Sales motivation coaching – a RAIN Group paper

Sales motivation coaching has been a topic of personal interest for many years. This started when I was asked to take over managing a small sales team that was under-performing. When told I was free to terminate sales people I thought, really! That would be rather expensive, and I knew that hiring new sales people would not necessarily solve the revenue problems. So we kept the team intact, and began an informal process of talking about their individual motivations, and generating ideas on what would motivate each prospect. Account strategies and tactics improved quickly. We drove revenues to about $2 million per sales person – within 7 months.  It was a team effort, and we focused on sales motivation coaching combined with a newly planned, structured sales process.

So I was glad to see a White Paper offer from the RAIN Group – titled “The 5 Roles of High-performing Sales Coaches.”  The authors are Mike Schultz and John Doerr. For sales managers and revenue generators, this paper is a quick 10 page read full of actionable ideas. Here are some key quotes:

“Sales coaching works well when the coach 1) plays the five roles in the coaching process, 2) establishes a regular rhythm and frequency … and 3) leads masterful coaching conversations.”

“We’ve encountered situations where sales management is actually de-motivating because managers constantly place their emphasis on accountability for results, in a way that sales people come to dread.”

A 6 minute ritual – for sales motivation coaching

And very pragmatically the implementation plan is “A 6-minute ritual every day” (…yes, I am being a bit vague here, but you will enjoy the coverage of the time it takes, and techniques to form a new success habit)

My suggestion is that you read this one – and here is a link to download the PDF.

It covers what sales coaches need to do to maximize results with sellers. The authors report a 25-40% improvement in sales success. This is a realistic goal to achieve with your team, using these sales motivation coaching techniques.