Level Five Sales Coaching vs. call activity pressure
Your sales pipeline is shrinking and line items are getting pushed out. What to do?
It’s tempting to default to an all-leaves-are cancelled mode. More sales calls, more proposals, more activity. However, if your salespeople are properly compensated they are already incented to make every effort to close business. Most likely pressing the call activity panic button will only trigger a conspiracy to report fake data.
Level Five is not about doubling the number of calls, it’s about doubling the number of quality sales calls by transforming your front line sales managers from forecast minders into accomplished sales coaches. The result is an immediate uptick in productive sales call behavior that has the real potential to turn a 40% probability line item into signed business in the short term.
It’s ok to panic about your front log, so long as you push the right button!
Level Five Sales Coaching vs. headquarters sales training
The era of right-of-passage sales training is fading as sales leaders rue the $billions spent with negligible impact on sales call behaviors and quota achievement.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Event-based learning has a half-life of just weeks, maybe days.
Then there’s the disconnect when the learning is delivered by headquarters trainers and only half-heartedly reinforced by sales managers in the field.
Finally, the elaborate orchestrations envisioned by some brilliant sales training company founders have proved difficult to perform in freewheeling customer situations. They frequently didn’t survive first contact with the customer.
Level Five Sales Coaching is different.
- Principles are intuitive and easily grasped. No jargon-festered formulas to memorize.
- Learning is delivered in the field by front line sales managers who are invested in the outcome.
- Learning is ongoing with regular reinforcement and continuous practice.
- Delivery is Zoom-enabled. Classrooms, travel not required.
- It incorporates the latest discovery learning and behavior modeling techniques.
- Coaching efforts are tracked, measured and rewarded.
- Program effectiveness is validated against revenue and quota achievement gains
Level Five Sales Coaching vs. sales coaching reluctance
It’s only human to avoid activities you find difficult and unrewarding. That's why many front line sales managers default to the comfort of routine personnel administration and expense account management when they might be more productively employed coaching sales team members (see Help Rescue Your Front Line Sales Managers in the orange box).
Level Five is a game changer, introducing a shared language for defining a quality sales call and a repeatable, measurable process to master call planning and customer conversations.
It’s all very intuitive, and because the incubation process incorporates both managers and sellers, there’s great buy-in and none of the resistance you get from theory-heavy top-down mandates.
With Level Five both your sales managers and sales reps will relish field coaching opportunities, and a Six Sigma rigor to improving call quality will become part of your culture.
Your sales pipeline will thank you for it.
Level Five Sales Coaching: A phenomenon in the making
Level Five is the culmination of a team effort led by our colleague, John Hoskins, America’s leading sales call quality authority. With more than 30 years’ experience leading and advising top sales organizations on sales call best practices, John has put in his 10,000 hours many times over.
Exercising a Drucker-like gift for synthesizing mountains of random data points and conflicting findings into lucid actionable truth, John is the Six Sigma of sales call quality personified.
Today Level Five Selling is climbing the Amazon best seller list and Level Five Coaching is being embraced by dozens of leading sales organizations.
Revenue Partner is privileged to have been part of the Level Five development effort. We have been a Principal Solutions Partner for Level Five Coaching from the beginning, and it is an integral part of our sales talent solutions practice. Nobody knows better how to incorporate Level Five Coaching in your sales growth plans than Revenue Partner.
Intrigued? Shoot us a contact request here.
Author of Level Five Selling, Level Five Coaching System, and The Level Five Sales Leader - With more than 30 years of experience leading and advising top sales organizations on sales call best practices, John has put in his 10,000 hours many times over.
Help rescue your frontline sales managers from coaching calls like this.
You accompany your new sales rep on a coaching call.
You’re too professional to butt in - but that doesn’t mean you can’t talk to yourself.
“Great icebreaker, kid … ah don’t go down that path … whoa, you’re talking too much … ok, good question … hey, you’re pumping them for information you could have found on the web … oops, you probed when you should have supported … ask who else has a say in the decision … can’t you see that’s an objection? …what’s the next step? …ok, we’re still in the game …”
Then the call is over and it’s time to debrief the rep.
“Great icebreaker, kid … ah don’t go down that path … whoa, you’re talking too much … ok, good question ...”
Your rep nods compliantly, but you wonder. Am I getting across? Why wasn’t the headquarters sales training retained? How do I know my rep won’t make the same mistakes again? How much trust can I put in this rep’s pipeline report? Where can I make up for any revenue shortfall? Why do I even bother?
There is an answer. Contact Profitable Selling to learn more about Level Five Sales Coaching.