Sales coaching tips from the world's topmost sales experts

Lucep drives enterprise sales and customer engagement for the world’s largest companies in financial services, healthcare and some who are in the business of government. Our sales team members are expected to converse intelligently with the departmental heads of these corporations.

To get that kind of learning, we turn to top sales coaches who are reputed leadership and sales consultants. We read their books, interviews and articles published online

These are the world's top sales coaches who have literally written the book on sales, and we’re sharing with you here these top 10 sales coaching tips from these experts. These tips will take you from a core philosophy of sales all the way to a crack sales team ready to run through walls for you.

1. To sell effectively, you need a philosophy.

Selling isn’t something you do to someone. It is something you do for someone and with someone.

See more.. by Anthony Iannarino, Author, The Lost Art of Closing

2. The best sales professionals are impeccably honest.

According to a Harvard study, one of the characteristics of the top 1% of sales professionals in the U.S. is that they are impeccably honest. In this post, John Barrows describes the traits he sees that prevent sales people from attaining this level of impeccable honesty. Are you on this list?

Read more.. by John Barrows, Author, Guiding Principles to Sales Success

3. Make your salespeople create individual business plans.

People who write down their goals are more successful. Making them present their plan to sales management ensures that they look carefully at what has worked and what hasn’t, and it’s a good way to share best practices among your sales team members.

4. Create a universal key account definition.

If you ask 10 people in a large company what they mean by a “key account,” you’ll get 10 different answers. If you want to grow key accounts, create a definition for it that everyone agrees on, understands, and lives by. Your team has to excel at both sales as well as account management.

5. Spend more time with fewer prospects.

By spending more time with fewer prospects we’ll be able to uncover their needs and outcomes much better than if we were rushing due to a lack of time. In the end this process allows us to close more sales not only at a higher price but faster.

6. Frontload your sales pitch with questions instead of talking points.

Don’t make your sales team launch into the pitch with any fixed set of talking points. You can launch into a fixed set of questions, and then be flexible on where to let the conversation go in terms of how the prospect has answered the questions.

7. It’s the follow-up call that really gets a sales cycle rolling.

Texting is the best way to get started with follow-ups. Get the customer’s cellphone number, and text them data they asked for. Data texted during the sale increases chances of conversion by 300%. Text, send emails, and call people on the phone. Do all three, and keep pushing with followups even if it seems unreasonable.

8. Stop selling and start coaching.

Transform salespeople into selling coaches, who can then coach customers to succeed. Applying the model of sales coaching to sales training creates high-performing salespeople who are also prepared to climb up the ladder as future managers.

9. Sales leaders need followers.

Great leaders have these leadership traits in common – they had followers who believed in them and followed them to a better place, and they brought about positive change. Sales leaders likewise need followers who believe you’ll lead them to a better place in terms of sales performance.

10. Get in the trenches with your sales team and earn their respect.

Jeb Blount is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s top sales coaches. He says you have to get in the trenches with your sales team. Go out in the field with them. Sit side by side with them in the sales bullpen. Coach and invest time with them. It’s easy to set behind a computer and look at dashboard but when you get up and go get face to face with your sales team you’ll earn their respect and they will run through walls for you.