The Future of Sales Coaching:
How AI + Human Expertise Maximize Performance
As AI continues to transform the sales landscape, sales coaching is evolving too. This session dives into the balance between AI-driven sales coaching and the essential human-side of coaching. We’ll explore how AI can automate routine tasks, uncover critical insights, and prepare sales reps for more meaningful one-on-one conversations with their managers.
With AI handling data analysis and pattern recognition, managers can focus on the human aspects of sales coaching—empathy, career guidance, and personal growth.
You’ll learn how to:
– Enable continuous self-improvement
– Maximize every coaching engagement
– Automate development and scale business impact
In this on-demand webinar, Julie Hansen, Executive Sales Performance Coach and Award-Winning Author and Deniz Olcay, VP of Marketing at Allego, to learn how to integrate AI into your sales coaching, and best practices to shift to deeper, more impactful coaching sessions that enhance rep development and accelerate career success.
Watch On-demand!
Our Sales Coaching Speakers:
Julie Hansen, Executive Sales Performance Coach and Award-Winning Author
Julie Hansen is a renowned expert in enhancing virtual sales performance and executive presence. Through her innovative coaching and training programs, sales organizations have seen an average 65% improvement in credibility, executive presence and engagement metrics.
A trailblazer in video-based sales techniques, Julie’s book “Look Me In The Eye: Using Video to Build Relationships” was recognized as the Top Sales Book of 2021. From Virtual Executive Presence Assessments, to Executive Coaching and Sales Performance Workshops, her unique methodology draws from a successful sales career and performance in over 75 commercial, film, and television productions, enabling sales leaders and professionals to forge stronger connections, drive engagement, and close more deals in virtual environments.
Deniz Olcay, VP of Marketing at Allego
Deniz has had a sales-centric background from the start, including working in the sales training industry at RAIN Group where he was directly responsible for creating learning programs to help sellers sell more effectively.
In his previous role at Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) he was the VP of Product Marketing, managing a portfolio of 12+ products representing over $650M in annual revenue. He played a pivotal role in training a 500+ person sales team and is intimately familiar with the challenges of arming sellers with the knowledge and tools to be successful in selling virtually.
More information about this session:
Sales Coaching with AI
There’s a phrase out there, treat tech as your teammate. And AI has become a very strong teammate, especially for sales leaders and sales coaches.
At Allego we recently conducted a survey on How AI Is Shaping the Future of Revenue Enablement, just this past April. We surveyed about 310 revenue enablement leaders across North America and EMEA. We asked them some questions about how they are using AI in their sales enablement and readiness efforts. And interestingly enough, the number one use case was sales coaching followed by sales call analysis. Those two use cases are where we’re seeing the most development, the most hype, and the most value-added capabilities for customers across the globe. The research concluded that 62% of sales leaders currently using generative AI tools to enhance their sales success.
You might be on the fence about leveraging in your sales and marketing efforts. But certainly as part of this study, we were quite surprised to learn that sales coaching and sales call analysis are the top priorities. I think there’s tons of opportunities for managers to help save time and be more effective in developmental coaching efforts.
Effective sales coaching can significantly impact performance. A Gartner study shows that good coaching can boost sales performance by up to 8%. Yet, most managers only spend about 30 minutes a week on sales coaching, which isn’t enough. How do we fix this? We often hear, “I don’t have enough time to coach.” But sales coaching shouldn’t be a reactive, last-minute activity. Instead, it needs to be proactive, helping sales reps develop skills consistently. Sales coaching is essential, but many managers fall into the trap of simply giving feedback or telling their reps what to do, rather than guiding them to develop their own solutions. One quote that stands out to me is from the Harvard Business Review: “Telling people how we think they should improve actually hinders their learning.” We need to shift to a more developmental approach in sales coaching. Sales coaching isn’t about giving quick fixes; it’s about helping reps observe their own behaviors and figure out improvements themselves. It’s about making sales coaching a structured, ongoing process. We all know that effective coaching gets B-players to perform like A-players. But how do we make this happen at scale?
The Role of AI in Sales Coaching
AI can enhance sales coaching by providing automated feedback, generating learning recommendations, and simulating real-life sales scenarios for practice. These tools allow sales coaching to be more consistent and personalized across larger teams. For example, AI can analyze sales calls and automatically identify areas for improvement, providing objective feedback that managers can use to guide their sales coaching sessions. It also helps with real-time learning recommendations. AI looks at the performance of a rep and suggests personalized content or exercises to help them improve specific skills, like objection handling or needs discovery. AI can take on the task of delivering feedback, allowing managers to spend more time on high-impact, one-on-one sales coaching sessions. It also reduces the emotional element. When feedback is delivered by AI, reps are often more receptive because it feels less personal and more data-driven.
Another area where AI shines is in creating practice environments for sales coaching. Reps can now simulate real sales calls in a safe environment, without the pressure of performing in front of their peers or managers. AI-driven simulations allow reps to refine their skills in a way that’s cost-effective and scalable. With AI, reps can practice over and over again until they get it right. This helps them build confidence before they face real customers. AI-generated simulations are another powerful tool that can complement traditional sales coaching. After each simulation, AI provides feedback, scoring the rep’s performance on key skills like value articulation, objection handling, or closing.
What’s great is that AI isn’t just for practice; it can also score live calls. After a sales call, AI provides immediate feedback, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement. This gives reps the chance to review and adjust their performance while the conversation is still fresh in their minds. Then, during live sales coaching sessions, managers can focus on developing deeper skills, using the AI data to guide those conversations.
AI + Human Sales Coaching
To really maximize performance, we need a blend of AI and human sales coaching. AI handles the data, feedback, and repetitive practice, while managers bring the emotional intelligence, empathy, and strategic guidance that AI can’t provide. AI can’t replace the human connection that great sales coaching requires. The best coaches are those who can build trust, motivate their reps, and offer personalized advice. AI helps us streamline processes and gather insights, but it’s the human element that really makes sales coaching impactful.
One of Allego’s customers, a global software company, uses AI to automatically evaluate and score sales calls. Their sales managers now focus their sales coaching sessions on higher-level skills like strategic account planning, because the AI is handling much of the tactical feedback. This frees up their time and ensures that every rep gets personalized, objective feedback.
AI is also great at generating learning recommendations. Based on a rep’s performance, AI can suggest tailored learning paths, helping them improve specific skills without the need for a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s not just about fixing problems. AI helps managers identify what’s working well in their team’s sales approach. By analyzing the performance of top reps, AI can share best practices with the entire team, creating a more efficient and scalable sales coaching program.
AI is transforming the way we approach sales coaching, but it’s not a replacement for human insight. The best approach is a blend of both, using AI for feedback, simulations, and learning recommendations, while leveraging human coaches to build trust, motivation, and strategic thinking. By integrating AI into your sales coaching program, you can make coaching more scalable, personalized, and effective. But don’t forget the human touch. AI is a tool, and it works best when combined with the expertise of a skilled sales coach.
It’s exciting to see how AI can take sales coaching to the next level. For sales leaders, the future is about finding the right balance between technology and human connection to drive performance and build stronger teams.
