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Metrics-Driven Sales Coaching

In many ways, a sales manager's title should be “sales coach.” Maximizing sales managers' time spent on coaching is one of the most effective levers to drive sales productivity. In scaling HubSpot's sales organization, I was constantly challenged to find new ways to reinforce a culture of sales coaching, knowing it needed to be central to our process. This chapter outlines the approach I used, a methodology I call “metrics-driven sales coaching.”

What does effective coaching look like? What does ineffective coaching look like? Let's start with an example. For context, I've been trying to learn the game of golf for the past 15 years, and I've taken many coaching lessons along the way. Some of these lessons have been better than others.

Here's what one of the weaker coaches once told me: “Mark, take a swing.…Okay. Now try this grip and lean back a bit. Put more weight in your back foot. Think one o'clock, not two o'clock, on your backswing, and turn your wrists over sooner as you strike the ball.”

Whoa, partner! You lost me. Come again?

Another golf pro, who was far more helpful, took a different approach. “Mark, take a swing…Okay. Now try this grip. Take 100 swings like that.” Twenty minutes later he asked, “How does that feel?”

“Great,” I said.

“Okay,” he replied. “Now try putting more weight on your back foot. Take another 100 swings like that.” Twenty minutes later he asked, “How does that feel?”

“Fantastic,” I said.

That is effective sales coaching.

The coach from my first example made a common mistake. Lots of new sales managers err on the side of throwing everything they know at the salespeople they're trying to develop.

This situation occurs most often when a sales manager receives a new sales hire right out of training. The sales manager will likely see an enormous gap between where the new salesperson is performing and where the sales manager would like him to perform. The sales manager proceeds to overwhelm the salesperson with pages and pages of feedback. I can practically see the salesperson's head spinning. The manager's attempt to simultaneously develop the salesperson across a spectrum of skills results in no skills being developed at all.

The best sales managers, just like the second coach in my golf story, can identify the one skill that will have the biggest impact on a salesperson's performance, and then customize a coaching plan around developing that skill.

If they're really good, sales managers will use metrics to properly diagnose which skill should be prioritized.

Thus, “metrics-driven sales coaching” begins.

Implementing a Coaching Culture throughout the Organization

In the first few months of scaling the sales team from one to eight people, implementing a metrics-driven coaching culture was easy. I was the only leader and I followed my own process. However, as I scaled up to 15+ managers and added additional director- and VP-level layers within the organization, reinforcing my cultural vision was a far bigger challenge.

I've summarized the process I ended up using in Figure 7.1.

**Figure 7.1** Process to Hold the Sales Organization Accountable to a Metrics-Driven Sales Coaching Culture

On the second afternoon of every month, I would meet with each of my directors—each of whom oversaw a team of roughly 50 salespeople—to inspect their monthly coaching plans.

As we'd walk through their plans for each salesperson, I'd ask them three questions:

What skill will you work on this month with this salesperson?
How did you decide on that skill?
What is the customized coaching plan you will use to develop the skill?

In advance of these meetings, all of the sales directors would meet with their managers on the second morning of each month to inspect their coaching plans. The directors would walk through the plans for each salesperson and ask the same questions I was going to ask them later that afternoon. Because of this meeting, the sales managers would sit down on the first afternoon of each month with each of their salespeople, review their metrics, and work together to create a personalized coaching plan for each salesperson. Because of these meetings, each sales manager and salesperson would review their performance metrics on the first morning of every month. The organization was accountable to a monthly cadence of sales coaching preparation.

Creating the Coaching Plan Together with the Salesperson

When the sales manager sits down one-on-one with each salesperson to create a coaching plan on the first day of each month, it's a highly interactive meeting. The manager doesn't say, “John, I reviewed your performance last month. Here's what I saw. Here's what we're going to work on, and here's how we're going to do it.” That approach simply does not empower salespeople or create buy-in. That approach squanders the opportunity to use the meeting as a great learning opportunity in which the salesperson can constructively think about his personal development.

By developing plans together with the salesperson, the sales manager empowers her team members to analyze their own results and diagnose their own skill deficiencies through a sequence of questions. Such a sequence of questions, stated from the sales manager's perspective, is listed here.

“Good to see you, John. How do you think you did last month?”

“Qualitatively speaking, what do you think you did well and what do you think you can improve on?”

“Let's review the numbers. Here are the call activity metrics for the entire team. What are your observations about your performance on this chart?”

“Let's move on to the next chart on connect rates. What do you see here?”

A sales manager should continue through all the key metrics. When interesting observations arise, she should dive in a bit, asking, “Why do you think your performance here was so strong (or so weak) relative to your peers in this area of the funnel?”

After running through the metrics, the sales manager should ask the most important (two-part) question:

“So, reflecting on your qualitative observations and the metrics that we ran through, which skill do you think we should work on this month, and what's the best way that I can help you with that skill?”

More often than not, the sales manager will already have a pretty good idea of which skill she wants to work on with the salesperson. However, the sales manager should be willing to adjust her plan based on the salesperson's insightful contributions to the discussion. This flexible approach maximizes the buy-in and empowerment of the salesperson. It teaches salespeople to be their own independent coach, to reflect on their deficiencies, and to customize coaching plans so they can improve on their own.

I also encouraged the HubSpot sales managers to use the initial monthly meetings to schedule their follow-up coaching sessions.

“I agree, John. It seems like working on ‘developing a sense of urgency’ with your early-stage opportunities is a good skill to work on this month. I like your idea of recording two discovery calls that we can sit down together and review. It looks like you and I are both open next Tuesday at 10 a.m. and then the following Thursday at 4 p.m. Let's book those times right now. Please have a recording of a qualifying call prepared for each of these coaching meetings.”

My sales managers felt good about this time management strategy. They knew they were prioritizing time to coach salespeople on their biggest needs, rather than constantly reacting to issues as they arose. They were concentrating on the skills that would have the greatest impact on their team's performance. What could possibly be a higher priority than that?

Examples of Metrics-Driven Skill Diagnosis and Coaching Plans

You may be wondering, “Which sales metrics are best to track?”

The answer varies from company to company. That said, as you evaluate your firm's situation, I recommend keeping the first pass relatively simple by starting with the high-level metrics that are already being tracked.

Take a look at the simple model in Figure 7.2. This chart illustrates a basic funnel of leads created, leads worked, demos delivered, and customers closed in the prior month. Each pattern represents a different salesperson on the team. This simple model illustrates where mediocre performers are deviating from top performers and where the largest conversion leakage occurs for each salesperson.

**Figure 7.2** Comparing Sales Funnel Activity of Each Member of a Sales Team in a Given Month

Let's look at the salesperson represented by the checkered pattern, listed as the fourth down in the chart. Last month, he worked the fewest leads. Why might that be? Start by asking him directly, in order to get his initial thoughts. Then, offer advice based on your perspective and experience. Here are some possible diagnoses and corresponding coaching plans for this scenario:

Overinvestment in unqualified opportunities: Maybe this salesperson isn't qualifying opportunities properly at the beginning of the buyer journey, thus investing lots of demo time on opportunities that are unlikely to close. This diagnosis would be evidenced by a large number of discovery calls and demos, coupled with a low close rate on those demos. A good coaching plan here would be a daily pipeline review of the salesperson's newly advanced opportunities, with a focus on the qualification of each opportunity.
Time management: Maybe this salesperson isn't managing his time well. Perhaps he's doing too much research on very early-stage opportunities. Perhaps his CRM skills are weak, or he's creating lots of unnecessary administrative work for himself. This diagnosis would be evidenced by below average volumes throughout the entire funnel (leads, demos, and customers). A possible coaching plan here would be to outline daily and weekly activity goals, have the salesperson block time in his calendar for each type of activity, and have him report back regularly on progress.
Personal motivation: Maybe this salesperson is just not bringing his “A” game to work every day. Maybe the average salesperson puts in a solid 50 hours per week, but this person is investing only 30. Again, this diagnosis would be illustrated by low volume throughout the entire funnel. A good coaching plan here is to have a personal conversation with the salesperson about why he comes to work every day. How much does he want to earn? What would he do with the money if he achieved his goal? By when does he want the money? Help him establish the connection between goal achievement and daily activity volume. Finally, set up a plan to review his progress daily.
Call reluctance: Maybe the salesperson has a fear of picking up the phone. That's a really tough one to fix, and probably indicates a failure in the recruiting funnel. It may require a fundamental shift in personality—or it may mean the “salesperson” is in the wrong profession.

Now let's look at the salesperson represented by the upper right diagonal pattern, listed as the top most person on the charts. She worked a good number of leads, but she had the lowest number of demos and, in turn, the lowest number of customers. Here are some possible diagnoses and coaching plans for this type of team member:

Prospecting depth: Maybe this salesperson isn't working her leads deeply enough. Perhaps she is only “touching” the leads once or twice before moving on. We can diagnose further by reviewing the CRM prospecting logs for the leads she has touched. From a coaching perspective, she probably needs some guidance on the right prospecting cadence and how to leverage the CRM so nothing falls through the cracks.
Lack of prospecting personalization: Perhaps she's calling her leads deeply, but she's sending the same email and leaving the same voicemail each time. She needs to personalize each of those emails and voicemails to each prospect's context and build on her overall message each time. We can diagnose further by reviewing the content of her emails. If they are generic, then she must do more to add personalized context to each touch point. Salespeople need to leverage this context and deliver the most helpful information at the most helpful time.
Trust development on the connect call: Perhaps she's doing a great job contacting her leads and getting them on the phone. However, she's not engaging well with the prospects once she gets them on the phone. She may be leading with a boring elevator pitch every time, rather than using the calls to learn more about her prospects. Diagnosing this skill requires a tactical effort by the sales manager, which I will cover in a few pages when I discuss the process of “peeling back the onion.” For coaching, set up two 90-minute shadowing sessions to listen in on her prospecting and connect calls. Role-play with her, using suggested improvements to her tactics, and then have her apply those improvements as you shadow her next few calls.

Finally, let's take a look at the salesperson represented by the upper left diagonal pattern, listed as the bottom most person on the charts. He's doing really well with high volumes of leads worked and demos delivered. However, he has a very low number of customers closed, especially for that amount of activity. Here are possible diagnoses and coaching plans for this salesperson:

Lack of urgency: This is the most common issue I encounter, whether it's at HubSpot or any of the many organizations I have helped. The prospect expresses great excitement about the product. They literally tell the salesperson they plan to buy. The next day, they call back and have some excuse about an upcoming trade show or some deadline that's fast approaching. They ask you to call back in a month. When you call back a month later, they barely remember your name. A great way to surface this diagnosis is to review “closed lost” reasons on late-stage opportunities. Two solid coaching tactics include role-playing how to develop urgency on future opportunities and recording sales calls that can be reviewed and critiqued. The key questions here are: Why does this prospect need our product today? What will be the implications if they don't buy today? Imagine it is six months from now and the problem we're talking about solving is still not solved. What happens then? Will it really be that bad? If the answer is “no,” then the salesperson has not developed the urgency and probably won't win that business.
Lack of “decision maker” access: In some cases the salesperson isn't identifying or reaching the decision maker. Often times, if a prospective buyer says he is the decision maker, he probably isn't. Conversely, true decision makers may try to deflect this ownership to someone else. Figuring out if a prospective buyer is really the decision maker is often tricky. A manager can diagnose a “lack of decision maker” issue by evaluating how long it has been since a salesperson directly engaged with the individual who has been identified as responsible for signing key documents. If that person turns out to be the CEO and we haven't yet spoken to her, we have an issue. Role-playing around specific opportunities works well to overcome this skill deficiency. I find that,on a case-by-case basis, the best salespeople appreciate the difference between why the end user wants our product and why the related decision maker wants our product. Best-in-class salespeople will alter the way they communicate value to each party so that everyone's interests feel addressed.
Digging below the surface pain: Perhaps the salesperson hasn't yet fully appreciated the prospect's pain. When I inquire about an opportunity's pain point and the salesperson says he needs more leads, we have an issue. Everybody needs more leads. Use probing questions to get to the deeper, underlying pain points. Why do they need more leads? How many leads do they generate today? How many do they need? How did they come up with that goal? Is this a “must-hit” goal or an “ideal world” goal?

“Peeling Back the Onion”

An important concept related to metrics-driven sales coaching is what I call “peeling back the onion.” As we review each salesperson's high-level funnel metrics and begin to identify the areas of concern for each salesperson, the first question I ask myself is “How can we use deeper metrics to peel back the onion and properly diagnose the skill deficiency?”

The numbers rarely lie.

Figure 7.3 illustrates an example of “peeling back the onion.” Remember the salesperson represented by the upper left diagonal pattern who worked lots of leads but struggled with conversion to the demo stage? Let's peel back the onion on this leads-worked-to-demos-booked ratio. Let's break down the data a bit, and look separately at the leads-worked-to-connects ratio and the connects-to-demos-booked ratio. This deeper view will help us to properly diagnose her skill deficiency. If the leads-worked-to-connects ratio is low, then she is struggling to get people onto the phone. We need to dive into her prospecting frequency and personalization. If the connects-to-demos-booked ratio is low, then she is struggling to pique the prospect's interest on the connect calls. We need to listen to those calls in order to further diagnose.

**Figure 7.3** Example of “Peeling Back the Onion” on a Skill Deficiency

“Peeling back the onion” saves us time in isolating individual skill deficiencies and gives us confidence that we're working on the right areas.

Measure the Coaching Success

How do we know if our coaching model is working? We measure it, of course! Figure 7.4 looks similar to the figures we discussed previously. However, rather than comparing the funnel across different salespeople within a set time frame, this chart shows how the funnel metrics change month over month for an individual salesperson. This enables us to go back to our coaching plans from prior months, review the metrics that each plan was intended to improve, and see if those metrics did in fact move. As you can see in Figure 7.4, which is based on the data of an actual HubSpot salesperson, this salesperson and her manager have been quite successful employing this process.

**Figure 7.4** Comparing Sales Funnel Activity of One Salesperson across a Number of Months