We all know deal coaching is important and we all know it doesn't happen (at least to the degree it needs to). This is another subject we've talked about for years and is now time to fix. We have a compelling reason. CSO Insights reports that the odds at vegas craps tables are better than average forecast accuracy (less than 50%).  What if I told you win rates for forecasted deals could increase by 19.6% without making any significant investments? Well, it can be done and I have one word for you, COACHING! 

The CSO report points out that sales organizations that "exceeded expectations" in coaching did just that. We continue to believe that coaching should be a primary role for front line sales managers and now have the compelling business case to support that belief. Coaching has typically been thought of as a way to reinforce sales training and didn't receive the correct level of importance in the role of a front line sales manager. When thought of this way, what could be more important for a front line sales leader than increasing win rates?

Coaching, however, is a very broad term and simply doing a lot of it will not have the desired business impact. Coaching process has been primarily left up to each sales manager to execute as he or she sees fit. Or perhaps they have been forced to attend a generic soft skills coaching workshop. The reality is that the questions asked, the answers given and the supporting documents and evidence, in essence the "quality" of coaching, is what makes the difference. Coaching at each step of the sales process from qualification to close is more science than art. We have now introduced Technology Guided Coaching in a cloud platform that allows scaling of best practice coaching. 

Find out more in article 6 of the Selling at the Speed of Change series from 5600blue.