Use a top-down and bottom-up framework for coaching

  • 30 June 2021
  • 2 replies
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Use a top-down and bottom-up framework for coaching
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The key to coaching is to promote critical thinking. I use two types of coaching to do this: top-down and bottom-up.

 

Top-down coaching

This involves a manager or a higher up providing feedback to a rep, like listening to a call (or a snippet!) and leaving a coaching comment. It doesn't take a huge amount of time, but it moves the coaching needle forward.

Bottom-up coaching

This is a more reflective process for reps. I have my team members provide feedback about one of their calls before I leave my own comments. I then schedule a follow-up call with that team member to review the call in depth, together

 

Pro tips: 

If you're an individual contributor, take charge of your own development by tagging your manager on calls with questions. What did I do well here? Where are my opportunities for improvement? Don't forget to provide your own feedback to those questions as a first step!

If you're a manager, when you get tagged on a call, prioritize it and remember that it's a golden opportunity to develop your team and achieve your talent development goals.

 

Watch this video in the Academy. 


2 replies

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Love this @Chris Orlob-

Agree creating the space for feedback to flow early and often is crucial. Gong has really helped accelerate this for us. 

To get in to a rhythm, we started with reps and managers tagging just one snippet or call per week…  From there we layered in trackers for more targeted coaching. 

Our coaches also like the element of ‘positive surprise’, celebrating library-worthy examples in front of the team as reinforcement of the bottom-up and top-down approaches taking place in 1:1s.

Are there any other insights Gong has developed around critical thinking in top performing sales teams?

@Mike Cardno I love the positive surprise! What an awesome idea!

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