Effective Coaching Strategies for Small Sales Teams

May · 2025-09-26T18:23:51.429Z

Hey all :wave: , I've been chatting with a few Sales Managers of smaller teams lately, and one thing keeps coming up: It is almost impossible to coach reps live during calls, and going back to review recordings is time consuming - so it rarely happens. Reps end up winging it.more often than they'd like. For those who lead smaller or mid-sized teams, how do you make coaching actually happen without burning too much time?

Effective Coaching Strategies for Small Sales Teams | RevGenius

10 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Shashank M.
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Hey, I get you. Been there and followed this practice 👇 -
1:1 discussion right after every call to understand what went right and what can be improved. Doing a mock if needed.
Asking the rep to Slack me the discussed pointers with the aim of executing some/all of those pointers during the next calls.
Kept doing it and noticed them get better at it much sooner than I expected.
May
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Love this, thanks for sharing 🙌 I really like the idea of getting reps to send you their own summary in slack, it makes it stick better. Curious, how do you balance doing this consistently with the time it takes? Do you manage to keep it up for every rep, every call?
Paul B.
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May you're right, once you cover the basic coaching hygiene, the time commitment becomes a bigger x factor. Add that to the long list of drivers of tension for middle managers ... their reps want feedback, hand-holding etc. while leadership needs them prioritizing revenue-generating activities. Can you share a link to the tool you're building for AI sales conversations? I'm interested.
May
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Paul B. Appreciate you sharing that 🙌. You're spot on about the tension middle managers face. I'll DM you the link so you can check it out.
Miguel C.
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May The team that you're coaching, I'm wondering if some of them are looking for additional sales rep.
May
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Hey Miguel C. appreciate you asking I'm not coaching any team, I'm actually building a tool to help sales teams coach themselves better in real time.
Miguel C.
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May I see, if you come across any of them looking for VA's, sales rep can you recommend me?
May
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Miguel C. Noted ✅
Shashank M.
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Curious, how do you balance doing this consistently with the time it takes? Do you manage to keep it up for every rep, every call? May, Great question. Here’s how I’ve tried to balance it without making it feel like the main KPI: I lean on 'team champions'. These are reps who consistently hit quota and are strong ICs. As part of their OKRs, each champion is paired with teammates who need support on call skills and other aspects. It’s been a win-win as the learning curve is faster when reps learn from peers, and champions also get leadership exposure and most importantly, they feel valued in the system. The Slack feedback piece happens in a 3-way thread (rep + champion + me). This also goes on our document in our Sales Team Notion for monthly tracking and helps me evaluate the progress quickly. The added benefit: I don’t have to be on every call. Reps who improve quickly “swim on their own,” while I focus more of my time on those who need extra coaching. Not saying this is one-size-fits-all, but for us it’s been a scalable and evolving way to coach without burning 'too much time'.
May
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Love this Shashank M. Using team champions + Slack threads is a really smart way to scale coaching. Interesting to hear how you've built a system around it. It makes me wonder how many other managers are doing similar DIY approaches.

Shashank M.
·
·
Hey, I get you. Been there and followed this practice 👇 -
1:1 discussion right after every call to understand what went right and what can be improved. Doing a mock if needed.
Asking the rep to Slack me the discussed pointers with the aim of executing some/all of those pointers during the next calls.
Kept doing it and noticed them get better at it much sooner than I expected.
May
·
·
Love this, thanks for sharing 🙌 I really like the idea of getting reps to send you their own summary in slack, it makes it stick better. Curious, how do you balance doing this consistently with the time it takes? Do you manage to keep it up for every rep, every call?
Paul B.
·
·
May you're right, once you cover the basic coaching hygiene, the time commitment becomes a bigger x factor. Add that to the long list of drivers of tension for middle managers ... their reps want feedback, hand-holding etc. while leadership needs them prioritizing revenue-generating activities. Can you share a link to the tool you're building for AI sales conversations? I'm interested.
May
·
·
Paul B. Appreciate you sharing that 🙌. You're spot on about the tension middle managers face. I'll DM you the link so you can check it out.
Miguel C.
·
·
May The team that you're coaching, I'm wondering if some of them are looking for additional sales rep.
May
·
·
Hey Miguel C. appreciate you asking I'm not coaching any team, I'm actually building a tool to help sales teams coach themselves better in real time.
Miguel C.
·
·
May I see, if you come across any of them looking for VA's, sales rep can you recommend me?
May
·
·
Miguel C. Noted ✅
Shashank M.
·
·
Curious, how do you balance doing this consistently with the time it takes? Do you manage to keep it up for every rep, every call? May, Great question. Here’s how I’ve tried to balance it without making it feel like the main KPI: I lean on 'team champions'. These are reps who consistently hit quota and are strong ICs. As part of their OKRs, each champion is paired with teammates who need support on call skills and other aspects. It’s been a win-win as the learning curve is faster when reps learn from peers, and champions also get leadership exposure and most importantly, they feel valued in the system. The Slack feedback piece happens in a 3-way thread (rep + champion + me). This also goes on our document in our Sales Team Notion for monthly tracking and helps me evaluate the progress quickly. The added benefit: I don’t have to be on every call. Reps who improve quickly “swim on their own,” while I focus more of my time on those who need extra coaching. Not saying this is one-size-fits-all, but for us it’s been a scalable and evolving way to coach without burning 'too much time'.
May
·
·
Love this Shashank M. Using team champions + Slack threads is a really smart way to scale coaching. Interesting to hear how you've built a system around it. It makes me wonder how many other managers are doing similar DIY approaches.