The importance and value of coaching are well understood, but organizations often fail to create a consistent infrastructure and methodology to support it. Why does this matter? According to research by the Sales Management Association (SMA), firms that provide coaching to salespeople realize annual revenue growth rates 16.7% greater than firms that do not provide coaching to their salespeople.

The foundation for success starts with frontline sales managers, with their direct, hands-on influence on the performance of their team. With Qstream’s data-driven Coaching Hub, frontline sales managers know exactly who, what and when to coach. Our graphical manager dashboard provides frontline sales managers with a real-time view into a team’s performance, engagement and proficiency, and instantly identifies gaps in knowledge or skills. The targeted coaching actions generated by Qstream data help frontline sales managers be proactive in acknowledging strong performers, re-engaging users, and helping members of her team build the confidence and skills they need to be successful.

Senior sales leaders need to lead from the front

A successful coaching program doesn’t end with the frontline sales managers. Senior sales leaders need to lead from the front, demonstrate a top-down commitment to coaching and holding those responsible for coaching accountable. Qstream helps sales executives gain insight into the effectiveness of their sales program through a real-time coaching activity dashboard, where they can monitor the level of coaching, including the coaching resolution status against any filter. For example, you can measure activity by region, country, department, job tenure or quota performance.

Let’s take the case of a global pharmaceutical company that used Qstream to support the product launch of a new drug. There were 14 teams with an average of seven medical reps per team. The frontline manager of one team was actively engaged in coaching using the Qstream coaching dashboard whereas the rest of the managers were passive in their coaching. This is highlighted in the Qstream dashboard below.

The results for this manager (McClure) at the end of the Qstream were remarkable. This team also had the highest product proficiency of all 14 teams, including the second highest improvement in proficiency, as shown here.

In addition, that same team (McClure) placed first in overall performance, outperforming the overall average by 34%.

CSO’s 2016 Insights Sales Enablement Optimization Study underscores the importance of coaching. Their study shows a substantial impact on quota attainment and win rates when a formal coaching approach is in place. Their findings show that a formal coaching approach – one that is aligned to a sales enablement framework – can improve quota attainment by 10.2% up to 61.5%. The impact on win rates is also significant; the average win rate in the study was 46.2%. A formal coaching process led to an 11% improvement, and a dynamic coaching process improved the win rate by 27.9%.

Regardless of the coaching framework, it requires direction and nurturing from senior management. Qstream helps sales executives who want to improve the effectiveness of their coaching initiatives by providing real-time insights into the coaching activity of their frontline sales managers, thereby improving quota attainment and win rates.

Download a complimentary copy of Qstream’s sponsored research with the Sales Management Association, Best Practices for Supporting Sales Coaching or request a demo of Coaching Hub today.