Some Practical Coaching Tips to ImproveYour B2B Sales Team Performance in 2024
By Michael J Griffin
B2B Sales managers across Asia have one of the toughest jobs in any organization. You and I need to motivate, coach and manage the performance of very valuable individualistic self-starting people who can make or break your organization’s revenue goals in 2024. Let me give you some simple yet practical ideas to boost your own leadership and sales coaching to inspire your salespeople to new levels of performance.
Conduct Daily Kick Off Meetings. I learned this from Verne Harnish who takes mid-size companies public. Every morning the sales manager meets face to face or virtually for a short 15 - 20-minute meeting with the following agenda where each salesperson shares: yesterday’s sales/service success stories, yesterday’s war or failure stories, and what is their activity plan for the day. I found especially during Covid, this simple process, built high trust and enhanced communication with my team to share best practices and practice group key account strategies with a positive element of peer group pressure.
Schedule Regular Joint Sales Meetings with Customers. Establishing a weekly or monthly KPI on joint customer sales meetings with each of your salespeople is the prelude for effective sales coaching. Research has demonstrated that sales managers who regularly observe their salespeople selling with real customers usually exceed sales team targets. I suggest you schedule at least 2 joint sales meetings with each salesperson per month where you observe his/her selling skills and product or market knowledge and coach on what you observe. I have developed a simple coaching and observation checklist/process. Contact me if you wish to receive it. And remember, these joint meetings are to observe your salespeople, not to rescue the sale.
Create and Monitor Personal Development Plans for Each Salesperson. When your salespeople grow, so does the organization success. Having a collaborative discussion with each salesperson to agree on their learning goals is very motivating. I suggest each salesperson has a development plan with quarterly learning goals for selling skills, product and market knowledge and important sales processes. Meet with the salesperson monthly or quarterly to monitor and review learning progress.
Facilitate Strategic Key Account Sharing Sessions. Have a monthly meeting with your complete sales team where a pre-selected salesperson presents a strategic key account s/he is working on for a current sale in 2024 and his/her 3-year plan to expand the account. The organization should have a standard key account planner presentation for this activity. This meeting inspires trust among salespeople to share key account strategies and receive advice and feedback from their peers on how to be more successful winning key accounts.
Ensure You Master and Regularly Employ Your Coaching Skills. Great sales managers communicate well and are secure leaders who are fluent in active listening, not just tell and direct, show authentic empathy that demonstrates you care, can set clear goals, and are skillful and balanced in giving recognition/affirmation with constructive not critical judgmental feedback. Please reflect on how well you use the skills, especially when you are stressed or irritated with sales performance. Remember you are coach who leads to improve and build healthy relationships through influence, not by cracking the whip!
Limit the Size of Your Sales Team. This I saw one of my client companies lose a very high potential, sharp sales manager. It was obvious he was overworked and stressed. The reason? He was trying to manage and coach over ten B2B sales people! Experience has shown that the ideal size of a B2B sales team is 4 – 5 salespeople. Overstretching your sales managers in the name of productivity or cost savings is a recipe for high manager and salespeople attrition.
Be Vigilant and Proactive to Avoid Burnout. As sales managers we are very target focused and sometimes so much so at the expense of our close relationships and personal health. A few directives for you this year: 1) schedule your holiday time in 2024 now! Put it in your calendar and let the organization know in advance about your time off. 2) schedule a day of recharging every month. 3) keep dating your spouse on a monthly basis. 4) if you have children give them quantity time with you – remember the child decides what is quality time, not you! 5) Finally eat healthy and exercise for health! Don’t chase targets and $$$$ at the expense of your health.
Well that’s it! My advice for you to be a more successful, less stressed sales manager in 2024. You may not take up all my suggestions, but please implement those that give you a life of not just success, but significance and wholesomeness.
May 2024 be your best year yet as a world class sales manager.
Michael J Griffin
CEO and Founder of ELAvate
Global Sales Productivity Consultant
Maxwell Leadership Founding Member