November 25, 2024 • 45 mins
Join Bruce Scheer and guest Scott Presse as they delve into effective sales leadership and the transformative power of structured coaching. Discover how to maximize your sales team's performance and boost revenue through targeted strategies.
- The significance of Return on Sales Leadership (ROSL) and its impact on meeting quotas.
- Importance of maintaining a healthy and balanced sales pipeline for productivity and revenue.
- Structured coaching principles for better prioritization and action in sales.
- Differences between effective coaching and daily communication.
Early-stage coaching in sales cycles for optimized outcomes.
00:00 ValuePro Show features trusted advisor Scott Presse.
04:13 Sales management isn't formally taught or learned.
09:25 Coaching shifts performance, reduces reliance on top performers.
13:10 Evaluate sales leadership by quota achievement rate.
16:13 Calls often lack preparation, lead to low-value exchange.
19:18 Coach early to ensure long-term success.
23:14 Pipeline: Opportunities' aggregate, not deal reviews.
24:06 Quantity vs quality: Achieving quota through strategic engagement.
28:33 Pipeline discipline helps sellers understand business health.
32:13 Strategic focus on select accounts and coaching.
36:17 Coaching guides organize best practices for leaders.
38:42 Seek honesty, ask: What are you proud of?
41:38 Second-line sales leaders need improved coaching responsibility.
45:06 Scott shares practical sales coaching strategies.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the ValuePro Show where value pros get value
ready.
Welcome back to the ValuePro Show. Today, I have a very special guest,
Scott Presse. I've had the privilege of working with Scott for
over a decade on major transformation initiatives for
very large organizations, including eBay Enterprise
(00:24):
and Korn Ferry, and scale up such as Certainia,
formerly known as FinancialForce. I can genuinely say
that he embodies the term trusted advisor.
Scott brings a rare blend of wisdom, practicality,
and results driven approach that makes him a go to
coach and transformation leader for business leaders who want to
(00:45):
dramatically improve their revenue performance. I've witnessed
firsthand how his insights make clients fall in love with
working with him. And today, we're diving into a topic that's right
in his sweet spot. That's how to deliver value through
coaching. Scott has spent years guiding sales
leaders to elevate their coaching performance dramatically
(01:07):
improve what he calls their return on sales leadership.
And I'm thrilled to share his expertise with all of you. Let's get
started. Well, Scott, I am so excited to have you on the
ValuePro Show. Thank you so much for being here. Just
everybody, I want you all to know that Scott and I just go way
back. I've been working with Scott since 2010,
(01:29):
and he is the consummate pro. The,
talk about the definition of trusted adviser. I've seen
clients fall in love with Scott. He's just, has wisdom.
He's practical, loves getting results. And, Scott, I'm
so excited to talk to you about how to deliver value as a coach. I
know this is just such a sweet spot, and I've watched you do this
(01:51):
over and over again with sales managers and helping them go from
here to here. But thanks for being with us, and this is gonna be a
great episode. Great. Glad to be here and,
talk about something that I've seen time and again make a
material difference in terms of individual seller
productivity as well as organizational productivity and
(02:13):
revenue growth. Yeah. All the research I've seen is, you
know, the the lever is coaching. If you wanna get, you
know, a bump in revenue performance and revenue growth, look at
coaching. That that is so critical. I know you're gonna unpack this for
us, but let let's get into it. Why deliver value as a coach? What
what do you have to say for us there? Well, it's really
(02:35):
the stakes that are on the table
that are available if you're gonna make the
investment. So CSO Insights has found that
there's a 8% revenue bump when
there is coaching across the sales team. Pretty
significant number. 28%
(02:56):
improvement in win rate,
and that's significant. So, obviously, one is
the leading indicator of the other. And then lastly,
an 88% improvement in individual
rep productivity. Now why is that last one so
important? Well, it's significant. And where that really comes
(03:19):
in is that today, too few sellers
are delivering too much of the revenue. And so
the real gains to be found in terms of
coaching is getting that sales manager off of
just chasing whatever near term deal is there and
beginning to build a system of discipline.
(03:42):
A practices for coaching new
and let's call it b players in the middle of that
curve of performance. That's where you're really going to see
that 88% productivity gain.
Absolutely. And, I think, Scott, we both talked
about this a bit. You know, huge upside opportunity, but
(04:04):
what's reality as it relates to to coaching?
And you had shared this with me, and we discussed it a little bit, but
explain more. Yeah. The thing is that it's
just simply not taught. In other words, how to be a sales
manager. Nobody gets a college degree in that
or a graduate degree.
(04:26):
What typically happens is that you're
a very effective seller, and over a period of
time, you outlast everybody else, and so they put you
in a position of management. And that's the classic we
rise to the level of our incompetence. Yes.
(04:46):
You know, if you're a great seller, in
no way does that mean you're going to be a great
coach and a leader of other people. And so it
just simply isn't taught. And when you think about it, you know,
just imagine a seller in the whirlwind
of a sales manager in the whirlwind of everything that they have
(05:09):
to do each day. There's territory
planning. There's sales forecast. There's
managing deals. There's recruiting open spaces.
They have some underperformers that they're having to manage
through. They're having to do training. They're focused on some big
accounts. The day in the life of a sales
(05:31):
leader is filled with lots of things, and
yet they're at the very tip
of moving the needle in terms of performance, and yet
they're the least prepared and the least trained. And so
Absolutely. Yep. On a scale, I I've seen it time and again,
is tremendous investment is made in training
(05:54):
salespeople, whether it be on products or on
sales skills, but rarely are sales managers
trained. And if they are, it's, well, let's train you in
the methodology so that you can, you know,
deploy that and model it. But it's not really
building out a sales leadership system
(06:16):
of practices and disciplines and tools that helps them do
their job. Absolutely. So, you know, perhaps they
might have a methodology if they're lucky. Most most don't. And then having
an overarching system and approach, that that's a
that's a huge gap and and very often a blind
spot where where that is devoid. And I I
(06:39):
love one of the things that you like to talk about, Scott, with this. Here's
what here's what's normal if you could describe this for
everyone. I have talked to
thousands of sales managers and senior
sales leaders. And when I asked them,
so tell me, how do you really organize yourself to get
(07:00):
the most value to deliver the most value to your team
and to get the best results? And they all
say with almost a certain air of confidence,
I talk to everyone every day about
everything. And so that
almost rat on a treadmill type of
(07:24):
motion day in and day out does 2 things. 1,
it doesn't move the needle in terms of the team's performance, and 2, it
doesn't make the job of a sales manager all that much fun.
Mhmm. Yeah. This guy, so true. I I was trying to think
of a visual for people who happen to be watching this episode,
And I was thinking of arrows just shooting around, you know, just like a
(07:47):
pinball machine just bouncing around. You know? No no
days routine. No no discipline. Just, you know,
everything everywhere all at once
going on in in the life of the manager. And you hear that, and some
some managers mentioned that with pride. Yep.
Yep. And we could almost add across every device and application.
(08:09):
So there's just a multiplying effect in terms
of sellers and this
almost cadence of whenever
anything comes up, I ping the manager. Whenever the manager
has some unknown question or that he needs to or
she needs to get an answer to, they're gonna ping the seller. And so there's
(08:31):
this almost dolphin family like scenario of
everybody's constantly pinging everybody. And as a result,
it it's incrementalism. We're just moving it an inch
forward, and so we're having to constantly keep our hand
on every seller, every deal, every
account, and therefore, not getting the kind of
(08:53):
scale. Or even more, the
ability of a seller to operate outside of
the direct intervention of a manager.
Absolutely. Well, why don't we yeah. We've described the
problem and and the opportunity. You know, the numbers are there. If you if you
get coaching right, bang, you're gonna get a huge
(09:16):
uplift in revenue performance. That that's guaranteed.
You also are gonna help your your sellers really kinda you'll you'll move the
whole curve. Excuse me. You'll you'll move the whole
curve, you know, the whole bubble forward
wherever Betty's performing better. More people are hitting quota, and you're
not over reliant on on just the the the few that
(09:38):
are actually exceeding quota and carrying everyone else along. You'll
literally move that whole curve through coaching.
So you've made the case for that. You've talked about the, you know,
probably the insanity of of what what a a a daily
situation looks like for everybody involved, managers and and
sellers Mhmm. With with no
(09:59):
uniformity. But I've witnessed you take
organizations like this and then move them into a
future state of being concerted and organized and focused.
Let let let's go ahead and head there, Scott. And if you could
kinda get get us rolling in that direction.
Right. And this is really the almost rhetorical
(10:21):
question. Do you talk to everyone every day about everything?
And the answer, as we've said, is yes. Well, that's
not coaching. So each of these
words or phrases are critical
in really defining and distinguishing coaching.
(10:42):
One, it's 30 minutes. So I'm not just hopping from topic to
topic to topic. You know? I'm taking one
topic, and I'm drilling deep for 30 minutes.
It's not random or ad hoc, but I literally have
it scheduled in my calendar so that it is a
recurring conversation that has a
(11:05):
variety of topics during that 30 minutes.
And it really is an interaction. It's not just
about asking questions. It's really about asking
questions and creating dialogue.
In other words, helping them to think differently and
(11:25):
better about that selling situation.
And so it's a leader and their seller reflecting
together on the current state using questions
that help the seller think out loud. And
I'll highlight a series of best practices a little bit later in this,
podcast. But let's just leave it at that point. It's helping them to
(11:48):
think differently and better and to think out
loud so that the leader can both be continuing
to confirm, to clarify. And in the midst of that
questioning and discussion, also share perspective. I
mean, I often have to say to managers, hey. Look at that was
a lot of great questions, but you've been doing this a long
(12:11):
time. Take a few moments and give them the
juice. Give them that. When I did that, here's
what I typically found. Or often when customers
do this, that tends to mean this. And this is how I would
usually react. So do it sparingly, but
do it strategically in terms of
(12:33):
interaction that stimulates conversation as well as
provides guidance and wise experience.
Absolutely. And real real applicable learning, at the at the end of
the day. That that's wonderful, Scott. So so that is our
definition, this this concerted time, 30 minute chunks,
where between a manager and a seller having a a focused
(12:55):
dialogue on a topic domain, which is perfect.
Scott, I'll move us forward here. You know, this
is also a little bit of the why we're doing things. But could you describe
the concept of return on sales leadership?
This is really the proposition that I want
each individual sales leader to consider
(13:17):
consider for themselves. And it is this.
What is the return that the organization is getting on
your sales leadership? So think of
the return in the sense of enhanced
team performance against the cost of the
manager. Is the time and energy
(13:40):
you're putting into the team delivering on
a real return to the organization? Now
that almost sounds like, an algorithm where we've gotta build a
business case, and we've gotta quantify it, and it's really
technical. Let's just boil it down to a simple question.
(14:01):
And the question is, how many of your sellers are
achieving quota? That's the measure
of a sales leader. Not do they hit their number. Of course, you're always
gonna be measured and rewarded on that. But,
really, how many of your sellers are contributing
significantly to their quota and therefore
(14:24):
the overall team's quota? That's return
on sales leadership. And so I want sales leaders to
decide, how can I place big bets? How can
I make an investment and deliver
value over that 30 minutes to my sellers
on a variety of topics in a way that bring back
(14:46):
a substantial return to them, to me
as a manager, and to our organization as a whole? And and
I love it. That's just so critical is that we we
do some serious math about placing big
bets on coaching in order to get a bigger return. Yeah.
Absolutely. I love the tangible aspect of this, Scott. I wanted
(15:09):
to add an element to this and and also,
unfortunate element. There's an emotional component as well, I'd say, as part
of this overall value, the return on sales leadership. And,
the emotion of the rep. You know? Are they perceiving those
interactions as value? Yes. And who's being
served? And, there's some, Scott, I might have shared
(15:32):
this with you, but there's some horrifying statistics out there
of where, you know, where reps were pulled, you know, you know, for for
those coaching calls, did you receive value? And the answer is
no. You know, the manager shows up in a self serving way trying to
get their answers so they can report up versus truly,
you know, getting into the mind of the seller, helping them
(15:55):
get better results as a result of that, sharing that wisdom and experience and
and ideating on best approach forward.
Most reps don't see the value, which is sad. But I like your
tangible aspect of this as well. Are you advancing your
reps, helping more reps achieve quota? That that's awesome.
And and let me just amplify your point because I think it's very well
(16:17):
taken. In this, I talk to everyone every
day about everything. Managers are just moving from call to
call to call, and so they start most calls with,
so where are we in that deal? Right? They haven't done any
preparation, and they're really on a
quest to know. You have
(16:40):
information that I need to have because I have to report
it up. Now that's a natural function, but
if most of the interactions are about providing
visibility to management, then there's this
decreasing willingness to one UCRM and to
really manage opportunities and accounts in a way that
(17:02):
provides visibility. But 2, they just see
that, basically, the manager is on a hunt for information,
and and he or she is going to be giving me
the grilling as to what's the status of
and then perhaps some quick directives as to what to
do. And so that is a low value exchange, and
(17:25):
then ultimately, there's a depreciating
approach to those interactions in terms
of emotional and just the,
the firepower to get up in the morning and make things
happen every day. Absolutely. Yeah. That that psychological,
emotional hit. No no no no good for anyone. Well,
(17:48):
hey. Take us forward, yeah, to to on this.
For people watching, this is a beautiful,
graph that talks about when to coach. But, Scott, if you could
describe so for our listening audience, I sure would appreciate
it. So you've got your basic x y axis. And on
that vertical axis is the ability
(18:11):
to influence from low to high.
On the horizontal is time.
Today versus the end of a sales cycle,
the end of the month, the end of the quarter, the end of the year.
So it's time. Right? And what you would see
if you were on screen here was a
(18:33):
depreciation of the ability to
influence the later it is in
the sales cycle, the later it is in the month, the quarter, or
the year. And so, you know, if you're a sales
leader listening to this, you know, ask yourself, why
would my influence
(18:56):
go down late in the cycle, month,
quarter, year? And the answer is,
they just don't have any time. So they can have some last
second meetings, but there's very little runway in
which to really change the direction
of a deal or an account. And
(19:18):
so if you're going to be happy with the results at the end
of the cycle during what we call the inspection
window, you gotta have it. That's gonna take place.
No organization that has commercial goals runs
without a whole lot of inspection at the end of those various
cycles. But the issue is, how do you, again,
(19:42):
invest time early in the
sales cycle, early in the month, the
quarter, and the year through coaching.
That's the proposition. So the real question we're asking is,
so when do I coach? You coach early
to get the sales cycle started right. You coach
(20:05):
early in the month to get 30 days of highly
productive activity. You coach early in the quarter
so that you can see some of those more complex
sales cycles beginning to move through the stages,
and you coach early in the year so that you have
really some coverage and penetration into your accounts
(20:27):
over time that begin to build a
healthy pipeline. So it's all about timing
and moving from a need to know
right now to I'm going to
engage in a way that helps my sellers
plan their sales activity
(20:50):
and to deploy the best strategies and actions really to
make it happen. Yep. Such makes
such good sense. And, again, back to our theme, this isn't
taught. You know? It really needs to be instituted and a
focus for people so they they understand how to prioritize
when to prioritize that the coaching versus the inspection type of
(21:12):
activity that you talked about. So, yeah, one one of my favorite,
concepts for for managers to help their reps get ahead
through in in a particular period or or say a cycle to
to to do that coaching up front. And and
the poll for daily, weekly,
monthly forecast updating
(21:36):
will never change. It's just the nature of the
business, and that's why I like to talk
about a cadence, a cadence for coaching
that organizes remember that definition, 1 on
1 scheduled single topic
coaching calls early in the cycle, the month,
(21:59):
the quarter, and the year. That becomes the drumbeat
that balances out some mid to longer
range efforts with the short term, what
do we gotta report at the end of the week, at the end of the
month? Absolutely.
Just really well stated. Scott, let's, talk
(22:21):
next about, you know, just pipeline, which is, you know, so
important to coach for. Do you wanna, just give us some insight
here? Yep. Having done this
now for 30 years and seen
100 of unique organizations that I've worked
with, this topic of pipeline
(22:43):
health is the least practiced
and yet is the most needed in
order to get that productivity and revenue bump
across the sales team. And so, when I
say that, managers say, well, I I I I agree with that. But, you
(23:03):
know, I I talk about pipeline all the time. And I say, well, do you
talk about deals in the pipeline all the time?
Yes. Okay. That's not what we're talking about. Okay. So let's step
back from a lot of many deal
reviews, and let's think about an
individual seller and their pipeline.
(23:26):
Their pipeline is the aggregate of all of
the opportunities that are in the system, probably from
lead all the way to close, you know, regardless of what language you
might use. They're active, opportunities
that have some dollars and a date associated with it.
Okay? So pipeline is not many deal
(23:48):
reviews. Also, pipeline is not forecast.
Cast. We're not looking at any, status
as it relates to one deal. What we're looking at
are 4 characteristics
of a healthy pipeline. First one is
quantity, and it basically satisfies if you're
(24:11):
looking on screen, here are some sample ones that are there. But it
answers to the question, how much do you got?
And and how much do you have against
what is your quota? Right? So so
what is the gap to your actual and
and then against quotas? So do I have enough in there that if
(24:34):
I certainly don't win them all, that I've got enough
to help me get to my annual
quota. The second one is quality.
And quality, again, we don't wanna go into individual
inspection. So I I typically say, let's just look at your
top five opportunities by way of revenue.
(24:56):
How many of your top five opportunities, which probably are
making, oh, 60 to 80% of their
total pipeline in terms of dollars. How many
of them do you have, active executive
engagement at the buyer or customer
account? That's a that's a real telltale
(25:20):
sign because if they'd if their big ones don't have
executive, then chances are all the mid and small ones don't
either. And so there's a lot of risk in that pipeline.
And the other is, for, again, for those top five opportunities,
how active are they? How much communication? How many people have
(25:40):
you been engaging with? How many, events
decision events have you been a part of? How many are scheduled and
in the calendar? So is this truly an active account?
So executive sponsorship and activity are
telltale signs in those top five accounts. Because if it's if
it's not present there, then chances are
(26:02):
it's not present elsewhere. So let me just pause there. Those are
2 of the most important ones. We tend to spend most of our time talking
about quantity, but quality is equally important. Absolutely. Yeah.
It completely makes sense what you're saying.
Scott, just as a as a thought, I know you'll talk about some other attributes
(26:23):
of Pipeline Hill. But, man, from my experience,
I'll I'll look at a a a seller's pipeline.
You know, just look at their opportunities in Salesforce or ask them to show
me. And very often, I'll I'll see a mess,
or or and something kinda strung together with with very shallow
information. So I I don't know if you see the same.
(26:46):
Yeah. And it it goes by a certain code word
called pipeline hygiene. Are
you keeping it clean? Are you keeping it up to date?
Does it look like you've been in it, and can you,
in a very facile way, move through the various
screens and carry on a conversation with your manager?
(27:09):
Right? Now here's the thing.
Managers and sales ops leaders will spend a lot of
time harping on pipeline hygiene
mostly because there's very little pipeline
health coaching going on. And so one
solves the other. When you, on on
(27:31):
a monthly basis, and typically the cadence we like is that
pipeline health coaching is done in week 1. Why?
Because we want 30 days of really productive activity
building that pipeline. Right? So we're gonna do it in week
1 as early as possible. We're gonna talk
about quantity. We're gonna talk about quality. We're going to
(27:54):
look at the opportunities overall from a velocity
standpoint. How old are they? How long have they been stuck
in the current stage? How often have they
switched out the close date? So those are all factors.
So when you're going into the system, make
CRM a coaching platform, and you turn
(28:17):
over the display to the seller and say,
take me through. Let's look at quantity. What sort of
changes have been taking place in the last 30 days? Why
is that taking place? Right? You know, let's talk about quality. Let's go to your
top five opportunities. How many of them have executive
engagement? So when you make pipeline health
(28:38):
coaching a monthly discipline that adds
value to the seller, and then the
4th characteristic there, quantity, quality, velocity, and
balance by size, by stage,
by type. When sellers are taken through
and are having to interact with the
(29:00):
system, if there isn't hygiene, they're exposed.
And right in the moment, say, okay. Well, great. Why don't you go ahead and
note that executive contact right now, and let's just do that,
and get that completed? So it's a way in which
to help sellers better understand their
business. Because here's the thing. While managers are very
(29:22):
keen in terms of how are you doing
as a seller, and I know this myself, we go home
and there are other important people in our lives that
ask the same exact question. They say,
so how are we doing? Do we get to pay the
mortgage this month? Do we, get to go on
(29:44):
holidays for 2 weeks, or is it just a couple of days? Do
we get to have braces for the kids? Right? There are
people besides a sales manager who
want answers from that seller as to how we're doing. And
so this is really a gift that manager gives to a seller
is to help them manage their business in the system
(30:06):
manager, but
also to
be able
to explain it to those who love
them. And the the then the big impact
is, okay, so given your pipeline health,
(30:29):
in the next 30 days, what are some of your critical
priorities? That's what we're trying to do with pipeline health, is give them
an understanding of their business with a sense of strategies
and actions over the next 30 days that's going to ensure
greater pipeline health when we get back together again.
Absolutely. Yeah. I'm thinking about 5 wins, you know, win win and
(30:51):
win win win and just, so many stakeholders
win when this is done right. You know, primarily
that seller, you know, that where they they get a sense of prioritization, how they're
gonna manage their time to to have pipeline health
is just critical. And I've witnessed this, Scott. I know you have for years years
now. But once this is applied, that this this mentality,
(31:14):
this focus, this this hygiene in the system,
everybody wins. Yeah. Because you've got a system that's working for you. It's not a
waste of time. Now the seller can see and take the right
actions with the right coaching, you know, because everything's in
place, and and it's being managed properly. Exactly.
Exactly. So we're we're talking about a cadence, and
(31:36):
a cadence begins week 1, 1 on 1 with every
one of your sellers around pipeline health. That gets them organized.
But let's think beyond just pipeline health
to a, a measure of what we call
top x. Now x just stands for you pick the number.
It doesn't matter. But essentially, what we want is sellers
(32:00):
picking a few accounts and a few
opportunities that in the next 30 days,
they're gonna place some big bets on in terms of their time and
activity. It's not most important or
must win or about to close. This is a time
strategy for sellers. So bottoms up, they're each
(32:22):
selecting a few accounts and a few opportunities that they're going to
dis disproportionately invest in. Not exclusive,
disproportionate invest in. Right? And that rolls up to a
manager who's then going to select from that total
a few accounts and a few opportunities that they're going to
coach to. And they're gonna go into their calendar, and they're gonna
(32:45):
schedule in weeks 2 and 3 some accounts and
some opportunities, and the specific sellers that own them
to coach to that. Helping them
build strategies and actions for,
expanding that account and or generating or
winning that particular opportunity. And then even up to a sales
(33:08):
executive, really, where once again, how do we get the top
sales officer engaged in deals not
late in the cycle when they need a big discount or there's been
a big disaster at the at the client,
account, but rather get them engaged early to help
with executive peer to peer selling. So now you have
(33:31):
an entire organization bottoms up and top
down focused on a few opportunities in a
few accounts every 30
days. And what this does is
a phrase I use. It's called
prioritize, don't democratize.
(33:53):
Prioritize, don't democratize. And what that
practically means is, manager, don't talk to everyone every day about
everything. Place some big bets,
put them in your calendar, don't give
everybody an equal number of these 1 on 1 coachings.
You pick the accounts that you really want to invest in, coaching
(34:16):
for that seller. Pick a few opportunities that you really want
to coach on. Go deep. One topic. 30 minutes.
Building strategies and actions for expanding
accounts and winning opportunities. And
so ROSL
is about placing big bets,
(34:37):
then delivering big value to the sellers in order to
have a return on their overall productivity.
Absolutely. Yeah. That you you you packed a lot in there, but
I do love this topic's wave of thinking.
You know, all all opportunities aren't the same, you know, by by
dollar value, strategic nature, that client, etcetera. You know,
(35:01):
they're not all the same. So you should focus on the ones that are most
important all the way up and down the line. And do
that in the in the beginning of the period so everybody can have the right
focus and and and spend disproportionate time
on those top x opportunities. I I've always loved that
concept. And, again, when this plays out in the real world, you know,
(35:23):
you you can really improve revenue performance because people are
have the right prioritization around the right opportunities.
It's simple, but it requires a
discipline by a sales leader to not be
totally swayed by near term forecast opportunities
or reporting on individual deals, but
(35:46):
really investing in sellers and just a few. That's why
we say x. It could be 1, could be 2, could be 3. You pick
the number that makes sense, get it in your calendar, and and
start to see the results. Absolutely. Well,
Scott, I know there was a couple other things you wanted just to kinda get
across. We we've got a lot for people to chew on. Again, these
(36:07):
things aren't taught, but but they can be. So I think, if
you talked a little bit about how do you operationalize this? That that
would be so helpful. Yeah. So practically speaking,
a coaching guide is a organization
of some topics and some questions
(36:29):
across business territory account, opportunity,
or pipeline. And so we will usually build out and
customize those guides so that sales leaders have
them right in their system, can pull them up, can take notes
right underneath it. In other words, they're coming to that
coaching call because it is scheduled, and they're gonna spend a few
(36:51):
minutes getting their head around. How can I really help this
seller think differently and more strategically
about that particular situation? And so those
guides represent a a way to organize
what I call coaching best practices. So let me highlight
for you 9 best practices that
(37:14):
I found in showing up to
now probably after about 30 years, thousands
of managers live coaching
on a call, whether it be a conference call, video call,
whatever, where I just sat at the background and
essentially certified them. Once they've gone through our training, once
(37:36):
we've given them the coaching guides, they would then
go out and have to use the coaching guides and to
demonstrate these nine best practices. Now I'm
not gonna go through all of them in detail, but suffice it
to say that, some of the best
practices of a coaching call is that
(37:58):
you're going to use those guides. You're gonna get in the system
and be aware of the situation as much as possible.
You wanna always start with a good, clear purpose
statement. The purpose of this call is to,
identify your pipeline health and to determine
(38:19):
new strategies and actions for you to take in the
next 30 days. Right? Clear, concise.
That's that one topic. It's always about developing new
strategies and actions for pipeline health, for account
expansion, for opportunity growth, winning opportunities,
etcetera. You're asking open questions. You're
(38:40):
asking thinking questions. When they say fuzzy things
like, I hope, it seems, I believe, you know
that there's BS. And so you dig deeper
and follow-up. You share experiences along the way.
And then here's here's just a one. It it it it it it it it
seems odd, but I've just seen it be so
(39:02):
powerful is at the end of the call, after all the discussions have gone on,
you're now at about 29 minutes, and you basically say,
so, Bruce, having spent the last,
30 minutes here talking about your pipeline and its health,
What are you most proud of that you've done in the last 30 days
(39:24):
around your pipeline health? So it's just what are
you most proud of relative to the topic? Account,
opportunity, territory, pipeline. And then you just shut
up and let the seller
really bring out from within
that sense of, you know what? I did this really well, and I feel
(39:46):
good about that. Mhmm. Mhmm. And
and Yeah. You know why that's so important? Because now it's
motivation from within rather than just a pat on the back.
Everybody needs a pat on the back, but when you can pull out
from within them motivations, that's exactly what this
is doing. So I've just found through thousands of calls, these
(40:08):
nine best practices are what we really train them
on conducting using the coaching guide, and
that's how you get such a productive, coaching session
during just 30 minutes. Absolutely. Yeah. And this all comes
together as an overarching system. There's one other, element
of this, Scott, that that I love what you do, and that that's really
(40:31):
yeah. Go ahead and explain. Practical.
Practical. So the idea that every quarter,
I'm going to just stop and
analyze each member of my team around
a small number of capabilities,
around planning, around sales execution, around pipeline and
(40:53):
forecast, and skill development. This is an HR form.
This is just a practical guide to say, when I do 1 on
1 coaching with my seller, what do I wanna
focus on? You know, beyond the topic of account
opportunity or territory. Right? So it's just a way to sit
and get organized as you pull together your
(41:16):
calendar and cadence of 1 on 1 coaching for a
month. But I wanna emphasize as important as
that is, it's more important for
that second line sales leader to engage
the first line leader in a
summary. So tell me about your team.
(41:38):
Who's doing well? Who's improving?
Where are there real some gaps? And highlight for
me, how have you been coaching in the last 30
days? 2nd line sales leaders
always want better numbers. They want
sooner closures, but they never
(42:01):
bring a light to their own coaching responsibility,
which is let's look at the people
and the strengths and gaps that they have. And let's
discuss how you've been coaching as well as how you're going
to coach going forward. So a topic every
quarter from second to first line manager is show
(42:23):
me your coaching plan and highlight for me how have you
been coaching in the last 30 days or in the last quarter? How are
you gonna be coaching over the next quarter? I love it.
Yes. So powerful. So second line manager to first line
manager, coaching, plan, strategies to improve
coaching. And then, what you're showing for people seeing the
(42:45):
screen and for those that are listening, it it's just a it's
an assessment form that you can, you know, use for all your
team team members, and you're rating them. Are are they red? Are
they are they not doing very well at all? You know, look out. Are
they yellow? They've got a lot of room for improvement. Or are they green? They're
nailing that, so we should focus on some other areas. So
(43:07):
just a a nice systematic way to look at your your
team to prioritize how you're gonna spend time
across them, in in terms of their your
development ambition for those team members. Then the 2nd line
manager should look at the first saying, hey. Do you have that in place? You
know, do you have a development plan, which is powerful?
(43:31):
Well, Scott, we've covered so much. Man, we
we could just go on and on on this, and you've got so much experience,
but we better break for now. But and just in conclusion,
anything else you wanted to say before we break? And especially if you could
let people know how to get in touch with you. Okay.
Great. Well, in conclusion, ROSL,
(43:53):
return on sales leadership. And the simple question is,
are you delivering value to your sellers?
And is that enabling them to better
achieve quota? That's what this whole podcast has been about.
And I hope that some of the concepts and tools that,
(44:14):
we've talked about today, could be really some
conversation that we might have going forward. So you can, reach me
on LinkedIn, Scott Presse, and you can,
email me at spressse@newcourtconsultancydot
com. Awesome. And then you guys, you can always find Scott through
(44:35):
valuepros.io as well as well. And, Scott will
be so delighted to help you in putting together your sales
leadership system that that works, that that's real, that
actually, improves performance and make sure everybody is
learning and growing and having a lot more fun when when performance
is there. And Scott's good at making that happen.
(44:57):
So, Scott, thanks so much for your time and your energy and sharing
this wisdom with, the on the Value Pro Show. Really appreciate
it. Okay. Cheers. Bye. What an episode.
Scott has given us a lot to think about when it comes to delivering value
through coaching. He broke down so many ways to improve return on
sales leadership, including understanding how impactful
(45:19):
effective coaching can be on sales team performance from individual
productivity improvements to overall revenue growth. I also
appreciated Scott's emphasis on building a structured coaching
cadence and his insights on prioritizing top x
opportunities and the importance of guiding sales managers beyond
just deal inspections. That was so incredibly
(45:41):
practical and actionable. If you wanna reach out to
Scott, you can connect with him on LinkedIn or email him directly
at s pressey@newportconsultancy.com.
You can also find Scott through valuepros.io. Scott's
incredible ability to help sales leader put together practical, high
(46:02):
performing sales systems truly makes a difference.
Until next time, let's keep driving value together.
Welcome to the ValuePro Show where value pros get value
ready.
Welcome back to the ValuePro Show. Today, I have a very special guest,
Scott Presse. I've had the privilege of working with Scott for
over a decade on major transformation initiatives for
very large organizations, including eBay Enterprise
(00:24):
and Korn Ferry, and scale up such as Certainia,
formerly known as FinancialForce. I can genuinely say
that he embodies the term trusted advisor.
Scott brings a rare blend of wisdom, practicality,
and results driven approach that makes him a go to
coach and transformation leader for business leaders who want to
(00:45):
dramatically improve their revenue performance. I've witnessed
firsthand how his insights make clients fall in love with
working with him. And today, we're diving into a topic that's right
in his sweet spot. That's how to deliver value through
coaching. Scott has spent years guiding sales
leaders to elevate their coaching performance dramatically
(01:07):
improve what he calls their return on sales leadership.
And I'm thrilled to share his expertise with all of you. Let's get
started. Well, Scott, I am so excited to have you on the
ValuePro Show. Thank you so much for being here. Just
everybody, I want you all to know that Scott and I just go way
back. I've been working with Scott since 2010,
(01:29):
and he is the consummate pro. The,
talk about the definition of trusted adviser. I've seen
clients fall in love with Scott. He's just, has wisdom.
He's practical, loves getting results. And, Scott, I'm
so excited to talk to you about how to deliver value as a coach. I
know this is just such a sweet spot, and I've watched you do this
(01:51):
over and over again with sales managers and helping them go from
here to here. But thanks for being with us, and this is gonna be a
great episode. Great. Glad to be here and,
talk about something that I've seen time and again make a
material difference in terms of individual seller
productivity as well as organizational productivity and
(02:13):
revenue growth. Yeah. All the research I've seen is, you
know, the the lever is coaching. If you wanna get, you
know, a bump in revenue performance and revenue growth, look at
coaching. That that is so critical. I know you're gonna unpack this for
us, but let let's get into it. Why deliver value as a coach? What
what do you have to say for us there? Well, it's really
(02:35):
the stakes that are on the table
that are available if you're gonna make the
investment. So CSO Insights has found that
there's a 8% revenue bump when
there is coaching across the sales team. Pretty
significant number. 28%
(02:56):
improvement in win rate,
and that's significant. So, obviously, one is
the leading indicator of the other. And then lastly,
an 88% improvement in individual
rep productivity. Now why is that last one so
important? Well, it's significant. And where that really comes
(03:19):
in is that today, too few sellers
are delivering too much of the revenue. And so
the real gains to be found in terms of
coaching is getting that sales manager off of
just chasing whatever near term deal is there and
beginning to build a system of discipline.
(03:42):
A practices for coaching new
and let's call it b players in the middle of that
curve of performance. That's where you're really going to see
that 88% productivity gain.
Absolutely. And, I think, Scott, we both talked
about this a bit. You know, huge upside opportunity, but
(04:04):
what's reality as it relates to to coaching?
And you had shared this with me, and we discussed it a little bit, but
explain more. Yeah. The thing is that it's
just simply not taught. In other words, how to be a sales
manager. Nobody gets a college degree in that
or a graduate degree.
(04:26):
What typically happens is that you're
a very effective seller, and over a period of
time, you outlast everybody else, and so they put you
in a position of management. And that's the classic we
rise to the level of our incompetence. Yes.
(04:46):
You know, if you're a great seller, in
no way does that mean you're going to be a great
coach and a leader of other people. And so it
just simply isn't taught. And when you think about it, you know,
just imagine a seller in the whirlwind
of a sales manager in the whirlwind of everything that they have
(05:09):
to do each day. There's territory
planning. There's sales forecast. There's
managing deals. There's recruiting open spaces.
They have some underperformers that they're having to manage
through. They're having to do training. They're focused on some big
accounts. The day in the life of a sales
(05:31):
leader is filled with lots of things, and
yet they're at the very tip
of moving the needle in terms of performance, and yet
they're the least prepared and the least trained. And so
Absolutely. Yep. On a scale, I I've seen it time and again,
is tremendous investment is made in training
(05:54):
salespeople, whether it be on products or on
sales skills, but rarely are sales managers
trained. And if they are, it's, well, let's train you in
the methodology so that you can, you know,
deploy that and model it. But it's not really
building out a sales leadership system
(06:16):
of practices and disciplines and tools that helps them do
their job. Absolutely. So, you know, perhaps they
might have a methodology if they're lucky. Most most don't. And then having
an overarching system and approach, that that's a
that's a huge gap and and very often a blind
spot where where that is devoid. And I I
(06:39):
love one of the things that you like to talk about, Scott, with this. Here's
what here's what's normal if you could describe this for
everyone. I have talked to
thousands of sales managers and senior
sales leaders. And when I asked them,
so tell me, how do you really organize yourself to get
(07:00):
the most value to deliver the most value to your team
and to get the best results? And they all
say with almost a certain air of confidence,
I talk to everyone every day about
everything. And so that
almost rat on a treadmill type of
(07:24):
motion day in and day out does 2 things. 1,
it doesn't move the needle in terms of the team's performance, and 2, it
doesn't make the job of a sales manager all that much fun.
Mhmm. Yeah. This guy, so true. I I was trying to think
of a visual for people who happen to be watching this episode,
And I was thinking of arrows just shooting around, you know, just like a
(07:47):
pinball machine just bouncing around. You know? No no
days routine. No no discipline. Just, you know,
everything everywhere all at once
going on in in the life of the manager. And you hear that, and some
some managers mentioned that with pride. Yep.
Yep. And we could almost add across every device and application.
(08:09):
So there's just a multiplying effect in terms
of sellers and this
almost cadence of whenever
anything comes up, I ping the manager. Whenever the manager
has some unknown question or that he needs to or
she needs to get an answer to, they're gonna ping the seller. And so there's
(08:31):
this almost dolphin family like scenario of
everybody's constantly pinging everybody. And as a result,
it it's incrementalism. We're just moving it an inch
forward, and so we're having to constantly keep our hand
on every seller, every deal, every
account, and therefore, not getting the kind of
(08:53):
scale. Or even more, the
ability of a seller to operate outside of
the direct intervention of a manager.
Absolutely. Well, why don't we yeah. We've described the
problem and and the opportunity. You know, the numbers are there. If you if you
get coaching right, bang, you're gonna get a huge
(09:16):
uplift in revenue performance. That that's guaranteed.
You also are gonna help your your sellers really kinda you'll you'll move the
whole curve. Excuse me. You'll you'll move the whole
curve, you know, the whole bubble forward
wherever Betty's performing better. More people are hitting quota, and you're
not over reliant on on just the the the few that
(09:38):
are actually exceeding quota and carrying everyone else along. You'll
literally move that whole curve through coaching.
So you've made the case for that. You've talked about the, you know,
probably the insanity of of what what a a a daily
situation looks like for everybody involved, managers and and
sellers Mhmm. With with no
(09:59):
uniformity. But I've witnessed you take
organizations like this and then move them into a
future state of being concerted and organized and focused.
Let let let's go ahead and head there, Scott. And if you could
kinda get get us rolling in that direction.
Right. And this is really the almost rhetorical
(10:21):
question. Do you talk to everyone every day about everything?
And the answer, as we've said, is yes. Well, that's
not coaching. So each of these
words or phrases are critical
in really defining and distinguishing coaching.
(10:42):
One, it's 30 minutes. So I'm not just hopping from topic to
topic to topic. You know? I'm taking one
topic, and I'm drilling deep for 30 minutes.
It's not random or ad hoc, but I literally have
it scheduled in my calendar so that it is a
recurring conversation that has a
(11:05):
variety of topics during that 30 minutes.
And it really is an interaction. It's not just
about asking questions. It's really about asking
questions and creating dialogue.
In other words, helping them to think differently and
(11:25):
better about that selling situation.
And so it's a leader and their seller reflecting
together on the current state using questions
that help the seller think out loud. And
I'll highlight a series of best practices a little bit later in this,
podcast. But let's just leave it at that point. It's helping them to
(11:48):
think differently and better and to think out
loud so that the leader can both be continuing
to confirm, to clarify. And in the midst of that
questioning and discussion, also share perspective. I
mean, I often have to say to managers, hey. Look at that was
a lot of great questions, but you've been doing this a long
(12:11):
time. Take a few moments and give them the
juice. Give them that. When I did that, here's
what I typically found. Or often when customers
do this, that tends to mean this. And this is how I would
usually react. So do it sparingly, but
do it strategically in terms of
(12:33):
interaction that stimulates conversation as well as
provides guidance and wise experience.
Absolutely. And real real applicable learning, at the at the end of
the day. That that's wonderful, Scott. So so that is our
definition, this this concerted time, 30 minute chunks,
where between a manager and a seller having a a focused
(12:55):
dialogue on a topic domain, which is perfect.
Scott, I'll move us forward here. You know, this
is also a little bit of the why we're doing things. But could you describe
the concept of return on sales leadership?
This is really the proposition that I want
each individual sales leader to consider
(13:17):
consider for themselves. And it is this.
What is the return that the organization is getting on
your sales leadership? So think of
the return in the sense of enhanced
team performance against the cost of the
manager. Is the time and energy
(13:40):
you're putting into the team delivering on
a real return to the organization? Now
that almost sounds like, an algorithm where we've gotta build a
business case, and we've gotta quantify it, and it's really
technical. Let's just boil it down to a simple question.
(14:01):
And the question is, how many of your sellers are
achieving quota? That's the measure
of a sales leader. Not do they hit their number. Of course, you're always
gonna be measured and rewarded on that. But,
really, how many of your sellers are contributing
significantly to their quota and therefore
(14:24):
the overall team's quota? That's return
on sales leadership. And so I want sales leaders to
decide, how can I place big bets? How can
I make an investment and deliver
value over that 30 minutes to my sellers
on a variety of topics in a way that bring back
(14:46):
a substantial return to them, to me
as a manager, and to our organization as a whole? And and
I love it. That's just so critical is that we we
do some serious math about placing big
bets on coaching in order to get a bigger return. Yeah.
Absolutely. I love the tangible aspect of this, Scott. I wanted
(15:09):
to add an element to this and and also,
unfortunate element. There's an emotional component as well, I'd say, as part
of this overall value, the return on sales leadership. And,
the emotion of the rep. You know? Are they perceiving those
interactions as value? Yes. And who's being
served? And, there's some, Scott, I might have shared
(15:32):
this with you, but there's some horrifying statistics out there
of where, you know, where reps were pulled, you know, you know, for for
those coaching calls, did you receive value? And the answer is
no. You know, the manager shows up in a self serving way trying to
get their answers so they can report up versus truly,
you know, getting into the mind of the seller, helping them
(15:55):
get better results as a result of that, sharing that wisdom and experience and
and ideating on best approach forward.
Most reps don't see the value, which is sad. But I like your
tangible aspect of this as well. Are you advancing your
reps, helping more reps achieve quota? That that's awesome.
And and let me just amplify your point because I think it's very well
(16:17):
taken. In this, I talk to everyone every
day about everything. Managers are just moving from call to
call to call, and so they start most calls with,
so where are we in that deal? Right? They haven't done any
preparation, and they're really on a
quest to know. You have
(16:40):
information that I need to have because I have to report
it up. Now that's a natural function, but
if most of the interactions are about providing
visibility to management, then there's this
decreasing willingness to one UCRM and to
really manage opportunities and accounts in a way that
(17:02):
provides visibility. But 2, they just see
that, basically, the manager is on a hunt for information,
and and he or she is going to be giving me
the grilling as to what's the status of
and then perhaps some quick directives as to what to
do. And so that is a low value exchange, and
(17:25):
then ultimately, there's a depreciating
approach to those interactions in terms
of emotional and just the,
the firepower to get up in the morning and make things
happen every day. Absolutely. Yeah. That that psychological,
emotional hit. No no no no good for anyone. Well,
(17:48):
hey. Take us forward, yeah, to to on this.
For people watching, this is a beautiful,
graph that talks about when to coach. But, Scott, if you could
describe so for our listening audience, I sure would appreciate
it. So you've got your basic x y axis. And on
that vertical axis is the ability
(18:11):
to influence from low to high.
On the horizontal is time.
Today versus the end of a sales cycle,
the end of the month, the end of the quarter, the end of the year.
So it's time. Right? And what you would see
if you were on screen here was a
(18:33):
depreciation of the ability to
influence the later it is in
the sales cycle, the later it is in the month, the quarter, or
the year. And so, you know, if you're a sales
leader listening to this, you know, ask yourself, why
would my influence
(18:56):
go down late in the cycle, month,
quarter, year? And the answer is,
they just don't have any time. So they can have some last
second meetings, but there's very little runway in
which to really change the direction
of a deal or an account. And
(19:18):
so if you're going to be happy with the results at the end
of the cycle during what we call the inspection
window, you gotta have it. That's gonna take place.
No organization that has commercial goals runs
without a whole lot of inspection at the end of those various
cycles. But the issue is, how do you, again,
(19:42):
invest time early in the
sales cycle, early in the month, the
quarter, and the year through coaching.
That's the proposition. So the real question we're asking is,
so when do I coach? You coach early
to get the sales cycle started right. You coach
(20:05):
early in the month to get 30 days of highly
productive activity. You coach early in the quarter
so that you can see some of those more complex
sales cycles beginning to move through the stages,
and you coach early in the year so that you have
really some coverage and penetration into your accounts
(20:27):
over time that begin to build a
healthy pipeline. So it's all about timing
and moving from a need to know
right now to I'm going to
engage in a way that helps my sellers
plan their sales activity
(20:50):
and to deploy the best strategies and actions really to
make it happen. Yep. Such makes
such good sense. And, again, back to our theme, this isn't
taught. You know? It really needs to be instituted and a
focus for people so they they understand how to prioritize
when to prioritize that the coaching versus the inspection type of
(21:12):
activity that you talked about. So, yeah, one one of my favorite,
concepts for for managers to help their reps get ahead
through in in a particular period or or say a cycle to
to to do that coaching up front. And and
the poll for daily, weekly,
monthly forecast updating
(21:36):
will never change. It's just the nature of the
business, and that's why I like to talk
about a cadence, a cadence for coaching
that organizes remember that definition, 1 on
1 scheduled single topic
coaching calls early in the cycle, the month,
(21:59):
the quarter, and the year. That becomes the drumbeat
that balances out some mid to longer
range efforts with the short term, what
do we gotta report at the end of the week, at the end of the
month? Absolutely.
Just really well stated. Scott, let's, talk
(22:21):
next about, you know, just pipeline, which is, you know, so
important to coach for. Do you wanna, just give us some insight
here? Yep. Having done this
now for 30 years and seen
100 of unique organizations that I've worked
with, this topic of pipeline
(22:43):
health is the least practiced
and yet is the most needed in
order to get that productivity and revenue bump
across the sales team. And so, when I
say that, managers say, well, I I I I agree with that. But, you
(23:03):
know, I I talk about pipeline all the time. And I say, well, do you
talk about deals in the pipeline all the time?
Yes. Okay. That's not what we're talking about. Okay. So let's step
back from a lot of many deal
reviews, and let's think about an
individual seller and their pipeline.
(23:26):
Their pipeline is the aggregate of all of
the opportunities that are in the system, probably from
lead all the way to close, you know, regardless of what language you
might use. They're active, opportunities
that have some dollars and a date associated with it.
Okay? So pipeline is not many deal
(23:48):
reviews. Also, pipeline is not forecast.
Cast. We're not looking at any, status
as it relates to one deal. What we're looking at
are 4 characteristics
of a healthy pipeline. First one is
quantity, and it basically satisfies if you're
(24:11):
looking on screen, here are some sample ones that are there. But it
answers to the question, how much do you got?
And and how much do you have against
what is your quota? Right? So so
what is the gap to your actual and
and then against quotas? So do I have enough in there that if
(24:34):
I certainly don't win them all, that I've got enough
to help me get to my annual
quota. The second one is quality.
And quality, again, we don't wanna go into individual
inspection. So I I typically say, let's just look at your
top five opportunities by way of revenue.
(24:56):
How many of your top five opportunities, which probably are
making, oh, 60 to 80% of their
total pipeline in terms of dollars. How many
of them do you have, active executive
engagement at the buyer or customer
account? That's a that's a real telltale
(25:20):
sign because if they'd if their big ones don't have
executive, then chances are all the mid and small ones don't
either. And so there's a lot of risk in that pipeline.
And the other is, for, again, for those top five opportunities,
how active are they? How much communication? How many people have
(25:40):
you been engaging with? How many, events
decision events have you been a part of? How many are scheduled and
in the calendar? So is this truly an active account?
So executive sponsorship and activity are
telltale signs in those top five accounts. Because if it's if
it's not present there, then chances are
(26:02):
it's not present elsewhere. So let me just pause there. Those are
2 of the most important ones. We tend to spend most of our time talking
about quantity, but quality is equally important. Absolutely. Yeah.
It completely makes sense what you're saying.
Scott, just as a as a thought, I know you'll talk about some other attributes
(26:23):
of Pipeline Hill. But, man, from my experience,
I'll I'll look at a a a seller's pipeline.
You know, just look at their opportunities in Salesforce or ask them to show
me. And very often, I'll I'll see a mess,
or or and something kinda strung together with with very shallow
information. So I I don't know if you see the same.
(26:46):
Yeah. And it it goes by a certain code word
called pipeline hygiene. Are
you keeping it clean? Are you keeping it up to date?
Does it look like you've been in it, and can you,
in a very facile way, move through the various
screens and carry on a conversation with your manager?
(27:09):
Right? Now here's the thing.
Managers and sales ops leaders will spend a lot of
time harping on pipeline hygiene
mostly because there's very little pipeline
health coaching going on. And so one
solves the other. When you, on on
(27:31):
a monthly basis, and typically the cadence we like is that
pipeline health coaching is done in week 1. Why?
Because we want 30 days of really productive activity
building that pipeline. Right? So we're gonna do it in week
1 as early as possible. We're gonna talk
about quantity. We're gonna talk about quality. We're going to
(27:54):
look at the opportunities overall from a velocity
standpoint. How old are they? How long have they been stuck
in the current stage? How often have they
switched out the close date? So those are all factors.
So when you're going into the system, make
CRM a coaching platform, and you turn
(28:17):
over the display to the seller and say,
take me through. Let's look at quantity. What sort of
changes have been taking place in the last 30 days? Why
is that taking place? Right? You know, let's talk about quality. Let's go to your
top five opportunities. How many of them have executive
engagement? So when you make pipeline health
(28:38):
coaching a monthly discipline that adds
value to the seller, and then the
4th characteristic there, quantity, quality, velocity, and
balance by size, by stage,
by type. When sellers are taken through
and are having to interact with the
(29:00):
system, if there isn't hygiene, they're exposed.
And right in the moment, say, okay. Well, great. Why don't you go ahead and
note that executive contact right now, and let's just do that,
and get that completed? So it's a way in which
to help sellers better understand their
business. Because here's the thing. While managers are very
(29:22):
keen in terms of how are you doing
as a seller, and I know this myself, we go home
and there are other important people in our lives that
ask the same exact question. They say,
so how are we doing? Do we get to pay the
mortgage this month? Do we, get to go on
(29:44):
holidays for 2 weeks, or is it just a couple of days? Do
we get to have braces for the kids? Right? There are
people besides a sales manager who
want answers from that seller as to how we're doing. And
so this is really a gift that manager gives to a seller
is to help them manage their business in the system
(30:06):
manager, but
also to
be able
to explain it to those who love
them. And the the then the big impact
is, okay, so given your pipeline health,
(30:29):
in the next 30 days, what are some of your critical
priorities? That's what we're trying to do with pipeline health, is give them
an understanding of their business with a sense of strategies
and actions over the next 30 days that's going to ensure
greater pipeline health when we get back together again.
Absolutely. Yeah. I'm thinking about 5 wins, you know, win win and
(30:51):
win win win and just, so many stakeholders
win when this is done right. You know, primarily
that seller, you know, that where they they get a sense of prioritization, how they're
gonna manage their time to to have pipeline health
is just critical. And I've witnessed this, Scott. I know you have for years years
now. But once this is applied, that this this mentality,
(31:14):
this focus, this this hygiene in the system,
everybody wins. Yeah. Because you've got a system that's working for you. It's not a
waste of time. Now the seller can see and take the right
actions with the right coaching, you know, because everything's in
place, and and it's being managed properly. Exactly.
Exactly. So we're we're talking about a cadence, and
(31:36):
a cadence begins week 1, 1 on 1 with every
one of your sellers around pipeline health. That gets them organized.
But let's think beyond just pipeline health
to a, a measure of what we call
top x. Now x just stands for you pick the number.
It doesn't matter. But essentially, what we want is sellers
(32:00):
picking a few accounts and a few
opportunities that in the next 30 days,
they're gonna place some big bets on in terms of their time and
activity. It's not most important or
must win or about to close. This is a time
strategy for sellers. So bottoms up, they're each
(32:22):
selecting a few accounts and a few opportunities that they're going to
dis disproportionately invest in. Not exclusive,
disproportionate invest in. Right? And that rolls up to a
manager who's then going to select from that total
a few accounts and a few opportunities that they're going to
coach to. And they're gonna go into their calendar, and they're gonna
(32:45):
schedule in weeks 2 and 3 some accounts and
some opportunities, and the specific sellers that own them
to coach to that. Helping them
build strategies and actions for,
expanding that account and or generating or
winning that particular opportunity. And then even up to a sales
(33:08):
executive, really, where once again, how do we get the top
sales officer engaged in deals not
late in the cycle when they need a big discount or there's been
a big disaster at the at the client,
account, but rather get them engaged early to help
with executive peer to peer selling. So now you have
(33:31):
an entire organization bottoms up and top
down focused on a few opportunities in a
few accounts every 30
days. And what this does is
a phrase I use. It's called
prioritize, don't democratize.
(33:53):
Prioritize, don't democratize. And what that
practically means is, manager, don't talk to everyone every day about
everything. Place some big bets,
put them in your calendar, don't give
everybody an equal number of these 1 on 1 coachings.
You pick the accounts that you really want to invest in, coaching
(34:16):
for that seller. Pick a few opportunities that you really want
to coach on. Go deep. One topic. 30 minutes.
Building strategies and actions for expanding
accounts and winning opportunities. And
so ROSL
is about placing big bets,
(34:37):
then delivering big value to the sellers in order to
have a return on their overall productivity.
Absolutely. Yeah. That you you you packed a lot in there, but
I do love this topic's wave of thinking.
You know, all all opportunities aren't the same, you know, by by
dollar value, strategic nature, that client, etcetera. You know,
(35:01):
they're not all the same. So you should focus on the ones that are most
important all the way up and down the line. And do
that in the in the beginning of the period so everybody can have the right
focus and and and spend disproportionate time
on those top x opportunities. I I've always loved that
concept. And, again, when this plays out in the real world, you know,
(35:23):
you you can really improve revenue performance because people are
have the right prioritization around the right opportunities.
It's simple, but it requires a
discipline by a sales leader to not be
totally swayed by near term forecast opportunities
or reporting on individual deals, but
(35:46):
really investing in sellers and just a few. That's why
we say x. It could be 1, could be 2, could be 3. You pick
the number that makes sense, get it in your calendar, and and
start to see the results. Absolutely. Well,
Scott, I know there was a couple other things you wanted just to kinda get
across. We we've got a lot for people to chew on. Again, these
(36:07):
things aren't taught, but but they can be. So I think, if
you talked a little bit about how do you operationalize this? That that
would be so helpful. Yeah. So practically speaking,
a coaching guide is a organization
of some topics and some questions
(36:29):
across business territory account, opportunity,
or pipeline. And so we will usually build out and
customize those guides so that sales leaders have
them right in their system, can pull them up, can take notes
right underneath it. In other words, they're coming to that
coaching call because it is scheduled, and they're gonna spend a few
(36:51):
minutes getting their head around. How can I really help this
seller think differently and more strategically
about that particular situation? And so those
guides represent a a way to organize
what I call coaching best practices. So let me highlight
for you 9 best practices that
(37:14):
I found in showing up to
now probably after about 30 years, thousands
of managers live coaching
on a call, whether it be a conference call, video call,
whatever, where I just sat at the background and
essentially certified them. Once they've gone through our training, once
(37:36):
we've given them the coaching guides, they would then
go out and have to use the coaching guides and to
demonstrate these nine best practices. Now I'm
not gonna go through all of them in detail, but suffice it
to say that, some of the best
practices of a coaching call is that
(37:58):
you're going to use those guides. You're gonna get in the system
and be aware of the situation as much as possible.
You wanna always start with a good, clear purpose
statement. The purpose of this call is to,
identify your pipeline health and to determine
(38:19):
new strategies and actions for you to take in the
next 30 days. Right? Clear, concise.
That's that one topic. It's always about developing new
strategies and actions for pipeline health, for account
expansion, for opportunity growth, winning opportunities,
etcetera. You're asking open questions. You're
(38:40):
asking thinking questions. When they say fuzzy things
like, I hope, it seems, I believe, you know
that there's BS. And so you dig deeper
and follow-up. You share experiences along the way.
And then here's here's just a one. It it it it it it it it
seems odd, but I've just seen it be so
(39:02):
powerful is at the end of the call, after all the discussions have gone on,
you're now at about 29 minutes, and you basically say,
so, Bruce, having spent the last,
30 minutes here talking about your pipeline and its health,
What are you most proud of that you've done in the last 30 days
(39:24):
around your pipeline health? So it's just what are
you most proud of relative to the topic? Account,
opportunity, territory, pipeline. And then you just shut
up and let the seller
really bring out from within
that sense of, you know what? I did this really well, and I feel
(39:46):
good about that. Mhmm. Mhmm. And
and Yeah. You know why that's so important? Because now it's
motivation from within rather than just a pat on the back.
Everybody needs a pat on the back, but when you can pull out
from within them motivations, that's exactly what this
is doing. So I've just found through thousands of calls, these
(40:08):
nine best practices are what we really train them
on conducting using the coaching guide, and
that's how you get such a productive, coaching session
during just 30 minutes. Absolutely. Yeah. And this all comes
together as an overarching system. There's one other, element
of this, Scott, that that I love what you do, and that that's really
(40:31):
yeah. Go ahead and explain. Practical.
Practical. So the idea that every quarter,
I'm going to just stop and
analyze each member of my team around
a small number of capabilities,
around planning, around sales execution, around pipeline and
(40:53):
forecast, and skill development. This is an HR form.
This is just a practical guide to say, when I do 1 on
1 coaching with my seller, what do I wanna
focus on? You know, beyond the topic of account
opportunity or territory. Right? So it's just a way to sit
and get organized as you pull together your
(41:16):
calendar and cadence of 1 on 1 coaching for a
month. But I wanna emphasize as important as
that is, it's more important for
that second line sales leader to engage
the first line leader in a
summary. So tell me about your team.
(41:38):
Who's doing well? Who's improving?
Where are there real some gaps? And highlight for
me, how have you been coaching in the last 30
days? 2nd line sales leaders
always want better numbers. They want
sooner closures, but they never
(42:01):
bring a light to their own coaching responsibility,
which is let's look at the people
and the strengths and gaps that they have. And let's
discuss how you've been coaching as well as how you're going
to coach going forward. So a topic every
quarter from second to first line manager is show
(42:23):
me your coaching plan and highlight for me how have you
been coaching in the last 30 days or in the last quarter? How are
you gonna be coaching over the next quarter? I love it.
Yes. So powerful. So second line manager to first line
manager, coaching, plan, strategies to improve
coaching. And then, what you're showing for people seeing the
(42:45):
screen and for those that are listening, it it's just a it's
an assessment form that you can, you know, use for all your
team team members, and you're rating them. Are are they red? Are
they are they not doing very well at all? You know, look out. Are
they yellow? They've got a lot of room for improvement. Or are they green? They're
nailing that, so we should focus on some other areas. So
(43:07):
just a a nice systematic way to look at your your
team to prioritize how you're gonna spend time
across them, in in terms of their your
development ambition for those team members. Then the 2nd line
manager should look at the first saying, hey. Do you have that in place? You
know, do you have a development plan, which is powerful?
(43:31):
Well, Scott, we've covered so much. Man, we
we could just go on and on on this, and you've got so much experience,
but we better break for now. But and just in conclusion,
anything else you wanted to say before we break? And especially if you could
let people know how to get in touch with you. Okay.
Great. Well, in conclusion, ROSL,
(43:53):
return on sales leadership. And the simple question is,
are you delivering value to your sellers?
And is that enabling them to better
achieve quota? That's what this whole podcast has been about.
And I hope that some of the concepts and tools that,
(44:14):
we've talked about today, could be really some
conversation that we might have going forward. So you can, reach me
on LinkedIn, Scott Presse, and you can,
email me at spressse@newcourtconsultancydot
com. Awesome. And then you guys, you can always find Scott through
(44:35):
valuepros.io as well as well. And, Scott will
be so delighted to help you in putting together your sales
leadership system that that works, that that's real, that
actually, improves performance and make sure everybody is
learning and growing and having a lot more fun when when performance
is there. And Scott's good at making that happen.
(44:57):
So, Scott, thanks so much for your time and your energy and sharing
this wisdom with, the on the Value Pro Show. Really appreciate
it. Okay. Cheers. Bye. What an episode.
Scott has given us a lot to think about when it comes to delivering value
through coaching. He broke down so many ways to improve return on
sales leadership, including understanding how impactful
(45:19):
effective coaching can be on sales team performance from individual
productivity improvements to overall revenue growth. I also
appreciated Scott's emphasis on building a structured coaching
cadence and his insights on prioritizing top x
opportunities and the importance of guiding sales managers beyond
just deal inspections. That was so incredibly
(45:41):
practical and actionable. If you wanna reach out to
Scott, you can connect with him on LinkedIn or email him directly
at s pressey@newportconsultancy.com.
You can also find Scott through valuepros.io. Scott's
incredible ability to help sales leader put together practical, high
(46:02):
performing sales systems truly makes a difference.
Until next time, let's keep driving value together.
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