January 16, 2025 • 11 mins
In this Quick Take episode, we’re exploring the undeniable power of sales coaching, the challenges of traditional approaches, and how AI-powered solutions, like CSS' Practice Coach AI, are setting a new standard for skill development.
On the other side of this brief episode, you’ll see how AI sales coaching truly can elevate the game of your sellers.
Practice Coach AI Video
Matt Sunshine
The Center for Sales Strategy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Sunshine (00:05):
Welcome to Improving Sales Performance, a
podcast highlighting tips andinsights aimed at helping sales
organizations realize, and maybeeven exceed, their goals.
Here we chat with thoughtleaders, experts and gurus who
have years of sales experiencefrom a wide range of industries.
I'm your host, matt Sunshine,ceo at the Center for Sales
Strategy, a sales performanceconsulting company.
(00:27):
Today, in this Quick Takeepisode, we're exploring the
undeniable power of salescoaching, the challenges of
traditional approaches and howAI-powered solutions are setting
a new standard for skilldevelopment.
(00:47):
On the other side of this briefepisode, you'll see how AI
sales coaching truly can elevatethe game of your sellers.
With that, let's get started.
Today, we're tackling the topicthat's crucial for sales
success.
(01:08):
Of course, I'm talking aboutsales coaching.
We're going to explore whyfrequent sales coaching really
is the game changer fromboosting performance and
confidence to strengtheningcustomer relationships.
Competence to strengtheningcustomer relationships.
But let's be honest about thistopic.
Traditional coaching isn'talways easy and there's lots of
(01:36):
reasons, whether it's the timeconstraints, the limited
resources, the access toexperienced coaches.
There are challenges aroundcoaching all over the place.
But in sales, we know thatthere's sales training, there's
sales practice and there's salescoaching and sales management,
(01:56):
and what we want to focus on isthat practice and that coaching.
So that's why, at CSS, we'vecreated the CSS Practice Coach.
They all kind of come together.
It's an AI-powered solution.
Again, it's the Practice Coach.
And imagine having a coachavailable for you 24-7, 24 hours
(02:21):
a day, seven days a week.
You have your own coach that'sready to guide you through any
number of diverse scenarios,whether it's a sales call or a
presentation, or handling atough negotiation, with
personalized feedback, real timeperformance analysis and the
(02:43):
ability to adapt, to adapt toyour unique needs and style.
Ai in this case the practicecoach.
Ai is really revolutionizing,changing, improving the way
salespeople can hone theirskills, can really refine their
(03:04):
skills.
But let's dive into this just alittle bit.
Let's talk about the importanceof sales coaching.
So why is sales coaching soimportant?
Well, there's all sorts of dataout there and all sorts of
statistics out there that willpoint to.
Training will give you a 20 to30 percent bump in in production
(03:28):
.
But training followed up bypractice and coaching will four
times that 80 percentimprovement in in production.
And and if what you're focusedon is getting training done well
, then who cares?
But if what you're focused onis getting training done well
then, who cares?
But if what you're focused onis getting revenue production
(03:49):
accomplished, improving yoursales performance, then training
plus practicing plus coachingis the ideal scenario.
That's why this is so important.
The challenge I mean thechallenge of this is that no one
has time to do it and no onedoes it often enough for it to
(04:12):
start to build new habits.
You know, practicing golf oncea year or twice a year is not
going to make you a bettergolfer.
Practicing every day is goingto make you a better golfer, and
practicing with a coach to giveyou input on what you're doing
well in those areas that you canimprove will make you even
better.
(04:32):
But the challenge is findingthe time to do it, finding the
time to get a coach to do it,and we all know those reasons.
Everyone is busy.
That's the reason why having anAI-powered coach, like the
practice coach, is so important.
So let's talk about thiscoaching.
(04:53):
What is it?
How does it happen?
When is it really available?
And yes, I said 24-7, and Imean that it's available 24-7.
Whenever you can get on yourcomputer or get on your phone,
you have access to your AI coach, and what makes it so
incredible is that you arepracticing in an environment
(05:17):
where there's where, where wherethere's no judgment from your
peers and no judgment from yourfrom your management.
You just get to practiceone-on-one with your coach,
allowing you to be as open andhonest and try new things as you
possibly can, knowing that yourcoach is going to give you
feedback on what you did reallywell and the areas that you can
(05:39):
improve.
The other thing that isremarkable about this new
resource that salespeople andsales managers have available to
them is the different types ofrole-play scenarios that you can
do.
You can do a sales call, apresentation, a negotiation,
(06:03):
overcoming objections.
You can practice cold callingand getting appointments.
You can practice your elevatorpitch, your capabilities
presentation anything that youwant.
A scenario can be built and thepeople, the AI that you role
(06:28):
play with, can be changed.
You can decide do I want torole play with someone who is
going to be assertive oraggressive, or egotistical, or
curious, or empathetic, orhonest or friendly?
You can kind of choose, becausein real life, in real life,
when you go out and you makethese calls, you do run into
(06:50):
people that sometimes have a bigego or very assertive, very
aggressive, don't have a lot oftime want you to get to the
facts right away, but you alsomeet with people that are very
friendly and happy andoptimistic and curious and
pretty much trust everythingthat you're going to say to be
true, and knowing how to workwith and sell to and respond to
(07:13):
each type of personality issuper important.
The ability to role play theright scenario with the right
buyer persona or customerpersona is what really makes
this coaching just so spot on,and it really is.
Once you go through and you doa demo of this, you walk away
(07:33):
going.
I cannot believe how valuablethat was.
I want to do it again and againand again, and the feedback
that you get is personalized,it's not generic.
The feedback that the AI inthis scenario is able to give is
very specific to how you didand what words you used and how
often did you use some of thosewords and how was your eye
contact and you know how wasyour speed at which you spoke
(07:57):
and did you take time to listenand were you specific enough in
your responses?
The type of feedback that topsalespeople want to receive,
need to receive and, quitefrankly, crave to receive, I
would say that and anysalesperson who is out there
(08:18):
doing their job without gettingthat sort of coaching and
feedback is really limitingtheir true potential.
I think getting good coaching,getting good feedback think you
use any sports knowledge youwant, think of any great athlete
that you want they all had acoach, they all had a commitment
to practice and they all had acommitment to having the very
(08:40):
best coach coach them.
So let me just dive into onequick scenario just, and then
we'll dive in.
You know there will be more andmore discussion about this.
But let's say you want topractice getting an appointment
and let's say the type of peoplethat you're generally calling
on, the category of businessthat you typically call on.
Let's say the person thatyou're talking to is generally
(09:01):
skeptical.
You have to be specific in your.
When they ask you questions,you better be specific and not
vague on how you're going torespond, and they usually don't
have a lot of time to wasteright?
So if that's the category thatyou're calling on, if that's the
(09:22):
persona of the person that youtypically call, then that's what
you should role play with.
And so you, you know, you getinto the role play and it's like
hi, my name is and I'm reachingout to you today because and
you have to have a really solidvalid business reason and you
have to overcome the reallysolid valid business reason and
you have to overcome thestandard objections that they're
going to throw at you.
(09:42):
But you do that and you do itagain and again and again.
And I will tell you from my ownexperience that when you
practice three, four, five timesin a row over a period 30
minutes, let's say, you getreally good.
You look at the video playbackof your first role play versus
(10:07):
your fourth or fifth role playand you go, wow, I can really
see the improvement.
Imagine if you had that abilityto do that practice every day
for 10 or 15 minutes.
Every morning, before you gotsat down to do your outbound
cold calling or before you hadthat big discovery meeting with
that really important prospect,you took the time to do a
(10:30):
practice session.
How much better would the realsession be?
I'm a big believer in practice.
I know that all the topperformers in every business
that I know of all the topperformers have some sort of
practice ritual and they havesome sort of coaching that
they're getting.
The CSS practice coach isexactly that and I look forward
(10:54):
to you exploring it boring.
This has been Improving SalesPerformance.
Thanks for listening.
If you like what you heard,join us every week by clicking
the subscribe button For more onthe topics covered in the show.
Visit our website,thecenterforsalesstrategycom.
There you can find helpfulresources and content aimed at
(11:15):
improving your sales performance.
Welcome to Improving Sales Performance, a
podcast highlighting tips andinsights aimed at helping sales
organizations realize, and maybeeven exceed, their goals.
Here we chat with thoughtleaders, experts and gurus who
have years of sales experiencefrom a wide range of industries.
I'm your host, matt Sunshine,ceo at the Center for Sales
Strategy, a sales performanceconsulting company.
(00:27):
Today, in this Quick Takeepisode, we're exploring the
undeniable power of salescoaching, the challenges of
traditional approaches and howAI-powered solutions are setting
a new standard for skilldevelopment.
(00:47):
On the other side of this briefepisode, you'll see how AI
sales coaching truly can elevatethe game of your sellers.
With that, let's get started.
Today, we're tackling the topicthat's crucial for sales
success.
(01:08):
Of course, I'm talking aboutsales coaching.
We're going to explore whyfrequent sales coaching really
is the game changer fromboosting performance and
confidence to strengtheningcustomer relationships.
Competence to strengtheningcustomer relationships.
But let's be honest about thistopic.
Traditional coaching isn'talways easy and there's lots of
(01:36):
reasons, whether it's the timeconstraints, the limited
resources, the access toexperienced coaches.
There are challenges aroundcoaching all over the place.
But in sales, we know thatthere's sales training, there's
sales practice and there's salescoaching and sales management,
(01:56):
and what we want to focus on isthat practice and that coaching.
So that's why, at CSS, we'vecreated the CSS Practice Coach.
They all kind of come together.
It's an AI-powered solution.
Again, it's the Practice Coach.
And imagine having a coachavailable for you 24-7, 24 hours
(02:21):
a day, seven days a week.
You have your own coach that'sready to guide you through any
number of diverse scenarios,whether it's a sales call or a
presentation, or handling atough negotiation, with
personalized feedback, real timeperformance analysis and the
(02:43):
ability to adapt, to adapt toyour unique needs and style.
Ai in this case the practicecoach.
Ai is really revolutionizing,changing, improving the way
salespeople can hone theirskills, can really refine their
(03:04):
skills.
But let's dive into this just alittle bit.
Let's talk about the importanceof sales coaching.
So why is sales coaching soimportant?
Well, there's all sorts of dataout there and all sorts of
statistics out there that willpoint to.
Training will give you a 20 to30 percent bump in in production
(03:28):
.
But training followed up bypractice and coaching will four
times that 80 percentimprovement in in production.
And and if what you're focusedon is getting training done well
, then who cares?
But if what you're focused onis getting training done well
then, who cares?
But if what you're focused onis getting revenue production
(03:49):
accomplished, improving yoursales performance, then training
plus practicing plus coachingis the ideal scenario.
That's why this is so important.
The challenge I mean thechallenge of this is that no one
has time to do it and no onedoes it often enough for it to
(04:12):
start to build new habits.
You know, practicing golf oncea year or twice a year is not
going to make you a bettergolfer.
Practicing every day is goingto make you a better golfer, and
practicing with a coach to giveyou input on what you're doing
well in those areas that you canimprove will make you even
better.
(04:32):
But the challenge is findingthe time to do it, finding the
time to get a coach to do it,and we all know those reasons.
Everyone is busy.
That's the reason why having anAI-powered coach, like the
practice coach, is so important.
So let's talk about thiscoaching.
(04:53):
What is it?
How does it happen?
When is it really available?
And yes, I said 24-7, and Imean that it's available 24-7.
Whenever you can get on yourcomputer or get on your phone,
you have access to your AI coach, and what makes it so
incredible is that you arepracticing in an environment
(05:17):
where there's where, where wherethere's no judgment from your
peers and no judgment from yourfrom your management.
You just get to practiceone-on-one with your coach,
allowing you to be as open andhonest and try new things as you
possibly can, knowing that yourcoach is going to give you
feedback on what you did reallywell and the areas that you can
(05:39):
improve.
The other thing that isremarkable about this new
resource that salespeople andsales managers have available to
them is the different types ofrole-play scenarios that you can
do.
You can do a sales call, apresentation, a negotiation,
(06:03):
overcoming objections.
You can practice cold callingand getting appointments.
You can practice your elevatorpitch, your capabilities
presentation anything that youwant.
A scenario can be built and thepeople, the AI that you role
(06:28):
play with, can be changed.
You can decide do I want torole play with someone who is
going to be assertive oraggressive, or egotistical, or
curious, or empathetic, orhonest or friendly?
You can kind of choose, becausein real life, in real life,
when you go out and you makethese calls, you do run into
(06:50):
people that sometimes have a bigego or very assertive, very
aggressive, don't have a lot oftime want you to get to the
facts right away, but you alsomeet with people that are very
friendly and happy andoptimistic and curious and
pretty much trust everythingthat you're going to say to be
true, and knowing how to workwith and sell to and respond to
(07:13):
each type of personality issuper important.
The ability to role play theright scenario with the right
buyer persona or customerpersona is what really makes
this coaching just so spot on,and it really is.
Once you go through and you doa demo of this, you walk away
(07:33):
going.
I cannot believe how valuablethat was.
I want to do it again and againand again, and the feedback
that you get is personalized,it's not generic.
The feedback that the AI inthis scenario is able to give is
very specific to how you didand what words you used and how
often did you use some of thosewords and how was your eye
contact and you know how wasyour speed at which you spoke
(07:57):
and did you take time to listenand were you specific enough in
your responses?
The type of feedback that topsalespeople want to receive,
need to receive and, quitefrankly, crave to receive, I
would say that and anysalesperson who is out there
(08:18):
doing their job without gettingthat sort of coaching and
feedback is really limitingtheir true potential.
I think getting good coaching,getting good feedback think you
use any sports knowledge youwant, think of any great athlete
that you want they all had acoach, they all had a commitment
to practice and they all had acommitment to having the very
(08:40):
best coach coach them.
So let me just dive into onequick scenario just, and then
we'll dive in.
You know there will be more andmore discussion about this.
But let's say you want topractice getting an appointment
and let's say the type of peoplethat you're generally calling
on, the category of businessthat you typically call on.
Let's say the person thatyou're talking to is generally
(09:01):
skeptical.
You have to be specific in your.
When they ask you questions,you better be specific and not
vague on how you're going torespond, and they usually don't
have a lot of time to wasteright?
So if that's the category thatyou're calling on, if that's the
(09:22):
persona of the person that youtypically call, then that's what
you should role play with.
And so you, you know, you getinto the role play and it's like
hi, my name is and I'm reachingout to you today because and
you have to have a really solidvalid business reason and you
have to overcome the reallysolid valid business reason and
you have to overcome thestandard objections that they're
going to throw at you.
(09:42):
But you do that and you do itagain and again and again.
And I will tell you from my ownexperience that when you
practice three, four, five timesin a row over a period 30
minutes, let's say, you getreally good.
You look at the video playbackof your first role play versus
(10:07):
your fourth or fifth role playand you go, wow, I can really
see the improvement.
Imagine if you had that abilityto do that practice every day
for 10 or 15 minutes.
Every morning, before you gotsat down to do your outbound
cold calling or before you hadthat big discovery meeting with
that really important prospect,you took the time to do a
(10:30):
practice session.
How much better would the realsession be?
I'm a big believer in practice.
I know that all the topperformers in every business
that I know of all the topperformers have some sort of
practice ritual and they havesome sort of coaching that
they're getting.
The CSS practice coach isexactly that and I look forward
(10:54):
to you exploring it boring.
This has been Improving SalesPerformance.
Thanks for listening.
If you like what you heard,join us every week by clicking
the subscribe button For more onthe topics covered in the show.
Visit our website,thecenterforsalesstrategycom.
There you can find helpfulresources and content aimed at
(11:15):
improving your sales performance.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!