COACHING
Coaching:
It’ s An Ongoing Process
“ NOTHING IN THE WORLD
CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF PERSISTENCE. TALENT WILL NOT; NOTHING IS MORE COMMON THAN UNSUCCESSFUL MEN
WITH TALENT. GENIUS WILL NOT; UNREWARDED GENIUS IS ALMOST A PROVERB. EDUCATION WILL NOT; THE
WORLD IS FULL OF EDUCATED DERELICTS. PERSISTENCE AND DETERMINATION
ALONE ARE OMNIPOTENT.”
- CALVIN COOLIDGE
Teams win championships, not coaches or star players. What are you doing to build each salesperson into a stronger performer and a more valuable contributor to your sales team?
Our goal here is to enhance your effectiveness as a builder of strong salespeople. You can coach them to success!
Our job as sales leaders is not to grow sales— our job is to grow salespeople. And then it’ s their job to grow sales.
While it is true that our success is ultimately measured on sales levels, we personally aren’ t going to make that happen. Our job, then, is to help salespeople be better at what they do. We need to coach them.
By coaching, we are talking about field coaching: hands-on and in competitive situations. Like the impact a basketball coach has during the game rather than after the contest.
While the“ after the game” sales meeting is important, it’ s working in the field with salespeople that provides us our greatest opportunity for coaching. Here are three kinds of field calls a sales leader can make with salespeople:
1) Training call- Here the sales manager takes the lead during the call to show how it should be done. Other than being introduced to the prospect or client, the salesperson is essentially a silent observer. After demonstrating“ how-to,” the sales leader debriefs the salesperson after each call.“ What went right” and“ What went wrong” are thoroughly discussed so that the salesperson can see the dynamics involved.
2) Joint call- A sales manager and salesperson both participate in these calls. Each person contributes appropriately. Often these calls are used in reestablishing a relationship or introducing the sales leader to customers.
Joint calls also are effective for gathering information about market activity, the competition, and customer wants and needs. How well your company is meeting those needs can be ascertained on a joint call.
3) Coaching call- In these instances, the sales leader plays the role of an observer and the salesperson conducts the call. The introduction of the manager usually should be done in a low-key manner. If he or she is unknown to the prospect, simply introduce the manager as an associate of the salesperson.
On coaching calls, the sales manager learns the most about how a salesperson performs on his or her day-to-day calls. As a result, it is where the sales leader can offer the most help. But that is true only if the coaching call is conducted properly. Often that is tough for the sales leader to do. Even if the sales person is“ blowing
20