The Elephant in the Room: How Bite-Sized Sales Coaching Drives Big Results

Q: How Do You Eat an Elephant?
A. One Small Bite at a Time!

It’s a classic riddle with a lesson tucked inside. When it comes to improving field training and sales coaching, the same principle applies. Big results don’t require big overhauls—they start with small, intentional tweaks. 

Ready to take the first bite? Let’s go. 

Introduction 

Over many years, I’ve been training managers to coach across various industries, conducting 16 Top Performer Analyses (TPAs) along the way. Through this experience, I’ve identified a key challenge that often holds managers back: the tendency to try to coach too many things at once. 

When a manager attempts to address multiple skills in a single session, it can overwhelm the salesperson. Instead of fostering growth, this approach often leads to ineffective coaching, leaving the rep unsure of what to focus on. 

In this post, I’ll share some common patterns I’ve observed that prevent coaching success—and how breaking down complex skills into manageable pieces (just like eating an elephant one bite at a time) can make a big difference in coaching effectiveness. 

One Bite at a Time: The Problem with Overloading 

Many managers feel the pressure to tackle all improvement areas in a single session—mindsets, behaviors, communication skills, selling strategies, and more. Whether it’s a large task with many steps or a broad set of skills, this scattergun approach often results in nothing being fully addressed. Reps walk away overwhelmed, unsure of where to focus or even where to start. It’s like trying to eat an entire elephant in one gulp—impossible to do, hard to digest, and ultimately ineffective. 

Research on performance improvement shows that learning is most effective when it’s focused, incremental, and reinforced. Narrowing the focus to one specific skill or behavior per session allows the salesperson to fully grasp, practice, and build that skill until it’s second nature. It’s like taking one small, manageable “bite” of the elephant at a time.. 

Some of the ineffective patterns I have seen regularly for years include:  

• Overloading Reps with Too Many Focus Areas 
  Managers often try to address multiple skills or behaviors simultaneously, which can overwhelm sales reps and dilute their focus. 
• Neglecting Skill Focus 
  Instead of zeroing in on specific skills, managers tend to emphasize high-level behaviors, instructing reps on what to do without digging into the “why,” “how,” or “how well.” 
• Skipping Understanding Checks 
  Managers sometimes fail to verify understanding, assuming reps grasp concepts when they may need additional clarification. 
• Lacking Follow-Through 
  There is often insufficient follow-up to ensure that the coaching is being applied effectively and achieving the desired results. 

Deliberate Practice + Chunk, Sequence, & Layer 

To address these patterns, I recommend two powerful approaches: 

• Deliberate Practice: This involves focusing on skill improvement through intentional, structured practice (role play) with feedback loops and reruns (redoing the practice to incorporate the feedback). To do Deliberate Practice you Identify specific skills that need improvement, break down each skill into smaller, manageable tasks, practice these tasks repeatedly and with intention, provide immediate feedback to refine and improve performance. 
• Chunk, Sequence, and Layer: This instructional design principle enhances learning retention and application. Start by “chunking” related skills or information together, arranging them in a logical learning sequence. As each chunk is mastered, “layer” new chunks on top, building on previous skills for a cumulative learning effect.  

Basically, you practice and master each chunk deliberately and then start to put the chunks together.  

Example: Running Sales Meetings Effectively 

Let’s take the example of a salesperson needing to run sales meetings more effectively. This is a broad skill that can be overwhelming to tackle all at once. By breaking it into smaller steps, the salesperson can focus on one aspect at a time, gradually building up their competence. 

Set Up  

Let’s imagine a Sales Manager and her Salesperson have been meeting for a while, and the manager has:  

• Set the Stage (why are they meeting, what will they be doing, how long they’ll be doing it) 
• Led the Performance Analysis Discussion (figuring out what needs the most improvement) 
• And they’ve Explored Solution Options and Agreed that the Salesperson needs to open and run meetings more purposefully.  

For the solution, while the Salesperson needs help with running the entire meeting more effectively, they agreed to start with how to open a meeting in a more purposeful way. The Salesperson hasn’t used a meeting opener like the Manager recommends before, so he needs training to know What, Why, and How to do it. For this example, we’ll assume the Manager has explained Why it’s important, and we’ll begin the example with the Manager using the Field Training Model (Tell, Show, Do, and Review) and demonstrating the Tell and Show steps with Understanding Checks. 

Opening the Meeting 

[START Example] 

Sales Manager: [TELL] “The most effective way to open a meeting is to share the meeting Purpose – or why you’re meeting, your Objectives – or what you want to accomplish, your Plan to do that, and especially, the value that your customer will get out of it. Then you end with a simple check and ask if there’s anything else they hoped to accomplish. So, it’s Purpose, Objectives, Plan, Value, and Check. Does that make sense?” 

Salesperson: “Yes, I like that.” 

Sales Manager: [UNDERSTANDING CHECK] “Great. Now, just to ensure I’ve been clear, and to help cement it in your mind, would you summarize that back to me?” 

Salesperson: “Uh, okay. I need to start with a purpose, a plan, and tell them what they’ll get out of the meeting, and then check if that’s okay.” 

Sales Manager: “Very close. That’s great for just hearing it once. Any idea what you missed?” 

Salesperson: “Sorry, no.” 

Sales Manager: “That’s fine. You missed Objectives. You share the Purpose, Objectives, Plan, and Value – from the customer’s perspective, and the Check also includes asking if there’s anything else they want to accomplish. If it helps, that’s POP… P-O-P Value Check, for Purpose, Objectives, Plan, Value, and Check.” 

Salesperson: “Okay. POP Value Check. That should help.” 

Sales Manager: “I thought it might. So, try again – summarize it completely.” 

Salesperson: “It’s POP Value Check. Or the meeting purpose, the objectives, the plan, and the value, ending with a check to see if they’d like to cover anything else.” 

Sales Manager: “Great job! And for the value, from whose perspective?” 

Salesperson: “From theirs – my customer.” 

Sales Manager: “Perfect. Would it help to hear an example?” 

Salesperson: “Yeah, I think it would.” 

Sales Manager: “Here’s how I would do it.  

[SHOW] “[Name], thanks for meeting with me. Today, I want to discuss our partnership and help you get the most out of it. Specifically, how to improve the profitability of your operation. To do that, I want to share what some of our other customers are doing to maximize both our relationship and their profitability, and then tie it to what you’re doing here at your company, so you can see the same kind of growth.  

First, does that seem like a good plan for you, [Name]? And, second, is there anything else you were hoping we’d talk about today?” 

Salesperson: “Wow, that’s good.” 

Sales Manager: “Thanks. I’ve had a lot of practice. [UNDERSTANDING CHECK] And speaking of practice, that’s what you really need to do, so you can do it like that with your customers. Want to give it a try?” 

Salesperson: “I’m not sure I can do it like that yet, but I’ll try.” 

Sales Manager: “Great. I don’t expect perfection on your first try. We’re practicing, right? And look – I’ve made you a cheat sheet. Here… you don’t have to say these words exactly, but you can use this as a guide while we’re practicing, until you don’t need it anymore. Ready to try?” 

Salesperson: “Okay, let’s do it.” (Salesperson continues…) 

[END Example] 

Next Steps with Our Example 

There is obviously a lot involved with running an effective meeting, even after a great opening. If the Salesperson needs help improving sales meeting management skills, the same concepts of Deliberate Practice with feedback and reruns, along with Chunk, Sequence, and Layer, will help.  

This is what musicians, dancers, actors, Olympians, sports pros, and almost all performance-oriented professions do. (Except, of course, sales professionals. Until now, that is.)  

It works. 

To continue with additional meeting management training in our example, something I’ve done in the past is to lay out the major steps of the meeting, one-by-one. Then, have the Salesperson work on the messaging (sometimes I call this “the words that work” or “starter words”) to start and end each section, and transition smoothly to the next.  

• Start 
• End/Summary 
• Transition 

This helps the Salesperson with effective messaging for the meeting structure. Then, if it turns out they need help in-between the start and end of each section, with the “meat” of the section, the Manager can take it section-by-section and role play those (as needed).  

Some things are tougher to do this way, with a complex skill like meeting management, but it’s possible to get close. One problem I see a lot in sales meetings, is poor time management. Salespeople don’t often: 

• Use Parking Lots (to “park” topics outside the agenda, to come back to them later)
•  Redirect conversations back on track, to stay on point 
• Check-in with attendees when time is running short to determine how to best proceed 
• Summarize decisions, open issues, action items, and set the next meeting during the current one 

Or generally use best-practice meeting facilitation skills, often because they aren’t trained in them (go figure). If this is a challenge for your sellers, you can send someone to meeting facilitation training, as well as training them yourself and coaching to the new skills, on your own.  

Closing Thoughts 

Effective coaching means breaking down complex skills into manageable, bite-sized chunks, reinforcing each one through deliberate practice. When managers narrow their coaching focus and apply the Chunk, Sequence, and Layer method—with deliberate practice, feedback loops, and reruns—they create a learning process that drives skill mastery and gradual improvement. This approach also takes the mental load off salespeople, helping them build confidence and competence one step at a time. 

I know it seems like this is more work. And truthfully, it IS a front-loaded process, much like good discovery when selling. But here’s the catch: coaching this way actually saves hours of wasted effort—no more repeating the same points without seeing real changes in behavior or performance. The investment you make upfront pays off in faster results and less frustration. 

Think of it like this: Just as Olympic athletes and performers rely on these methods to achieve peak performance, sales managers can use similar techniques to elevate their team’s effectiveness. The result? A stronger, more self-assured team equipped to deliver impactful results.  

Remember, coaching is not about achieving perfection in one session, but about nurturing steady progress that compounds over time. So, the next time you’re coaching, consider asking yourself, “What’s the next small bite that will move the needle?” With this mindset, you’ll build a culture of continuous improvement, empowering your team to succeed. 

You can read Mike’s original post here.  

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