How to Coach a Sales Team

Most sales leaders were great salespeople first, which makes coaching harder than it looks. The instinct is to jump into the deal and close it yourself, or to manage by dashboard: more calls, more meetings, more pipeline. Meanwhile, Salesforce research found 67% of sales reps did not expect to hit quota in 2024, and 84% missed it the year before.

I have led sales teams for a long time, and the leaders whose teams consistently hit their numbers have one thing in common. They coach. They spend time with each rep on real deals, help them think, and build their belief in what they sell and in themselves.

Coach the deal, not just the activity

Activity matters, but activity alone does not tell you why a deal is stuck. Spend coaching time walking through specific opportunities. My LOCKS framework is built for exactly this: Love the Product, Own Belief, Confidence in You, Kickoff Plan and Stakes. When a deal stalls, one of those five is usually missing. Does the buyer love what we sell? Do they believe it will work for them? Do they trust the rep? Can they picture what happens after they sign? Do they feel the cost of waiting? See The LOCKS Framework.

Practice, not just review

The best sales coaches I know practice with their reps. They role-play the tough call before it happens, play the skeptical buyer, and work through objections together. Practice turns knowledge into confidence. The LAARC Method, Listen, Acknowledge, Ask, Respond and Confirm, is much easier to use on a live call after a rep has practiced it a dozen times with their manager. See The LAARC Method.

Build belief

A surprising number of slumps are not skill problems. They are belief problems: a rep who has lost confidence in the product, the market or themselves. You cannot coach your way out of that with a call script. Remind them of the customers they have helped, have them talk to a happy client, and recognize the effort that has not paid off yet. I wrote more about that in A Slump Is Almost Never A Skills Problem.

Recognize the right behaviors

If you only celebrate closed deals, reps learn that results are all that matter, even when the result was luck. Recognize the behaviors that lead to wins: a great discovery call, a thoughtful follow-up, an objection handled well. Those are the habits you want repeated. See How to Motivate a Sales Team.

Protect their selling time

Coaching also means removing obstacles. Salesforce’s 2026 research found the average seller spends only 40% of their time actually selling. Ask your reps what is eating their week and take something off their plate. See How Salespeople Can Spend More Time Actually Selling.

LOCKS, LAARC and the coaching habits behind them are the core of my sales keynote, You Are Capable of More Sales, built for sales kickoffs and sales leadership meetings.