Most coaching programmes fail for a simple reason: they depend on managers finding coachable moments by hand. In practice that means a few call reviews chosen at random, usually from the reps who ask for help — and they are rarely the ones who need it most.
Start from outcomes, not recordings
Instead of picking calls, pick the moments where deals change direction: a discovery call that never produced a second meeting, a pricing conversation followed by silence, a demo where a new stakeholder joined and the deal stalled. Those turning points are where coaching pays off.
Patterns beat anecdotes
One weak call tells you little. The same gap across ten calls tells you what to coach. When reps consistently skip questions about the decision process, or move to pricing before confirming the problem, the pattern is visible in aggregate long before it shows up in a forecast miss.
“Coach the pattern, then use one call as the example — not the other way round.”
A weekly rhythm that works
- Monday: review a short list of flagged moments across the team, not full calls.
- Midweek: one focused 20-minute session per rep on a single pattern.
- Friday: check whether the pattern changed in that week’s conversations.
Make it fair and specific
Reps trust coaching that is grounded in evidence and applied consistently. Share the same moments with the rep that you review yourself, focus on behaviour rather than personality, and celebrate improvements as visibly as you point out gaps. Coaching at scale is a system, not a heroic effort by individual managers.