why data-driven sales coaching?

‘Data-driven’ means having a systematic approach to sales coaching based on quantitative sales metrics. Rather than starting coaching sessions based on a personal understanding, each session starts with clear, measurable expectations that both parties agree on. From there, you systematically review what’s happened and plan next steps, developing one area at a time.

From a coaches perspective, a data-driven approach makes coaching easier and more effective. Not only will you help reps hit their targets in the short run, you help them develop a better understanding what they can do, on their own, to be more successful in the long-run.

For example, sellers may be clear they have a monthly budget, but do they know exactly how many new opportunities this means?

From a sellers perspective, data-driven sales coaching is easy to understand. There’s no ‘fluffy’ terms or uncertainty. Every goal is measured and sellers can take control of their own development, without being forced to rely on anyone else.

Keys to success

Data-driven sales coaching employs well-known, but sometimes overlooked techniques:

• Base coaching on measurements and actions that increase sales
• Recognize sale performances to reinforce desired behaviors
• Coach often – set fixed times for meetings

Before you start, it’s important to clearly define your sales process and ensure the process is set-up correctly in your CRM system. There should be one process per sales type.

If your sales data is inaccurate or poor quality, don’t worry. As you and your teams use data, the quality will improve because all the parties see its advantage. It is a ‘win-win’ situation.

Step 1: Determine what is required to reach budget

A good starting point for coaching discussions is to agree personal target revenue with sales reps. This is usually a breakdown of your company or team budgets.

From here you can reach a common understanding of sales pipeline requirements and ensure targets are realistic.

This includes reviewing:

• How much (# opportunities and value) needs to be in the pipeline in order to hit monthly target?
• How many new opportunities (# cases and value) need to come into the pipeline (refill)?
• What is the difference between actual and required?

Once pipeline requirements are established, each sales rep has their own roadmap. This makes it easier to control and change what’s happening. It’s much better, for example, to know there are too few new opportunities before the end of the month, so there is time to do something about it.

Step 2: Secure movement through the pipeline

Coaching sessions should include a look at activities. Without a planned activity to move cases from stage to stage – they risk being lost or forgotten.

One challenge, however, is sorting our the cases that are moving as planned, from those that aren’t.

In this case, the following reports are useful:

1. Cases past the decision date.
2. Cases without a planned activity. e.g. email, phone call, new meeting
3. Cases that have an activity planned, but the plan hasn’t been followed.

With this information it’s easier to spot potential issues. At meetings, you can discuss ways to solve them.

Step 3: Evaluate the sales process and plan ahead

The final step is to evaluate sales processes and analyze data. The analysis gives deeper insight about what you can do sell more effectively.

Different views of sales data are needed to analyze results. A single view of the pipeline doesn’t give a clear picture.

Key reports used in analysis include:

• Forecast and sold versus budget – review current period and discuss upcoming forecast per month and accumulated
• Pipeline requirements report – gain visibility into status and spot variance from target
• Open opportunities by stage and close date – manage opportunities and evaluate
• Win/loss report – understand win/loss rates and reasons
• Lead source report – review the best source of leads
• Sales per segment or product – see whether reps are working strategically towards the right customer segments
• Activity reports – spot trends and make comparisons

These reports provide valuable information about sales processes. While there is certainly a mix of skills that are important to being a good sales coach, using data to understand performance is always a good start. As the amounts of sales data increases, the more insight that data gives us.

Get your sales coaching reports

Interested in monitoring goal progress, tracking your pipeline health or learning more about how Business Analyze can help you coach reps to success? Contact us here