Companies with strong coaching cultures grow 27% faster year-over-year and report 51% higher revenue than their industry peers. Yet 73% of sales managers spend less than 5% of their time actually coaching.
In today’s dynamic sales environment, the ability to coach effectively has moved from a luxury to an absolute necessity. The days of the “command and control” sales leader barking orders are fading.
Today’s top sales organizations demand leaders who can elevate their teams, unlock hidden potential, and cultivate a culture of continuous growth.
This is the essence of becoming a sales multiplier – shifting your focus from solely driving your own numbers to empowering your team to achieve more than they thought possible.
Transforming Your Approach: The Key Elements
So, how do you actually make this mindset shift and build a true coaching culture? Here’s a breakdown of some core components:
From Boss to Coach: It’s about asking, not telling. Learn to guide your team with insightful questions that help them discover solutions rather than dictating answers. This collaborative approach boosts accountability and ownership.
Instead of: “You need to follow up faster.” Try: “What’s preventing you from following up within 24 hours? What would need to change?”
Clear Expectations are Your GPS: Coaching gets murky without agreed-upon goals and metrics. Be crystal clear about the behaviors and results you expect. When a rep knows the destination, it’s much easier to offer them the best route for the journey.
Data Doesn’t Lie: Don’t rely on hunches. Dive into call data, pipeline metrics, and other insights to personalize your coaching. This objective approach makes feedback more impactful and helps reps visualize their progress.
Mistakes are Learning Fuel: Create an environment where people aren’t afraid to try, stumble, and learn. Focus on progress, not perfection. This cultivates a growth mindset which fuels innovation.
Celebrate Every Victory: Recognition isn’t just for your top closers. Acknowledge effort, new skills mastered, and consistent improvement. This shared sense of achievement energizes your entire team.
Sharpen Your Coaching Toolbelt
Great coaches don’t just wing it. Enhance your coaching skills by:
Mastering Active Listening: Truly hear what’s being said and what isn’t.
Asking Powerful Questions: Learn to probe deeper for the root cause and spark new thinking.
Role-Play to Win: Practice real-time scenarios to develop skills and confidence.
The Investment That Pays Off
Coaching isn’t just about making your team feel good – it’s about making them better. Research backs this up, showing how strong coaching cultures boast higher win rates, increased revenue, and happier, more engaged teams. In my experience, the time I’ve invested in coaching my team has compounded in results.
Take 30 seconds to honestly reflect on your current approach.
- Are you empowering or directing?
- When was the last time you asked a rep a question instead of giving them the answer?
- Do your 1:1s focus on deals or on developing the person?
If you want to truly become a sales multiplier, invest in yourself and your team’s coaching prowess. Carew’s Leadership Development programs go beyond basic leadership practices, providing a framework for assessing individual strengths, motivating peak performance, and offering targeted coaching that unlocks each person’s full potential.
By developing these skills, your sales managers can transition from order-takers to strategic coaches, transforming your team into a high-performance unit that consistently exceeds sales goals.
AI-Powered Coaching: Your New Secret Weapon
The biggest barrier to effective coaching isn’t willingness, it’s time and knowing what to say in the moment. AI can help you become a more effective coach by providing real-time guidance and structured approaches.
Today, AI is already embedded in many of the tools your sales team uses every day. Most modern CRM and sales enablement systems have AI-driven insights built in – surfacing patterns in rep performance, highlighting pipeline risks, and even suggesting the next best action. This makes it easier to identify coaching opportunities without combing through endless reports.
Your meeting platforms are doing the same. Zoom and Microsoft Teams now provide AI-generated call summaries that not only save time, but also pinpoint missed opportunities, conversational gaps, and areas where reps could improve their approach. These summaries can serve as ready-made coaching prompts, helping you zero in on what really matters in your debriefs.
You can also take advantage of generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to sharpen your coaching in the moment:
For Preparation:
- I’m meeting with a sales rep who is struggling with [specific challenge]. Generate 5 powerful coaching questions that will help them discover their own solutions rather than me telling them what to do.
For Call Reviews:
- Analyze this sales call summary: [paste summary]. What are 3 coaching opportunities I should focus on, and what questions should I ask to help the rep improve?
For One-on-Ones:
- My sales rep said ‘[specific challenge or comment]’. Help me craft a response that coaches them toward a solution instead of just giving advice.
For Development Planning:
- Based on this performance data [share metrics], what growth areas should I focus on with this rep, and what’s a 30-day coaching plan to address them?
AI won’t replace your coaching intuition, but it can help you ask better questions, prepare more thoughtfully, and make the most of your limited coaching time.