Experts Reveal the Importance of Sales Coaching Analytics

Sales analytics can give sales leaders valuable insight into both reps’ activities and the outcomes of those activities. Having that visibility can empower leaders to do a far better job of coaching reps to success. But analytics can also be used to help coaches improve their own performance. For our latest eBook, we asked some sales experts to reveal some must-track metrics. Here are a couple of expert metrics that can help ensure that reps are getting the coaching they need.

Percentage of Sales Reps that Received Sufficient Coaching

“In my opinion, the most important role in any sales force is the front-line sales manager. Furthermore, my experience and research tells me that the most important role of the manager is that of sales coach. When sales managers provide effective coaching, sales performance improves… dramatically… always. Unfortunately, there’s a gigantic gap between the perception and reality of coaching in most sales forces. More specifically, managers think they are doing a vast amount of coaching, but most salespeople perceive there is none happening at all. And the salespeople are right.

The one sales metric I have never seen on any management dashboard, but one that should be prominent in every company is this: Percentage of Sales Reps That Received Sufficient Coaching. I would measure this with a simple, periodic survey of front-line salespeople. It would be a one-item survey that would ask simply:

I received effective coaching from my manager this week.

That’s it. I truly believe this one metric would revolutionize sales performance in most companies. It would make coaching highly visible inside the sales force and hold managers accountable to deliver it consistently and effectively. No doubt, sales performance around the world would skyrocket as a result.”

-Jason Jordan
Sales Management Expert, Author, and Partner
Vantage Point Consulting

Percentage of Reps Coached

“Are you providing enough reps on your team with the sales coaching they need to improve performance?

Over the years, I’ve listened to thousands of sales calls, and almost every call provides a powerful coaching opportunity. By listening to live calls or call recordings, sales leaders can identify where reps are getting stuck, whether they’re asking the right questions and if they are successfully conveying their solution’s value.

When managing a large team of inside sales reps, it’s crucial to ensure that you are providing every rep with feedback that can help them improve. That’s why it’s so important to track which reps are receiving coaching. Sales managers typically spend a lot of time with those reps who are lagging behind. But in order to truly maximize sales revenue, it’s important to spend time listening to sample calls from every rep on your team. With a bit of coaching, your top performers could potentially sell even more, and more of your middle-of-the-pack reps might transform into top performers.

Every month, sales coaches should track which reps on their team received written or verbal feedback on a sales call. This helps you see clearly see whether you are spending enough time with each rep, and whether your feedback is driving concrete results. Hopefully your feedback will result in more successful reps (and more sales revenue). But if you find yourself providing a particular rep with a lot of coaching, but the feedback isn’t sinking in, then it could be seen as a red flag. After all, the last thing you want is an uncoachable rep who is taking too much time away from the other reps on your team.”

-Howard Brown
Founder and CEO
Revenue.io

For more expert metrics, check out our 2017 Complete Guide to Inside Sales Analytics!