Sales team is the core of every business. However, in order to ensure that your sales team delivers consistent performance and empower them with adequate strategies, it’s required that you focus either on sales training or sales coaching.
Recommended read: Custom vs off-the-shelf Sales Training : Which is Right for your Team?
Let us understand the differences between these two approaches to help you make the decision.
Introduction to Sales Coaching
A one-on-one model focusing on providing personalized guidance and training individual sales representatives, sales coaching concentrates on continuous development of an individual through feedback.
Aspects of sales coaching include:
- Face to face mentoring sessions to identify strengths and weakness of every salesperson
- Positive shift in mindset to develop confidence and emotional intelligence
- Utilizing data and KPIs to identify areas of improvement
Introduction to Sales Training
Sales Training refers to a structured way to mentor sales representatives and equipping them with the skills and knowledge to enhance their performance and efficiency.
Aspects of sales training include:
- Skill development such as closing deals, negotiation, communication skills etc.
- Effective utilization of technology like CRM tools and data analytics in sales
- In depth knowledge about products, services, and market trends.
Sales Coaching vs Sales Training 
When to go for Sales Coaching
Below mentioned are some key indicators that help you identify when your team needs sales coaching:
- When a sales representative is not performing satisfactorily as compared to his coworkers, sales coaching helps identify the root cause and provide adequate solution.
- Low confidence in an individual can refrain him from giving his best performance. In such a scenario, sales coaching helps build confidence through small wins.
- When team collaboration within your company goes for a toss, sales coaching improves team work and encourages team to work towards their goals.
- When sales team is resistant enough to adapt to changes like new technologies and techniques, sales coaching helps them realize the value of transition.
- If you want to foster leadership skills within your sales team, sales coaching is their go-to solution to transition into the leadership role.
Readers’ favorite: 10 Loud Signs Your Sales Team Needs Professional Mentoring Now
When to go for Sales Training
- If your company is looking forward to hire new sales representatives having a knowledge about company’s USP and sales processes.
- When sales people need to launch new products and services in the market, so that they can pitch them with confidence to the target audience.
- If your organization is thinking to roll out new technologies like CRM, sales training is required to ensure that they use it effectively.
- If you are targeting to maximize company’s performance as compared to your competitors on holidays or high demand seasons, sales training ensures that you are fully prepared.
- When your company is keen on adopting new sales methodologies like solutions selling, spin selling etc. in such a scenario, sales training ensures consistent application and better understanding.
Why hybrid approach is the solution
Though both sales training and sales coaching have different benefits to offer, using both together can prove to be more beneficial for your organization. While sales training delves into “what” and “how”, sales coaching digs into “why” and “when”.
Suppose your company conducts a training on utilization of CRM in sales processes, sales coaching will ensure that sales representatives are able to use the technology effectively and solve issues whenever they arise.
Making the right choice for your business: Sales coaching vs sales training
To determine if your company should go for sales training, sales coaching, or both, you need to focus on the below mentioned pointers:
- Assess the current issues within your team, to know if there are skill-based gaps or behavioral gaps.
- Evaluate the urgency. Sales training is the solution if you are looking for quick turnaround unlike sales coaching which concentrates on long term development.
You might find it helpful: 10 Sales KPIs That Every Team Should Track and Why
Conclusion
Understanding the difference between sales coaching and sales training is essential for making the correct choice for your company. By understanding your sales team’s needs and objectives, you can choose the correct approach and then make the final decision.
However, amalgamation of both sales coaching and sales training can create a winning combination for your business by offering long-term and short-term advantages.
