Sales Management & Coaching
How to Run a Sales Coaching Session
Most coaching sessions don't fail on the quality of the advice. They fail on structure. Without one, the meeting drifts into a deal review, the manager talks more than the seller, and everyone leaves with a vague sense that coaching is valuable and nothing specific to do.
Published 24 August 2026
How much time to give it
Fifteen minutes is enough for one behaviour, and twenty is plenty for almost anything you'll need. If you find yourself wanting an hour, you're probably coaching several behaviours or reviewing deals in the same slot. Both are fine, but they're different meetings. Keep the coaching part short enough that you'd never think of dropping it when the week gets busy.
Open with the seller, not the agenda
The first question belongs to the seller: what did they make of the call, or the week, and what do they think went well and didn't? Asking this first does two things. It gets them diagnosing before you tell them anything, and it tells you whether they can see what you're about to point at. If they can, the rest is collaborative. If they can't, you've learned something more useful than the mistake itself.
Put a real call on the table
"I think what happened was..." is a conversation about memory. A recording, a call you sat in on, or detailed notes make it a conversation about evidence. It also changes the tone: you're both looking at the same thing rather than the manager delivering a verdict about a call they weren't present for. If you have no recording, use the seller's own description of a specific moment, not a general impression of the week.
Name one behaviour and stay on it
The instinct after listening is to share everything you noticed. Six observations produce no change; one produces some. Pick the behaviour that would make the biggest difference to this seller right now, usually the one that shows up repeatedly rather than the most dramatic single moment, and leave the rest alone until that one has moved.
Practise the moment, not just discuss it
The gap between agreeing what to do and being able to do it under pressure is bigger than managers expect. Two minutes of rehearsal, where you play the buyer, is worth more than ten minutes of discussion about how the call should have gone. It's uncomfortable the first few times, and then it isn't. If the moment was a vague answer in discovery, give the seller the vague answer and let them handle it.
Close with something specific and a date
"Dig deeper in discovery" is advice. "On your next three calls, when a buyer gives a general answer, ask one more question before moving on" is something a person can actually do on Tuesday. End the session with that: the concrete behaviour, where it will show up, and the point in the diary where you'll look at another call together and say what's better.
A session shape you can copy
- Two minutes: seller's read of the call or week
- Five minutes: one behaviour, looked at in a real call
- Five minutes: what they'd do differently, made concrete
- Three minutes: rehearse the specific moment
- Five minutes: agree the next step and book the revisit
This is the format side of the work. The underlying principles, why one behaviour at a time and why the seller should go first, sit in our guide to coaching sales reps. And if you're short of questions to open the seller's thinking, the sales coaching questions guide has the specific ones that get a seller to diagnose themselves.
FAQs
Common questions
- How long should a coaching session last?
- Fifteen to twenty minutes is enough for one behaviour. Any longer and you're usually coaching several things or sliding into a deal review, which is a different meeting.
- What if the seller can't see the problem I've spotted?
- That's useful information, not a dead end. If they can't see it, telling them the fix won't be enough, because they'll still miss the moment it happens. Keep it to one behaviour and give them the concrete version of what to do when they next meet it.
- Do I need call recordings to coach?
- No, but you need something closer to evidence than memory. A recording is ideal. Failing that, sit in on a call, or work from the seller's own description of a specific moment rather than a general impression of the week.
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