Jonathan Farrington Interviews Sales Coaching Expert and author of Crushing Quota, Vantage Point CEO, Michelle Vazzana.
JF: I understand you’ve just published Crushing Quota, Proven Sales Coaching Tactics for Breakthrough Performance. Tell me how this relates to your prior bestselling book, Cracking the Sales Management Code.
MV: Cracking the Sales Management Code was our blueprint for how to use metrics to manage the sales force. We defined how to create clarity for salespeople and how to use data to manage performance. Cracking the Sales Management Code is not a coaching book. Crushing Quota is. It’s an operating manual for sales managers who want to coach in ways that get more salespeople to quota.
JF: How is Crushing Quota different from the multitude of other coaching books on the market?
MV: Firstly, it is the result of two multiyear research projects into the coaching practices of high performing sales managers. It’s based on science, not anecdote. We went into the research with an open mind and were quite surprised by some of our findings. I’ll tell you more about that in a few minutes.
Secondly, Crushing Quota makes sales coaching tangible and executable. Many other sales coaching books either focus very narrowly on conducting better coaching conversations or are so broad that they attempt to cover all tasks within the sales managers purview. Crushing Quota does an incredibly deep dive into the critical decisions a sales manager must make to coach their salespeople to quota attainment.