Sales coaching plan: a template and a weekly cadence

Without a plan, sales coaching happens when there's time, which means it happens to whichever rep has the loudest problem that week. A coaching plan fixes that. It's a one-page document for each rep that names one skill, the evidence behind it, how it will be practiced and when you'll check progress, plus a calendar that makes sure coaching reaches everyone. This post gives you the template, a filled-in example, a way to choose the focus and a weekly, monthly and quarterly cadence.

It covers the plan and the calendar, not what to say in the room. For that, see sales coaching questions for your 1:1s and effective sales coaching techniques.

What a sales coaching plan is, and isn't

A sales coaching plan is a short written agreement between you and a rep about one skill to improve over a set period: how it will be practiced and how you'll both know it's working. Writing it down does three things. It forces you to pick one skill instead of five, it makes the practice concrete, and it gives the next 1:1 a starting point.

• It isn't a performance improvement plan. A formal plan with consequences has a different purpose. If the two look alike, reps treat every coaching conversation as a warning.
• It isn't a list of everything wrong. One skill at a time. The rest can wait for the next cycle.
• It isn't only for struggling reps. Every rep has one, including your best. That's what makes it normal.

The one-page template

Copy these fields into a document for each rep. If a plan runs past one page, it's trying to do too much.

A filled-in example

Here's the template completed for a fictional account executive. Notice how specific the focus skill is, and that the practice assignment targets one moment in the call rather than "closing" in general.

How to choose the focus skill

The focus skill is the most important line in the plan. A few rules make it easier to get right:

• Look for a pattern, not a bad call. One rough call is noise. The same scorecard criterion slipping across several calls is a pattern.
• Fix the earliest problem first. If discovery is thin, the close will struggle too, because the rep has nothing to anchor the next step to. Coach upstream.
• Name it as a behavior. "Asks a follow-up question before moving on" is coachable. "Better discovery" isn't, because neither of you can tell when it's done.
• Ask the rep first. "What do you think is holding your deals back?" Often they already know, and a skill they chose gets practiced.
• Use one standard. Pick the skill from the same scorecard you use on every call, so the plan and your call reviews speak the same language. The sales call scorecard template is a good base.

The coaching cadence

A plan without a calendar turns into a document nobody opens. This rhythm keeps it alive without taking over your week:

Before you commit to it, do the arithmetic. Multiply the number of reps by the time each rhythm takes and see whether the total fits in your week. If it doesn't, shorten the sessions before you skip anyone. A 20-minute 1:1 that always happens beats a 60-minute one that keeps moving.

From individual plans to a team plan

Put everyone's focus skill on one grid and patterns jump out. When several reps share a focus, coach it once as a team, for example with a roleplay in your weekly meeting, instead of repeating the same point in every 1:1. Pair reps where one's strength is another's focus.

In this grid, objection handling is the focus for three reps, so it becomes next month's team session, and Rep D, strong on next steps, is a natural practice partner for Rep E. How to run a sales roleplay covers the session itself.

Tracking progress without drowning in data

Two measures per plan is enough, and one line of notes per check-in.

• Leading measure: the scorecard criterion for the focus skill, on practice calls first and real calls after. It moves within weeks, so it tells you whether the practice is working.
• Lagging measure: the stage conversion or outcome the skill should affect, such as first meetings that turn into second meetings, or win rate for later-stage skills. It moves slowly and depends on more than one skill, so read it over a quarter.

The leading measure is only useful if you can see calls without sitting in on all of them. From Vonvo's Growth plan you manage the team in one workspace with shared credits, and reps share the calls worth discussing to a team library, with the transcript and scorecard alongside, so you prepare the 1:1 from the call itself. The scenario builder, included from Starter, lets you turn the practice assignment into a custom scenario that reps run in that workspace, and from Professional reps can run real calls through Vonvo's live coaching on Microsoft Teams, which are scored the same way as practice. Sales coaching for teams shows how it fits together.

When the plan isn't working

If the leading measure hasn't moved after a few weeks, work through these in order:

1. Did the practice happen? Check before you diagnose anything else. If it didn't, find out why, because the reason is usually time or clarity, and both are fixable.
2. Is the target observable? If you can't tell from a call whether the behavior happened, rewrite it until you can.
3. Is it the right skill? A stubborn closing problem is sometimes a discovery problem in disguise. Move upstream.
4. Change the practice before the skill. Shorter, more frequent repetitions on a narrower moment often work where a broad assignment didn't.
5. Is it skill or will? If the rep can do it in practice but won't on real calls, that's a different conversation, and not one a coaching plan can have for you.

Frequently asked questions