By Steve Jensen
7 min read
1:1s can be your greatest tool if you can be relevant with each salesperson quickly and stay there. Every second that isn’t tailored to the individual creates the possibility of the salesperson feeling like the 1:1 is a waste of time.
As a sales leader, we want you to have the precision of a surgeon with a scalpel. Just as a surgeon wouldn’t use the scalpel to randomly cut into a patient with a “let’s see what we find in here” mentality, you as a sales coach need a structure to make sure the topics you discuss are of highest relevance to the member of your team.
Here’s a simple coaching blueprint that will help you know which conversation to have with any member of your team very quickly. The system is called RĀSR (Sounds like Razor). RĀSR stands for Results, Activities, Skills, Resources.
Here’s how RĀSR works: Every 1:1 conversation starts with a conversation around the results the salesperson has created to establish relevancy. The 1:1 concludes with a coaching goal tied to Activities, Skills, or use of Company Resources, and acts as a GPS that directs the 1:1 to the appropriate coaching conversation. The following chart shows a visual of how the system drives a 1:1 to have meaningful conversations.
RĀSR is a simple and natural process for every salesperson and sales leader. You don’t coach to results, but you use results to provide context and quickly determine what every individual needs.
Here are some definitions of each part of the process:
Results: The three decision points in the light blue box are results-related conversations. Is the salesperson achieving quota based on year to date performance? Is he or she achieving their personal aspirations based on year to date performance? Does current process predict more success is coming? If the answers to each of these questions are yes, you are working with one of the top performers and will have a “How Good Can You Get?” conversation. If the answer is no, we will evaluate Process.
Process: While sales is filled with variability, we can model 80% of the variance by providing individualized metrics on three key process drivers:
Dollar Amount of Qualified Pipeline Opportunities: No salesperson can close an opportunity unless a qualified opportunity has first been created. Calculating the number of dollars to the pipeline for an individual is simple. The required Pipeline Value for any advisor is:
$ = Sales Goal / Win Rate
For example, if a salesperson has a $1,000,000 goal and a 50% win rate, then $1,000,000 / .50 = $2,000,000. The salesperson needs $2 Million in order to predict success without having a non-normal outcome.
Each leader needs to identify an individual’s required pipeline dollars for the month, quarter, and year. These numbers provide an important checkpoint and an easy way to create purpose-driven activities. The Xvoyant coaching system automates individually calculating this for each salesperson.
Number of Qualified Opportunities: Once a salesperson knows how many dollars are needed in their pipeline to achieve goal, there are many ways to get there. Understanding the average deal size for any given salesperson and applying this to the total amount of dollars in the pipeline will provide a custom “deal flow” metric that becomes another important coaching point.
For example, if this same salesperson that needs $2,000,000 in pipeline also has a $200,000 average deal size, then the required number of opportunities is 2,000,000 / 200,000 = 10 deals. The salesperson needs ten current opportunities to achieve goal without having to resort to desperate tactics.
“Elephant hunting” or chasing the massive deals to catch up once a salesperson is behind is an easy trap to fall into. Help each of your advisors win by having enough deal flow, so they don’t have to have a career-best effort to achieve their goals. Coach them so the average version of themselves is good enough. The Xvoyant system will calculate the number of opportunities each advisor should have instantly to simplify this part of your coaching process.
Sales Velocity or Cycle Time: Each salesperson should measure the number of days from start to close as well as the average number of days they usually take in each stage. While every opportunity will have its own cycle time, you’ll be surprised how differently each salesperson’s unique sales metronome tics. Understanding the cycle time of each salesperson becomes a key way to measure the strength of their process. The Xvoyant system will measure sales time from start to close as well as by stage to simplify the coaching process.
These three metrics provide a quantifiable way to determine the strength of any salesperson’s sales process.
Start enough, with enough, fast enough. Do that and 80% of the variance disappears. Do this with each person on your team and you’ll be surprised how predictive process becomes.
How Good Can You Get?: These conversations are with your most successful salespeople. This is a fun conversation that is about looking at different “what if” scenarios where you and the salesperson identify different ways to achieve new heights. These conversations will range from performance or opportunity management, but also include career planning and the creation of unique individual development plans to build pathways to help the salesperson accomplish things that are important to the individual.
Tune the Deals: These conversations are with your salespeople that have strong process. Their sales engine is primed with plenty of opportunities, and the best way you can help them is with opportunity management. Your mission is to help the salesperson engineer verifiers that will move opportunities along. Opportunity management is a great way to coach people to new normals. They will learn how to create buyer engagement rather than simply focusing on “working hard.”
Tune the Engine: These conversations are with your salespeople who have gaps in their process. The best way you can help them is with performance management. Help them find which piston will create horsepower and which activities will generate the power they need to fill and move their pipeline. Don’t ever finish one of these conversations without having a plan to increase their performance by __%. The predictable performance improvement conversation is what this salesperson needs. It is the only way to avoid the “just work harder” conversation. Purpose-driven activities are crucial to their success.
A sales leader shouldn’t try to coach outcomes. Outcomes establish relevancy for the rest of the 1:1. Results help you derive what conversation to have and where you can help that salesperson improve the most. Use Xvoyant to provide the results data and conversation content so you can provide the context in whichever conversation you have with the salesperson. Make as much of your conversation about the future. By using this structure and Xvoyant, you will spend more time providing context and making “Next Play” game plans with each advisor and less time running reports and guessing what to do next.
Using results to establish relevancy rather than results being the overall topic of conversation will make your 1:1s much more meaningful.
_________________________________________________
Steve Jensen is the VP of Marketing at Xvoyant