Boost win rates with scalable coaching

Put me in, coach. Great salespeople aren’t born, they’re made — and coaching plays a crucial role. In a recent Outreach study, a majority of respondents perceived their coaching efforts to be effective or highly effective. But this struck us as odd given that nearly half of respondents (44%) also cited “Sales rep retention / capacity” as a top challenge to revenue growth, while 88% of reps reached less than 90% of their quota. Coaching may not be as effective as leaders are assuming — but we’re here to help.

According to Korn Ferry’s 5th Annual Sales Enablement Study, companies with consistent sales coaching and impact measurement see 32% higher win rates and 28% higher quota attainment. From a team perspective, they also see 2x seller engagement and almost 30% reduced voluntary turnover.

The impact of coaching is transformative — so why are organizations struggling to improve outcomes? Gartner found that the average sales manager spends a full 55% of their time on internally-focused activities, only 21% of their time coaching, 15% of their time selling and closing, and 9% of their time building market expertise. 

That’s not a lot of time for dedicated coaching, constructive deal reviews, role-playing in preparation for calls, attending meetings, and more.

In June, we shared how managers can coach sellers to success with Kaia, using custom topics to understand what is trending in buyer-seller conversations, get insight into where reps are struggling, and coach reps to improve opportunity management. 

To support organizations looking to drive higher quota attainment and win rates like the ones mentioned above, let’s dive into how Outreach’s Smart Kaia Coach and Topics Report support coaching reps to success.

Boost win rates and coach with Smart Kaia Coach

Managers would like to spend more time coaching, but truthfully, just can’t find the time. In fact, managers wished they could spend 13% more time coaching, according to Gartner. 

Scalable coaching is critical for managers as they seek to improve the effectiveness and productivity of their sales teams. At Outreach, AI powers our Smart Kaia Coach capability, enabling managers to coach more frequently and effectively without removing the critical human-led component of providing feedback. 

With Smart Kaia Coach, managers can leverage the power of AI within each Coach Card to pre-fill answers to any questions it can find based on the call recording the manager applies the card to. This means that where AI can find an answer, it will suggest either yes/no answers to questions and provide deep links to key moments to answer open-ended questions, multiple choice questions, etc. Managers then review the suggested answers and listen to key moments using deep links instead of the full recording, and personalize the feedback to the rep. This puts the manager in the editor's seat of reviewing recordings but keeps them in the driver's seat of coaching. 

When managers can do more coaching in less time, they can improve revenue impact and team performance, while reducing churn and turnover. That means less new hires to ramp up as well.

Identify future coaching opportunities with Topics Report

To identify future coaching opportunities, sales managers and leaders can take the guesswork out of what is trending in conversation and how it’s impacting deal progression with Topics Report.

For example, sales methodologies help sales teams be more efficient by giving them a framework to understand their customers, engage and close deals consistently, while leaders track progress. With Topics Report, managers can see reps who are gathering key information and metrics for sales methodologies, like MEDDPICC, in each stage, and determine if they have the full command of the deal. 

It’s no surprise that repeating successful sales plays has an impact, and many organizations are still establishing consistency within their sales practice. Take this recent story from Cisco: 

“We didn't have a lot of global consistency. With a team of over 1200 sellers, there were a lot of pockets of different processes and different habits,” said Donna Sanborn, Senior Leader, Global Sales Effectiveness.

Managers looking to minimize surprises and pinpoint risks can easily evaluate what topics are coming up across sales cycle, and consider:

• Is that the right time to discuss? Evaluate what might cause deal delays,  if discovery questions are asked in later sales stages, or if pricing is a recurring objection with negative sentiment across several stages. 
• What is missing from buyer-seller conversations? The timing of a topic can be indicative of risk and coaching opportunities, but avoiding them altogether can also do harm when the seller needs to establish trust with the buyer. Dig into what is missing from conversations to improve deal velocity and help the rep build trust.

Within the report, selecting specific topics can lead to deeper inspection, uncovering who to coach and what to coach on. Deep dive into how reps are handling buyer conversations/objections, including buyer sentiment, aiding managers in pinpointing deal risk and areas to coach.

Where reps are improving and excelling, create playlists of best-in-class call recordings to share what good looks like. Create daily or weekly saved search alerts with criteria matching those great sales calls to keep the Playlist updated with ease.

If a rep needs support, consider live coaching on calls with Listen Live or customizing Content Cards to support coaching needs during calls where the manager cannot join. Managers can also use Kaia Coach Cards to provide rep feedback on specific call or meeting  recordings.

Don't forget, managers can also set up specific views — using filters for specific topics, timeframe and more — and save as a default view within Topics Report to quickly trends in conversations with ease.