5 Ways to Differentiate Yourself to Get Better Sales Results

William Eckstrom
Aug 25, 2017 · 4 min read

Think of your favorite sports team. When you imagine a typical day for players and coaches, there is no doubt you envision them practicing and perfecting their craft on a daily basis. Athletes train and coaches reinforce it, often by viewing films and reviewing statistics. Coaches are ultimately responsible and must simultaneously hold the athletes accountable.

Could you even imagine a sports team where the coaches only occasionally reviewed film or end of game statistics with their team?

If you have a passion or love for sports, it is hard to envision a team that does not reinforce the teachings learned in training. If this is hard to imagine of our favorite sports team, why does it happen in our own organizations?

At EcSell, we continually see organizations spend hard earned time and money organizing, sending and hosting trainings for sales people. And often, these training have killer content and are well worth the time sales people spend out of the field. However, where the problem lies is a lack of reinforcement post training.

Did you know without reinforcement, sales people only retain an average of 6–16% of the content learned in a training session? That means organizations are leaving 84–94% of their training budget on the table. Not what upper management likes to see. One of the greatest coaches of all time, Pat Riley of the New York Knicks, stated:

“Until you can change the way you look at things, those things will never change”.

We must reframe the way we think about coaching if we truly want drastic changes in our organization. Issues such as sales people not hitting numbers, team turnover, behavioral issues, insufficient sales talent, engagement, etc. are a function of poor coaching quantity and quality. Doing the same thing over and over again is insanity.

So what can organizations do differently in order to get different and better results? Here are 5 ideas to get you started:

  1. Get Sales Leaders Onboard

· In order to change behavior, reemphasize the focus on the coaches. If sales leaders in place are committed to reinforcing what is learned in training, and train the sales people to those standards, the sky is the limit.

2. Ask Sales Coaches What They Need

· Organizations should ask sales coaches what they need first, instead of asking and considering what the sales people need first.

3. Focus on Sales Coaching KPIs

· Sales teams should be focused on sales coaching KPIs as opposed to traditional sales activity.

4. Measure Coaching Effectiveness

· Executive sales leaders should be curious as to how to measure overall coaching effectiveness, as opposed to sales rep performance.

5. Measure Coaching Quality and Quantity

· Sales departments should be measuring how coaching quantity and quality impacts pipeline, funnel management and forecasting accuracy. (Learn how one organization did it here.)

To reinforce that using these tactics can have a positive benefit on outcome, EcSell studied 69 managers (coaches) across five client companies and measured the quantity and quality of coaching with each. The coaches whose teams were in the top 20% of sales (measured by progress to their respective goal) averaged almost 30% more high impact coaching activities than the bottom 80%.

The top 20% also had coaching quality scores that were more than 18% higher than the bottom 80%.

In addition, the top 20% averaged 110% of their respective goal while the bottom 80% of coaches averaged 91% of goal — given the average goal of the teams, the top 20% produced over $4,000,000/coach more than the bottom 80% (read the full whitepaper here).

What did we learn? NOTHING impacts performance more than the coach! If better sales talent is needed, great coaches recruit it. If more sales activity is needed, great coaches motivate to get it done. If a healthier performance culture is needed, great coaches change it. If greater selling skills are needed, great coaches train and coach to make those skills stick. And if a bigger goal needs to be hit, great coaches drive it.

If your favorite sports team is underperforming, who is the first to go? The coach. If coaches aren’t driving performance, they are the first to be fired. But if the coach is driving performance? The team is rewarded.

For sales teams to achieve at levels which they are capable, a paradigm shift needs to occur. Sales leaders need to believe and act on the belief that sales people don’t do what they are trained to do, they do what they are coached to do. Let’s spend more time focusing on coaching what our team was trained to do, ensuring that organizations will achieve maximum ROI.

As our data showed, when sales leaders understand what to do to impact performance, how to do it well and then measure the outcome, the sky is the limit.

Want to improve your personal coaching skills or just grow your coaching knowledge? Then subscribe to our monthly Coaching Recap email full of research-backed resources.

And if you haven’t already, I’d be honored if you watched my TEDx Talk which has reached over 1 million people from across the world.

You can find more articles like this one here.

Ecsell Institute

Leaders in Sales Coaching

)
William Eckstrom

Written by

Founder & President of EcSell Institute. Thought leader in sales coaching, leadership & sales management profession. TEDx Talk Speaker I Husband I Father of 3

Ecsell Institute

Leaders in Sales Coaching

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade