One of the best ways to coach your sales team is through online sales coaching. It is convenient, timely, doesn’t require a large conference room, and the meeting can be recorded and played back for future reference at any time.

Though online sales coaching is different in some ways than traditional sales coaching (either one-on-one or group), there are many similar factors that can make it extremely effective or a total waste of time.

More companies are beginning to see the value of sales coaching. Why not? With the life, wellness, and career coaching industries yielding great results, it stands to reason that sales coaching would also provide benefits. The International Coach Federation estimates that an average company can expect a return of seven times their initial investment in sales coaches and coaching.

There is a potential need for qualified sales coaches

Busy middle managers and executives may not provide effective sales coaching for various reasons:

• Don’t possess the skills to coach
• Don’t have time to coach
• Don’t have the tools and resources to coach
• Don’t even know what sales coaches are supposed to do.

5 Keys to Effective Online Sales Coaching

If you are a sales coach who wants to move some of your business online, or if you are a sales manager who needs help and is seeking online sales coaches to train your sales team, here are 5 keys to effective and ultimately profitable online sales coaching.

1. Define, define, and define some more. You have heard the term location, location, location when it comes to real estate – in sales, it should be define, define, define. Good sales coaching should help sellers define goals and strategy. If you aren’t doing that, or if your current coach isn’t doing that, it is time for a change.
2. Install measurable accountability. All sales people should be able to report back (to both the coach and the manager) as to how they have applied the coaching. They should also report on the results of this application – both positive and negative results.
3. Competition breeds success. Incentives and competitions can drive sales. As an online sales coach, you help create some goals with your clients and then incentivize those goals through rewards (free gifts, free sessions, etc.). As a sales manager, you can work with an sales coach to add competition and incentives for incremental achievements and goals.
4. Guidance not governance. Coaches do not rule over their clients or team members – sales teams won’t do well working for a Vince Lombardi clone. Sales coaches must guide and advise, not govern and tell. The boss can rant and dictate, but a coach must take a more nuanced approach while still getting results.
5. Motivate and inspire. It doesn’t matter if you are coaching from a chair, a stage, or in front of a video camera, sales coaching is all about motivation. Motivation isn’t all about money. Individuals are motivated by any number of factors – money, incentives, recognition, personable satisfaction, competition, to name a few. It may even be harder to motivate and inspire through online sales coaching than it is in person. Distractions may be more of a hindrance when people are meeting online, so you better be on top of your game when coaching online.

There are many obstacles to building a business, whether online or brick and mortar, and these five keys are crucial for success. Online sales coaching may be a growing field, but you better understand these five fundamental keys to success or you might soon need some career coaching!

Hope you took some great value out of this post today! I’d love to hear your feedback, so make sure you leave a comment with your thoughts or questions. And also, you can click on the Twitter button below to retweet this article…Thank you!

Fred Philips
Business Coach
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