Coaching a senior rep is never easy – the mindset for years has been that we let them do what they do.
But win rates have dropped by 15%, sales cycles have lengthened by 32% and average deal sizes have dropped by 32% – this bad new courtesy of Ebsta/Pavillion b2b sales report 2023.
It’s time to start coaching all of our reps, even the senior ones. If every major NFL star can have multiple coaches reviewing and working with them, there is no excuse for Tanner in your office.
Lets start with framework – your methodology – your yellow brick road. Although we all like to pretend that selling is an art form, and these things are uncontrollable, plus you never know where the conversation will go – a fumbled football is random, and yet they still run drills. A structure is going to be the best way to replicate your ideal opportunity, we use GAP internally, and although deals have closed without all the 15 items, we often say, we do not lose if we have all 15.
When an opportunity comes into the pipeline, what is the first thing your manager should be looking for? – Did we find a business problem we can fix, if you don’t know, go back to the PIC chart found HERE. Something we have found lately is that opportunities are being created on hopium, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of the opportunity in general. Just because you are talking to someone within the company, or you have had a discovery conversation with them, does not mean they are an opportunity. It is only when you have uncovered a business problem you can solve that it becomes an opportunity.
Next steps – this one is constantly a problem – “Meeting with Becky” is not the next step. Why? Because it provides managers no context as to what we are trying to accomplish in the next meeting. It should read “Meeting with Becky to establish a plan to present to her boss, the CRO, about why they are currently out of compliance. The CRO is going to be persuaded with statistics over the past 5 years of data” – Something so clear and concise that your managers won’t even have to call that Friday meeting, they can get it all on SF and give feedback immediately.
Time stamps – We have found that management is often spread thin and can miss or even double down on a certain opportunity feedback. It’s imperative that feedback is handled professionally and timely, these are senior reps after all, so let’s make sure we are keeping organized and only giving feedback, not interrogations over multiple times.
Finally – where the frick are all the notes?! Make sure the information is where your reps keep their notes (heads up product pitch coming) you could always use Noted, we literally do everything above, what a coincidence?!
