From good to great: how coaching improves sales and new business development

Your business might already be achieving good sales results – but coaching can be a powerful tool for improving sales performance and driving new business development even further, turning that ‘good’ into ‘great’.

By giving salespeople the guidance, support, and feedback they need to succeed, coaching can help them to achieve their goals more quickly and effectively. It’s fair to say there are many factors that contribute to sales success, but in this blog we’ll briefly consider a few of the more common ones:

Overcoming obstacles and challenges
Skills or capability
How to generate new opportunities
Morale, engagement, and confidence

Identify obstacles and challenges

One of the key ways that coaching can improve sales performance is by helping salespeople to identify and overcome obstacles and challenges that prevent them from achieving their goals – obstacles that they might not have anticipated, or may not even be aware are holding them back. Some of the more straightforward examples might see a coach help a salesperson identify and address issues such as a lack of confidence or a lack of knowledge about a particular product or service.

They may also explore together the importance of resilience and the ability to handle rejection or setbacks (something that happens frequently, as anyone who has ever worked in sales will testify!) Addressing these areas – and others – and developing plans to improve performance in them can lead to a significant increase in sales and revenue, as the salesperson is better equipped to secure deals and generate new business.

Develop skills and strategies

Another way that coaching can improve sales performance is by helping salespeople to develop new skills and strategies that can help them to be more successful in their roles. For example, a coach can help a salesperson to improve:

their communication skills
their ability to anticipate, plan for, handle, and overcome objections
their ability to develop rapport and build strong relationships with potential customers.

These new skills and strategies often help the salesperson to be more effective in their role and to deliver better results. As the nature of sales – and the tactics and techniques that make for successful selling – change and evolve, the coach can help the client adapt their style to continue to be successful.

Generate new business opportunities

Coaching can also be a valuable tool to support the approach, or methodology, of generating new business opportunities. Of course, this in turn can help them to generate more revenue for the company. For example, a coach can help a salesperson to develop a more structured new business plan; to identify new or emerging target markets based on what has worked successfully already (or not) and what type(s) of customer are attractive to the business; refining their sales process and techniques; or developing new strategies for building relationships with potential customers over the medium to long term. These efforts can lead to increasingly successful development of new business, a significant source of revenue and potential profit for the company, especially in times of economic uncertainty such as now.

Improve morale and engagement

In addition to these benefits, coaching is also proven to help improve the overall morale and engagement of salespeople. Let’s face it, sales people can sometimes be selfish, and need attention, validation and reassurance. And they are definitely animals that thrive on feeling confident and self-assured. When they feel that they’re being supported and encouraged to achieve their goals, they are more likely to be motivated and engaged in their work. Coaching goes beyond just the technical and practical, and focuses on so much on the individual that a good coach will help build those feelings of confidence and engagement. It hopefully goes without saying that this, more often than not, leads to better performance and greater success in their roles.

Overall, coaching can be a powerful tool for improving sales performance and driving new business development, as well as improved morale and engagement among salespeople.

Coaching is an on-going process

It’s important to mention that coaching isn’t a one-time solution, it should be an ongoing process that helps to identify the salesperson’s strengths and weaknesses, and help them improve on their weaknesses and build on their strengths. Additionally, coaching is most effective when tailored to each individual salesperson, since everyone has different learning styles, experiences, and needs. And it is also most effective when the investment is over the medium or long term, as that is often what drives lasting change and results.

In conclusion, coaching is a valuable investment that can help companies to improve the performance of their sales teams and drive new business development.

Please get in touch to discuss your challenges and how our methods and approach can make the difference in your business.

Author
Recent Posts

David Brown

David is an experienced business development & strategy leader, having operated at senior level in developing businesses for 4 major insurance and financial services companies. He has run large regional operations around the UK, delivering profitable growth for each.