This article comes from Kate Philpot’s insightful talk, ‘Sales coaching at Getty Images – a case study’, at our 2024 Paris Sales Enablement Summit, check out her full presentation here.


Ever wondered how a global leader in visual content tackles sales coaching across 23 languages and 22 offices? As the VP of Global Sales Enablement at Getty Images, I've been at the forefront of this challenge, and I'm excited to share our journey with you.

We serve over 800,000 customers globally, with a sales team of nearly 600 people. But my enablement team? We're just seven or eight strong. As you can imagine, that means we have to be pretty ruthless in prioritizing our work!

So in this article, I'll take you through our journey of implementing a sales coaching program, exploring the challenges we faced, what we learned along the way, and how we're scaling our efforts. 

Are you ready to dive in? Let's get started!

The challenge: Old habits die hard

When we started this journey, we faced several challenges that I'm sure many of you can relate to:

  • Employees stuck in old habits

We had people with "many years of experience" - which in some cases was really just the same year of experience repeated many times. 

Just because someone's been around for a while doesn't necessarily mean they're an outstanding commercial operator.

  • Reliance on consistent overachievers

We were falling into the classic 80-20 trap, where 80% of our revenue was coming from 20% of our salespeople. 

This isn't just a problem for the business - it's also unfair to those high achievers who feel they're carrying a disproportionate load.

  • Manager misconceptions

Some managers believed that long tenure equals experience, which equals "my people don't need training or coaching." 

Spoiler alert: that's not always the case!

  • Focus on lagging indicators

We were too focused on whether people were hitting their numbers, without looking at the leading indicators - like the quality and quantity of customer meetings - that drive those results.

  • Impact of remote work

Post-COVID, with more people working from home, managers lost those moments of "spontaneous overhearing" that used to give them insights into their reps' performance.

Given all these challenges, it became clear that we needed a dedicated sales coach. But convincing the business to invest in this role wasn't easy, it took some serious advocacy and a solid business case.

“When coaching doesn’t work, it’s because organizations don’t make it a cultural thing”, Mark Garrett Hayes
Mark Garrett Hayes joins us on the podcast to discuss all things sales enablement & coaching!

Implementing a sales coaching program

In mid-2022, we brought on board a dedicated sales coach. Over the last 18 months, she's been building a coaching practice in our business. Here's how we approached it:

📝 Set the baseline: We needed to understand what our people were actually doing in front of customers. This helped us identify where to focus our efforts.

📈 Develop an improvement program: Based on our baseline, we created a structured program for improvement.

🎯 Prioritize: With one sales coach and nearly 600 sales reps, we had to be strategic about who to focus on first.

🔍 Self-assessment: We asked reps to assess their own capabilities. Interestingly, there was often a big gap between their self-perception and the reality we saw in their customer interactions.

The process we implemented looks like this:

process for implementing a sales coaching program in sales enablement

Sales Enablement Leadership Accelerator | Live Q&A session
Want to find out some more info about our Sales Enablement Leadership Accelerator program before parting with cash?

What we learned along the way

Implementing this program has been a journey of continuous learning. Here are some of our key takeaways:

About our people

Some people found the idea of coaching confronting. Change is challenging, so it was easy for them to say “no” if we didn't make a strong case for why they should say “yes”.

Many senior leaders thought they were already coaching, but what they were actually doing was giving feedback. There's a big difference!

Also, time is always an issue. Managers frequently said they were too busy to coach, so we had to help them understand that developing their people is a fundamental part of their job.

Lastly, experience doesn't equal expertise. We found that even our most experienced reps had room for improvement.

About the implementation

One coach isn't enough. With 170 reps, one sales coach simply can't cover everyone effectively.

Recording calls beats manager attendance and recordings allow for more objective analysis. Though it’s important to remember that different countries have different rules about recording calls, so navigate these carefully.

AI has a place and it can be great for these types of conversations, but it's not a cure-all and they're not a substitute for real coaching conversations.

About the process

To scale the program, we needed to get managers on board and train them to coach effectively, keeping them engaged.

We found that monthly coaching sessions were the minimum effective frequency in terms of cadence, and that top-level support is absolutely crucial.

Our program really took off when our new CRO made it a KPI tied to commission plans.

Also remember that data drives engagement. Being able to provide data on coaching activities and outcomes really helped focus minds.

Building a human-centered global onboarding program | SEC
The experts discussed human-centricity in enablement, why it’s important, and how to build programs that reflect human-centric values.

Scaling the coaching program

As we've evolved our program, we've realized that the key to scaling is to focus on our managers. 

We're now running a coaching program for managers where they record themselves delivering coaching conversations. This has been eye-opening - and in some cases, quite shocking!

We're also working to create a coaching culture throughout the organization. Our new CRO has been instrumental in this, making coaching a KPI tied to commission plans. It's amazing how that focuses minds!

Technology has also played a crucial role in scaling our coaching program. We upgraded to a new learning management system which made it much easier to upload, review, and analyze call recordings. 

Without this, we wouldn't have been able to implement our program as effectively or efficiently.

Conclusion

Implementing a sales coaching program hasn't been easy. It's taken a lot of effort to get people to trust the process and understand that we're not here to criticize, but to help them improve and ultimately earn more commission.

Looking back, it's interesting to note how far we've come. When I started in sales 20 years ago (showing my age here!), coaching was a fundamental part of the job. 

Somehow, over the years, many businesses lost sight of its importance. At Getty Images, we're bringing it back to the forefront of our sales strategy.

If there's one message I want to leave you with, it's this: persevere. Implementing a coaching program takes time, effort, and patience. 

You'll face resistance and setbacks, but if you stick with it, communicate consistently, and demonstrate value, you can create a coaching culture that drives real improvements in sales performance.

Remember, at its core, coaching is about helping your people be the best they can be, and that's not just good for them - it's good for your customers, your business, and ultimately, your bottom line.