Written by Jonnie Anderson, Marketing Manager at Primary Intelligence

Buyer feedback is the purest source of data to help you determine how and when to coach your reps.

In a recent study, 36% of buyers said that a losing vendor could’ve won the deal by making a change during the buying process. Most often, buyers described missteps in the sales experience as the reason for lost business – even above price or product features. However, when we spoke to sellers, 11% thought a deal was typically lost because of something beyond the rep’s control. This disconnect between why sellers think they lose and why they really lose according to their buyers is why buyer feedback is so crucial to helping sales teams increase win rates.

When you use buyer feedback as part of your sales coaching playbook, you’re able to get an unbiased, first-hand look into why your reps win and lose, and uncover each rep’s unique path to winning more deals.

The Challenge

It can be hard for sales coaches to know where to focus training efforts. If you manage multiple reps, chances are you don’t have the bandwidth to audit or shadow every call – and even if you did, this would not give you an accurate view into how your buyers are truly perceiving the sales experience. The reality is, your reps probably don’t know why they really won or lost a deal, but your buyers do. By using buyer feedback, you get an unbiased account of why deals come to particular outcomes. Once you understand what controllable factors influence deal outcomes, you can use those insights to take your sales coaching further.

Maximizing ROI for Coaching Efforts

As a coach, you want to make sure your time and energy is spent in the best way. Knowing where to focus your efforts to create the most impact is crucial to the success of your team and the business.

You can focus on these key areas that will help you maximize your ROI as a sales coach:

  • Determine who is in need of coaching
  • Identify specific areas where reps are struggling
  • Inspire reps to internalize coaching
  • Get an unbiased look into deal outcomes

Who and When to Coach

All your reps will need coaching at one time or another. As a sales coach, you can identify reps that need immediate coaching based on insights from your buyer feedback. Look for trends in wins and losses to discover weak spots that only your buyers can see. For example, perhaps a rep struggles to win when a certain competitor is also on the table. As a sales coach, you can set up an individualized training session with that rep to help build confidence when talking about the competitor and give them the competitive intelligence data they need to combat competitor claims.

There are also many opportunities for using buyer feedback when coaching:

  • Reps who are not on track to hit quota
  • Reps who are struggling to win deals involving a certain product, deal type, or buyer type
  • Reps who seem discouraged by recent performance
  • Reps who want to ramp up to hit new quotas
  • Newly hired reps
  • Newly promoted reps

As you discover who on your team needs your attention, you can dive deeper into your buyer feedback to create effective coaching sessions.

Where to Coach

By using the insights compiled from your buyer feedback, you can easily identify coaching opportunities for your team. Pinpoint strengths and weaknesses only your buyers can see and use this feedback to empower your reps to win more.

Explore trends in your buyer feedback to discover what’s most important to your buyers and drill down from there. Use insights around the following areas to help you identify what matters to your buyers when making a purchase decision and how your reps perform within each area:

  • Top reasons for wins and losses
  • Competitive advantages and disadvantages
  • Sales experience
  • Product and service perception
  • Winnable deals

Once you’ve identified these specific areas of improvement, you’ll be able to personalize your coaching to make it most relevant and impactful for your reps.

Make It Personal

Sales reps need to internalize and apply your coaching for it to be effective. By using insights from your rep’s specific deals, you can personalize training sessions and ensure your coaching is directly applicable to your rep.

And – when coaching is backed by the voice of your buyer, your rep will be more likely to listen.

Here are some tips to help you personalize your sales coaching to be more impactful:

  • Use direct callouts from interview transcripts and survey responses to provide evidence and examples that support your training
  • Explore trends from your rep’s deals to show how your buyers truly perceived a win or a loss
  • Bring examples of the rep’s strengths to balance conversations around weaknesses
  • Make coaching constructive by suggesting actionable steps for improvement
  • Set goals regarding specific areas that need improvement
  • Role play based on a perceived weakness to prepare for an upcoming call
  • Utilize peer-to-peer coaching based on strengths and weaknesses

When you use buyer feedback as part of your sales coaching strategy, your coaching becomes invaluable to your reps and your business. Improved sales training increases win rates, job satisfaction, revenue, and rep confidence. Your buyers will tell you how to best coach your reps to win more deals – Primary Intelligence can help you listen.

For more information on how you can use buyer feedback in your sales coaching playbook, schedule a call with our team.

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