This newsletter is written by the legendary 30MPC Club Member Kevin "KD" Dorsey, a multiple time SVP/VP/Head of Sales and 6-time podcast guest. Enjoy!
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There are 2 foundational things every manager and leader are told to do once they step into leadership:
- Start having 1-on-1's with your reps.
- Make your reps better, aka be a coach.
But what's hilarious is... they're never taught how to do either of them.
(Well it's actually sad, but I try to make light of it.)
Let’s be honest, look back at your career:
- How many of you were actually taught how to run a great 1x1?
- How many of you were actually coached on how to be a coach?
So I'm going to breakdown how I've run 1-on-1s and practice sessions (aka roleplays) for the hundreds of reps I've coached as an SVP of Sales.
Let's dive in.
How to Structure 1-on-1s (More Than Just "Updates")
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1x1s are one of the most important things you can do as a manger, but too often the are haphazard, unstructured, rushed, and update focused. Think of all the things you need/want to cover in a 1-on-1...
How the rep is feeling. Wins. Challenges. Pipeline updates. Skill development.
And so often 1x1s are run almost like this checklist above, you check in, you ask some questions, you poke into some deals, and boom, 30 mins is up and you’re off to the next.
That isn’t how you actually run a great 1x1 -- let's break this down step by step.
Step One: Build Your 1-on-1 Doc
Your 1-on-1 doc needs to cover the following elements .
- Key Metrics and Pacing: How are they pacing to goal and what are their metrics like
- Skill Updates: Call feedback/Call Scorecards.
- Update Questions: Wins, challenges, deal/pipeline updates, and a morale check-in
- Plan of Attack: What's their plan for next week to make progress on the above?
Step Two: The REP Completes This Doc BEFORE The One-on-One
This is where it completely shifts from how most 1-on-1s are run. This doc needs to be filled out before the meeting -- my teams submit their 1-on-1 docs by Friday afternoon.
Why Friday? Because you want your reps coming up with their plan for the week before the week begins.
You want them coming into Monday with a plan.... not creating the plan on Monday.
Notice how this also shifts the ownership and accountability. It’s on the rep to put their calls in, update their metrics, and complete the deal/pipeline questions ahead of time.
The doc should take no more than 25 minutes to complete each week. Why is it worth it?
When you have the "updates" ahead of time, you can have flexibility in the 1-on-1.
If the rep puts a 2 for their energy this week, you know that’s where you need to focus, but you still got all the other updates ahead of time.
Step Three: Ask Forward-Looking Questions
Most questions should be about what is coming up, not what has already happened.
What calls do they have coming up and how are they prepping? What deals are supposed to close and why? What accounts are they targeting and how?
The plan is the most important part, and notice again who’s creating the plan? They are.
This is the opposite of micromanagement. It’s called ‘self’ management.
Step Four: 45 Minutes On, 15 Minutes Off
Here's how you manage your time across 1:1s with your team:
- 45 on, 15 off: Schedule 1:1s for 45 minutes, then give yourself a 15 minute buffer before the next. A full 45-minutes gives plenty of space to cover the doc, do some practice, and agree to next steps for the week.
- Meet on Mon/Tue/Wed afternoon: If you have a team of 10, run 4 on Monday, 4 on Tuesday, 2 on Wednesday. Keep your veteran reps for Wednesday -- they know how to kick off their week and can be given more space
- Review Ahead: Give yourself the space to prep for each 1:1, review the docs, review the plans, make additional comments so when you actually meet, you can dive in even further.
Now that you know how to run a 1:1 that actually creates momentum, solves problems, and moves things forward.
It’s time to talk about the practice sessions inside of those 1-on-1s.
How to Run Practice Roleplays in Sales
Sales is the only high paying career that lets people get away without practicing their craft, day-in and day-out.
Athletes, musicians, artists, doctors, lawyers all have to spend years in school learning their craft, practice it often, and have to maintain their certifications…
Yet the biggest, baddest, boldest of sellers tend to cringe at the thought of practice.
It’s silly. Especially because so many sales people are former athletes, yet when it comes to their careers they don’t give it the same type of attention.
But that’s because most practice sessions don’t actually make their reps better because they're completely unrealistic and poorly run.
Here are the keys to a great practice session.
- Chunk it: We hardly ever practice the entire call, that’s a scrimmage. Practice is focused on the specific skill we are working on: objections, asking for next steps, 2nd layer questions. The ‘call’ is not the skill. Not to use too many sports analogies, but think of the sport or instrument you played. You didn’t practice the game. You practiced left / right hand shots. Backhands / forehands. Upscales / downscales. It's the same for sales.
- High Repetition: Now that you are focused on just a specific skill, in a 20-30 min session you can get 5-10 repetitions of that skill in. THAT is the key. Too often reps get 1 repetition in a role play session, and they never get a repetition after they have gotten feedback.
- One Piece of Feedback Per Repetition: Managers, please stop giving 10-20 pieces of feedback on calls and role plays. One. Yes, I said it, ONE piece of feedback, then have them do it again applying that feedback.
- End on a High: By the end of the this practice session they should be NAILING the skill and your feedback be mostly positive, so end on a high note. Why? How does the rep feel now leaving that session? Positive. Better. Empowered.
Too often managers think telling a rep what to do is coaching, or telling them where to improve is coaching, it is not, that is telling.
Coaching is the doing with feedback. That's the key to true skill development.
So there you go ya’ll -- how to run 1-on-1s and practice sessions.
If you do it right, you can truly transform a rep and an org in 90 days or less.
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If you liked this, I gave away a free sales leadership training video as part of the launch of my Sales Leadership Accelerator program.
This training breaks down BIPSY (Behavior, Individual, Process, Skill, You) -- the coaching framework I used to build multiple $100M+ ARR orgs.
It's 36 minutes long and 100% free. Check it out:
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