Few people would argue that training is one of the best investments you can make in your telesales team. Training is directly related to employee satisfaction and job performance. It also provides one of the best returns on your investment if you leverage that investment properly. The way you do that is to follow up training with coaching.

Coaching is important in many businesses: according to Deborah Hildebrand, it's an employee's relationship with her/his immediate supervisor that plays the largest role in that person's job satisfaction. Satisfied workers lead to less turnover and greater productivity, so what can supervisors do to coach effectively and develop the talent on their teams?

LOL: Listen, Observe and Learn. To understand the environment you're trying to improve, start by spending time with the telesales staff. Listen to reps on live calls, noting what you hear. Observe the types of challenges they face, their areas of strength and their opportunities for improvement. Also listen to a random sampling of recorded calls to assess the current skill levels of your team. Learn who's strong in various skills, leveraging your best people to help mentor those who need more training in certain areas.

Be Ready to Offer Feedback. Learn how to respond with appropriate feedback for the various behaviors you'll encounter: people doing things correctly, those in need of a little refinement and those who are not doing the job correctly.

Make it Constructive. Remember that the result is to help someone on your team to do the best telesales job possible. Keep the feedback positive and constructive, explaining how it helps the employee to do her/his job more effectively and how it furthers the sales process.

Be Fair. Make an effort to observe and offer feedback to all your team members, not just the ones you think need the most improvement. All employees, even the most motivated, need to know you're tracking and appreciating their work.

Strive for Consistency. Make sure to follow up with team members over time to let them know you recognize their efforts toward improvement.

Set Goals. Develop realistic, obtainable goals with each of your telesales reps. That's right, with them; make every rep a part of the process in her or his own development. Check in with them team every month or two to see how they are progressing; goals should be something your reps are working toward year-round, not just at the beginning of a new fiscal year or right before annual reviews.

You can also create goals for your entire telesales team and post them in a place where everyone can see them. In addition to the criteria you'd use when writing goals for individuals, team goals have two more important considerations.

1.They need to move the team forward: it should be clear to everyone how the telesales team benefits from these goals, and what part the team goals plays in moving the company forward.

2. Everyone on the team should be able to contribute: nothing will demotivate someone more quickly than a team goal to which he or she can't contribute. Though each person may contribute differently based on their experience, knowledge or skill set, every team member should be able to contribute in some fashion.

Practice Often. Set up demo calls in which the telesales team gets to hear some great examples and some not-so-great examples of sales calls. Discuss what made the best calls successful and how the not-so-great examples were lacking. Then give everyone a chance to practice, providing them with constructive feedback.

Practicing helps everyone on the telesales team.
It provides your best people with an opportunity to mentor less experienced team members.
It gives newer or less experienced reps the confidence they need to do better.

It provides supervisors with opportunities to assess individual skill levels and to coach to the desired behaviors accordingly.

Telesales training points the way to success by teaching telesales reps how they can be most productive. Coaching is the most effective way to reinforce that training and develop employee talent. Taken together, a focus on telesales training and coaching can provide a competitive sales edge to many organizations.

What about your organization? Is it time to examine how you're supporting your telesales reps?

Source: Peggy Carlaw link