Blindspots: The Hidden Killer of Sales Coaching

In a marathon there are officially 26 splits, or miles, that a runner passes.   The runner focuses on hitting the splits to stay on track to finish the race in his or her target time.

The splits act as a leading indicator.  If the runner is under the split she’s on track to finish faster – or she could be headed for a crash if her pace is too fast.  Either way the split is information she can act on.

As a sales manager you’ll want to help your salespeople run the annual sales marathon by minding their splits.  We call these monthly 1:1 splits (conversations) Funnel Audits.  They play a key role in sales managers’ coaching.

The sales marathon over a year can be broken into 12 monthly splits.  Setting goals and priorities for 30 days is less overwhelming and more manageable than setting goals for longer periods.  You’ll want to have sound, meaningful and structured conversations every month (each split) to keep your reps running the race the right way.

The manager uses the Funnel Audit to make a couple of key assessments at each split.  The first one is YTD sales performance.  Is the salesperson at 100% of the year to date quota?  Usually this is a reasonable measure of where your rep could end up at the end of the year.  Unfortunately sales performance is a lagging indicator, valuable in looking through the rear window, but not looking through the front windshield.  Sales reps need to know where to put selling attention for the rest of the year.  That’s the value the Audits give.

Here are 4 things our clients do around minding the splits.

They manage to what the leading indicators tell them.  The main leading indicator they manage to is what we call TVR, Total Viable Revenue.  TVR is the funnel value.  The salesperson and manager both know exactly how much TVR should be on the funnel at any time throughout the year.   They compare how much TVR they should have to how much they really have and then manage to the delta.

They focus on what they can control. Salespeople can’t really control the outputs, sales, but they can control the inputs, that is, what they choose to prioritize and the selling activities to influence each sale.  At each Funnel Audit the manager and rep are deciding where to put selling attention now.

They mind the splits early to start fast. When you get your salespeople to mind their splits in January and February and not to wait until May or July they have more time to use the TVR leading indicator to make course corrections in their sales funnels.  Some of our clients even mind their splits in early Q4 or late Q3 of the previous year to start off the next year with a healthier sales funnel.

They keep the process simple and they commit to it.  Our best clients religiously do Funnel Audits every month.  They defend simple. They don’t drift out of the structure of the conversation.  They parking lot non-Funnel Audit issues and deal with them later.

Don’t forget to stretch before your next run!

Good selling,

Mark Sellers

Created the BuyCycle Funnel

Author The Funnel Principle

Author of soon to be released sales coaching book Blindspots: The Hidden Killer of Sales Coaching