Sitting in on sales coaching calls is one of the most thrilling aspects of my work. This is because I get to see in real-time what really informs the organization.
However, there’s one big mistake that I see sales leaders make (it’s an easy and quick fix).
Spending Too Much Time on Status Updates
In sales coaching calls, sales leaders spend too much time on updates. Specifically, they spend too much time letting their salespeople explain what’s going on, justify why something is the way it is, or talk about what’s happening in the account. We don’t need all of that background information to coach.
In fact, many sales leaders have an intimate understanding of what’s going on inside the accounts because they’re involved with the salespeople in team selling. That’s a good thing! However, what happens when you allow your salespeople to carry on about the “what” or the “why,” you never get to the solution. To prevent that, I suggest that you—the sales leader—simply stop the conversation and politely say, “That’s great. I don’t need the background information. Let’s transition to what we are going to do about it.” You can also simply say, “Good to know. Now, let’s talk about what the solution is.”
You need to transition the conversation quickly from the justification of why something is the way it is to what are we going to do about it. The faster you accomplish that, the faster you get to the solution and the faster the sales rep can implement.
