How Hive HR scaled coaching without stretching leadership time

Hive HR sales coaching case study at a glance

What coaching challenge was Hive HR trying to solve?

Revenue Director Alan Scott has been with Hive HR for eight years and has more than 15 years of sales leadership experience. He leads the commercial organisation, overseeing new business, account growth and the team responsible for delivering revenue. Hive's commercial team sells primarily into HR Directors, Chief People Officers and People Directors across the mid-market.

Alan says:

"We have intentionally built a lean sales team. If one person's off, the number doesn't get hit. Simple as that."

The focus is clear: improve conversion at every stage of the sales process, continue growing new business and make sure every member of the team keeps developing.

Like many sales leaders, Alan wasn't struggling to identify where his team needed to improve. He was struggling to find the time to coach them properly.

Most of the coaching that happened was centred around live opportunities. Conversations focused on progressing deals, navigating stakeholders and planning next steps. Valuable, but tactical. The deeper development work that builds better salespeople over time was becoming increasingly difficult to prioritise.

Alan puts it simply:

"The urgent kept eating the important."

Several priorities competed for the same limited hours each week:

• Forecasting
• Executive meetings
• Hiring
• Cross-functional projects
• Supporting late-stage opportunities

The result wasn't poor performance. Hive was already performing well. But Alan knew there was more potential to unlock.

He wanted his team to:

• Go deeper in discovery
• Become stronger at protecting price
• Multi-thread earlier
• Consistently execute the fundamentals at a higher level

Alan explains:

"The challenge wasn't knowing what good looked like. It was finding the time to work on those things with every rep, every week."

Why Hive HR chose ongoing sales coaching over traditional sales training

Having experienced traditional sales training many times before, Alan Scott knew the limitations. Workshops created energy and good intentions, but too often the momentum disappeared once everyone returned to their day jobs.

Alan says:

"I needed something ongoing. Personal. Accountable. Not an event."

MySalesCoach offered something fundamentally different. Instead of relying solely on internal leadership capacity, every rep had access to an experienced sales coach who had already done the job themselves. That external relationship created a different kind of conversation.

Alan explains:

"There are things a rep will tell an external coach that they won't always tell their manager. Confidence wobbles, frustrations, areas they want to improve. That honesty accelerates growth."

For Alan, it also meant the responsibility for long-term development no longer sat entirely on his shoulders. He says:

"My team is still being challenged every week. They're still developing. But they're working with someone whose entire job is coaching."

Several aspects of the coaching model stood out:

• Coaches with genuine frontline sales experience
• Careful matching between coach and individual
• A blend of one-to-one coaching, team coaching and specialist expertise
• Practical actions rather than generic theory

How MySalesCoach's Sales Coaching Operating System worked for Hive HR

MySalesCoach's Sales Coaching Operating System pairs teams with experienced external coaches. For Hive HR, that meant ongoing one-to-one and team coaching, enabling continuous development while freeing leaders to focus on the areas where they added the most value.

One-to-one and group coaching together

The one-to-one coaching gives individuals dedicated time to focus on the areas that matter most to them, building trusted relationships with coaches who understand their role and challenges. Alongside this, group coaching sessions help keep the wider team aligned around common skills, behaviours and ways of working.

Winning over the sceptics

Introducing coaching into the business proved straightforward. As with any new initiative, some people embraced it immediately while others were initially sceptical.

Alan Scott says:

"Within a couple of sessions, the skeptics became the biggest advocates. Once they experienced the quality of coaching and started applying things that worked, the buy-in became very real."

Expanding beyond the sales team

Hive HR has worked with MySalesCoach for several years. What began as coaching for the sales team has gradually expanded into other commercial functions, including Account Management, Professional Services and senior leaders.

Alan says:

"If it wasn't delivering value, we wouldn't have expanded it."

Freeing the sales leader to coach live deals

For Alan personally, coaching hasn't necessarily made leadership easier, but it has made it better. He can now focus his own coaching on live commercial opportunities, knowing that individual capability development is happening consistently in the background.

Alan says:

"I'm no longer the single point of failure for everyone's development."

What results has Hive HR seen from sales coaching?

The improvements have been visible across the entire commercial organisation.

Discovery conversations have become more effective, with reps uncovering genuine business problems earlier and moving beyond surface-level questioning. Confidence has improved when handling commercial conversations, particularly around pricing, procurement and stakeholder management, while leaders have introduced more structured coaching, accountability and success planning across their teams.

The commercial results have followed:

• The sales team closed H1 strong, delivering well over 90% of Q2 target and building momentum for the second half of the year.
• SQL targets were exceeded, driven by sharper prospecting and qualification, translating directly into a stronger, more predictable pipeline.
• Customer Success has driven strong retention across the customer base, with expansion revenue from existing accounts consistently offsetting churn, reflecting deepening trust and expanding scope of work with key customers.
• Coaching became the backbone of a more disciplined go-to-market motion, embedding structured success planning, clear accountability, and tighter commercial alignment across the team.

Across the sales process, Hive HR has also seen:

• Higher conversion rates throughout the funnel
• Faster deal progression
• Greater confidence across the team
• Stronger alignment around how the team sells

Alan says:

"Culturally, we're a tightly aligned commercial unit. That's not all MySalesCoach, but MySalesCoach has been a meaningful part of how we got there."

People growing into bigger roles

Beyond the numbers, Alan has seen several members of the team develop into bigger roles, take ownership of increasingly complex commercial conversations and become recognised experts within the business. Coaching has also supported the development of leaders across Hive HR, helping managers adopt more structured coaching, clearer accountability and stronger leadership practices.

Alan says:

"Coaching has absolutely been part of that journey."

How long has Hive HR worked with MySalesCoach?

Hive HR has worked with MySalesCoach for several years, and coaching has expanded from the sales team into Account Management, Professional Services and senior leaders. Buy-in came quickly: within a couple of sessions, the people who were initially sceptical became advocates.

Looking ahead

As Hive HR continues to grow, Alan Scott believes the value of coaching will only increase. He says:

"As we scale, the case for MySalesCoach gets stronger, not weaker."

With more people, more specialist roles and greater organisational complexity, leadership time becomes increasingly stretched. Having trusted external coaches supporting individual development allows leaders to focus where they add the most value, while ensuring capability continues to grow across the business.

What other sales leaders can learn from Hive HR

• Most sales leaders already know what good looks like. The hard part is finding time to coach every rep, every week.
• One-off training creates energy, but the momentum fades once people return to their day jobs. Ongoing coaching keeps development moving.
• Reps often tell an external coach things they won't tell their manager, and that honesty speeds up growth.
• One-to-one coaching builds individual capability, while group sessions keep the wider team aligned on how it sells.
• External coaching lets leaders focus their own time on live deals, instead of being the single point of failure for everyone's development.

Alan Scott's advice to other sales leaders is straightforward:

"Stop trying to be everything to everyone on your team. You can't out-coach the time you don't have. The cost of under-coached reps is far bigger than the cost of giving them expert support."

"For any leader who genuinely wants their team developing every week, not just trained once a quarter, this is the model that works."

Frequently asked questions