Peer Sales Coaching – A New Paradigm of Growing Your Sales Success

Last week, Verne Harnish of Gazelles, referred me to an article on Peer Coaching. It was a good read and made me think about how ELAvate has used Peer Coaching for sales people for the past two decades. Let’s review the key benefits of Peer Coaching for sale people based on this article by Aaron Hurst of Imperative, Inc. You can download this article at the end of my blog.

Most Sales Managers are overworked and are burdened by corporate duties that prevent them from coaching their sales people as much as they would like. Chally/GrowthPlay research has uncovered the ideal span of sales coaching for organizations that exceed target to be just four sales people. Very few organizations have this luxury, especially in the emerging economies of Asia with the sales team having 10 to 15 sales people to be coached!

Therefore, the urgent need for you to embark on Peer Sales Coaching to grow yourself across sales skill, knowledge, and process. Doing so will ELAvate your success as a sales professional.

Mr. Hurst’s article, adapted to Sales Peer Coaching:

• Is a learning method that allows sales people to build relationships,share sales communication skills and improve interaction with a variety of customers to increase chances of goal completion.
• Offers new ways of sales development with peers that develops self-leadership without having to lean on your sales manager.
• Builds connection among sales people for growing key accounts, sharing best practices and sales team retention.
• Transforms sales cultures by develops psychological safety, openness and ability to learn from mistakes.
• Allows sales people to learn coaching skills critical to their sales success and growth as a future leader.

Research on peer coaching clearly supports growth, fulfillment and retention as Mr. Hurst has found:  62% of people report“regularly engaging in conversations about their development and careers with their peers”. This builds sales teamwork and facilitates sharing among sales people.  People who reported engaging in peer coaching also reported being:

• 65% more likely to be fulfilled in their job,
• 67% more likely to report being a top performer,
• 73% more likely to report feeling a sense of belonging
• 50% more likely to expect to stay in their job for more than 5 years

How then might you start Sales Peer Coaching with your colleagues? First, discuss the concept with your sales manager. Get his/her buy in to support Sales Peer Coaching. You may find him/her enthused by the idea as it helps all for sales success. Second, discuss the idea at your next sales meeting and see who in your sales team may want to participate. As a group you may want to identify 2 -3 areas to peer coach – Selling Skills, Product Knowledge, or Market/Customer Knowledge. Set weekly goals around the peer coaching, when you meet, where you meet, and how should each person be prepared.

Finally, I have found the best peer coaching for sales people is doing joint calls together. Joint calls encompass coaching around preparation, selling skills, product knowledge, market knowledge and communication. There are  3 types of joint peer coaching sales calls:

Modeling Calls. Here a more experienced sales person models for a less experienced sales person. The experienced sales person identifies what the other sales person should observe during the call.

Observation Calls. The sales person and peer coach agree before the sales call what skills or knowledge the observer will chart and document so he/she can give coaching feedback after the call is over.

Collaborative Calls. In these sales calls both the peers sell together collaborating and supporting each other for call success.

After the sales calls are over, the sales peers then coach and give each other feedback in the areas they have agreed to practice and observe.

Let’s end with two possible actions! First you may download Mr. Hurst’s Peer Coaching article by clicking Peer Coaching Whitepaper. Secondly, if you would like to explore how to set up Peer Sales Coaching in your organization, email me at michael.griffin@elavateglobal.com

Have a great week and Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Michael J Griffin

Founder ELAvate

MHG Master Sales Trainer