How Leyton grew revenue 367% and built a team that keeps getting promoted

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Leyton sales coaching case study at a glance

What coaching challenge was Leyton trying to solve?

Jack Hankey is North of England Sales Director at Leyton, an international consulting firm that helps businesses access financial incentives such as R&D tax credits, capital allowances and grants. His team covers around 60 SDRs and BDs across the UK, mostly graduates with a real eagerness to learn.

Leyton already did a fair amount of coaching. But it was led by the gaps leadership found, not by what reps felt they needed. Jack says:

"We do a fair amount of coaching, personal coaching, but it's around gaps that we find, not necessarily what our people may think they have. So it's more led from what we're uncovering as a leadership or as a coach or a manager."

Performance was going okay, but Jack felt the team was only at the tip of the iceberg. Many people had worked in the industry, or at Leyton, for a long time, which made the team insular. Broadening it up could bring in different methods, models, tones, sales methodologies and prospecting tools.

Jack explains:

"We felt we had this unearthed gem of a sales department. We were only really scratching the surface with it."

There was also a ceiling on what internal leaders alone could deliver. Jack says:

"There's only so much we can do. A manager is there to coach, but also to manage the team. Various other responsibilities come with that."

The team was moving fast too, with reps going from SDR to BD roles and into first-time management, sometimes sooner than expected. Leyton needed coaching that could flex with each individual.

Why Leyton chose external, rep-led sales coaching

Leyton wanted coaching that started from the rep's problems, not the business's. Jack Hankey says:

"The reason we wanted to use an external provider was that it would be rep-led. These are the problems I'm facing. What's your advice? Rather than a manager saying: this is the issue we're seeing, let us fix it."

Leyton looked at the market, but couldn't find the same combination of tools, platform and expert coaches anywhere else. It became a no-brainer for Leyton's Head of Learning and Development, James Swift, to pitch it to the business, and things moved quickly from there.

How MySalesCoach's Sales Coaching Operating System worked for Leyton

Leyton uses three parts of MySalesCoach's Sales Coaching Operating System: 1:1 coaching from external coaches, the MySalesCoach platform for internal coaching from its own senior leaders, and on-site sessions from MySalesCoach experts.

Coaches who have lived the same situations

At the start of the year, Leyton changed its SDR approach from volume to volume with high quality. When reps went to MySalesCoach, the big questions were how to approach the data, how to approach different conversations with bigger businesses, and what sales process and cadence to use.

Jack Hankey says:

"Nine times out of ten, the people coaching our reps from MySalesCoach have lived and breathed that situation before. They're able to give real examples of the successes they had by doing that, but also what they struggled with and how they got over that hurdle."

An external voice that's all about the rep

The biggest feedback Jack hears from his people is the value of an external voice. Leyton has a vast amount of knowledge and experience in its leadership team, but an external coach has no ulterior motive. Jack says:

"The way I'd position it is: it's project Sam, or project Ross. It's not project Ross for Leyton. It's just: this is you, this is what we're going to work towards, this is all going to make you better. There's no ulterior motive around performance. It's purely: let's make you better."

"It just feels like it's all about me and making me better. Just for me."

Why the coach match matters

Jack compares the coach match to football. Jack says:

"If you're a professional footballer and you knew you didn't have a good relationship with that manager, you're probably not going to join that club, even if they're offering you 20 grand more."

"If you don't have that relationship, regardless if the information is the same, you're not going to be as open and receptive to what they're saying, and it might not have the same impact. It might only do 50% of the impact, rather than closer to the 100% mark."

Internal coaching on the MySalesCoach platform

Leyton has also bought the MySalesCoach platform so senior leaders, including Jack, can coach people internally. People can book time with leaders outside their own department. Jack says:

"If you just click a link, you've got I'm free now, click that, coach is free. It takes 30 seconds rather than writing an email."

Writing an email can take a little bit of courage if you haven't built the relationship yet. Removing that step removes a barrier to getting coached.

On-site sessions with MySalesCoach experts

MySalesCoach experts now also come in to deliver two or three hour sessions to groups. MySalesCoach coach Steve Myers ran a session at Leyton's Manchester office, and the team came out calling it one of the best sessions they'd ever had. Leyton plans to use these sessions more, as budget allows.

Onboarding

Jack describes onboarding as really seamless, both bringing coaches into the business and onboarding himself as a coach on the platform. He says MySalesCoach's Laura has been fantastic, always on hand to support the team. Jack says:

"It doesn't really feel like that. Feels like we're in a partnership, working on this together."

What results has Leyton seen from sales coaching?

Revenue is up 367% year-on-year. Sales development exceeded budget last year and is already ahead of budget this year. In the last quarter, 11 of the 14 reps who hit quota were in coaching, and 8 of the 10 top performers were being coached.

Jack Hankey is clear it's a team effort. He says:

"That's not me. That's the whole department working well together, but it's also MySalesCoach supporting our people."

Jack says of managers' time:

"It allowed us to free up a little bit of our managers' time. They could still coach and reinforce what reps had learned from MySalesCoach, but also focus on their other roles and responsibilities."

Promotions: the most tangible evidence

The clearest evidence Jack can point to is promotions. When he sits in promotion interviews, a pattern keeps appearing. Jack says:

"Nine times out of ten, when I look at the name coming into the interview, they've got a mentor with MySalesCoach. Our promotions in sales development have increased, and I would say 75% of those coming through are being coached by MySalesCoach."

Lewis joined as a junior straight out of university, progressed through the SDR team, and got access to MySalesCoach just as he was moving into a 360 BD role with no prior experience of it. Within 12 months he was promoted again. He also picked up BD One to Watch the year before, and SD of the Year before that.

"If you ask Lewis what's one of the key things behind where he is now, I'd be surprised if his MySalesCoach mentor wasn't mentioned within the first two minutes."

Ross had been a leader in the SDR team, then moved into a solo 360 BD role, which Jack describes as daunting for someone who had been purely managing and coaching. After getting access to MySalesCoach, he was one of Leyton's top ten salespeople on revenue generated last year, and is now one of the senior people in the sales function.

"It's not just a year and a half in role. It's the last year where we really saw the trajectory skyrocket with him. And that links back to when he started working with a coach."

A first-time sales manager finding his feet

Sam was promoted into a leadership position sooner than expected. He was already on MySalesCoach, but the conversations shifted to leadership when his role did. Jack says:

"We've all gone into a position and felt like we're in a little bit too deep. It's working out how to swim, how to tread water again, so you feel comfortable."

"Having that sounding board, not his manager, not myself, of someone who has probably been through exactly the same thing. That was the difference."

Jack noticed the change in how Sam operates day to day:

"In the past it would take him a couple of weeks to even ask if we should try something. Now he comes to me and says: the last couple of weeks I've been doing this. That's a huge difference in that person."

Sam also brought new ideas back into the team: different communication styles, and tighter feedback loops with touch points throughout the week rather than a single coaching session with a follow-up a week later. Jack says:

"I'm now rolling those out to the rest of the managers. I'm learning from that side as well."

Tenure: the benefit Leyton didn't expect

Performance was the reason Leyton brought MySalesCoach in. Tenure was the outcome it didn't expect. Jack says:

"The key reason we bought MySalesCoach in was to improve performance. But what we've seen is the tenure piece come in, and it's actually probably one of the biggest benefits we've got now."

People aren't leaving because they've stopped growing. When reps are approached by competitors, coaching is now a factor in whether they stay:

"They might not have MySalesCoach at the business they go to. They might not have access to an external coach. They're seeing the value of that as one of our biggest benefits now."

Jack now puts people on the programme not just to lift performance, but to keep great talent:

"We might put someone on because we don't want to lose them. They're great talent. Let's get them on board with an external coach."

Word has spread inside the business too:

"Now I'm getting people in Manchester who weren't on the programme, asking if they can get on it. They're talking about it amongst themselves. They're telling their peers how good it is, saying if you're not on it, try and get on it."

How long did it take Leyton to see results from coaching?

Leyton's coaching is ongoing, and the results have built over time. Lewis was promoted within 12 months of getting access to MySalesCoach. Ross became one of Leyton's top ten salespeople on revenue within a year and a half of moving into his BD role, with the biggest jump in the last year after he started working with a coach. Revenue is now up 367% year-on-year.

Looking ahead

Leyton has extended how it uses MySalesCoach, adding the platform for internal coaching from its senior leaders and on-site sessions from MySalesCoach experts. It plans to use the on-site sessions more, as budget allows.

What other sales leaders can learn from Leyton

• Rep-led coaching produces different conversations from manager-directed coaching. Reps bring the problems they actually face.
• Reps open up more to an external coach with no stake in their performance review.
• Coaches who have lived the same situations give real examples of what worked and what didn't.
• Coaching is a retention tool as well as a performance tool. People stay where they keep getting better.
• Making coaching easy to book removes the barriers that stop people asking for help.

Jack Hankey's advice to other sales leaders:

"Be open to it. It's really difficult as a sales leader, when you're thinking about using an external provider to support you in what really is a fundamental of our jobs, which is to coach and develop our departments."

"I would say I am good at coaching. But if I can get access to 10, 20, 30 different coaches, not everyone is going to resonate with one person. It doesn't show that you're not good at that part of the job. It actually shows that you have the awareness to know you want to make sure development gets the trajectory you want."

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