Coaching creates wisdom. Coaching is one of the four hats of leadership and you're going to spend anywhere from twenty to thirty percent of your time as a coach.
Coaching is about assisting someone on your team with self-discovery not telling them what they should or shouldn’t do. Be a doctor of sales. When you walk into a doctor's office, they don't tell you what your problem is, the patient describes the problem so that the doctor can identify it. And the doctor asks good questions to better understand all the hurts that they're experiencing before they got here.
The same thing holds true with a salesperson. When they meet for coaching, they're painting a picture of a call or a scenario. Don't jump in. Don't fix it. Have patience and ask good questions. Use your questioning skills to better understand what the scenario was and what maybe could they have done differently. The idea is not to give them an answer but rather guide them through a process where they self-discover the answer.
Coaching is a journey. Set a road map by identifying the top 10 sales behaviors for your sales team and note where people are today and where they should be. As an example, one sales person might be a two when it comes to prospecting. Coaching them to a ten might be unrealistic. But could they improve to a six in 12 months? Have a designation for each person on the team and area of focus for your coaching to help them improve in a specific skill set.
After setting a map, it’s important to gauge the impact of your coaching. What does a six mean to that individuals prospecting results and what does that do to their book of business? What does that do to your corporate goal? What does that do to your personal goal?
Coaching is based on trust, respect, and confidence and conviction. When well executed, coaching is an energizing experience because the sales leader is showing a genuine interest in each member of the team. Rather than lecturing the team on what they’ve done wrong, coaching becomes a process of instructing them on how to succeed and tangibly demonstrates that their leader is looking after their best interests.
Coaching’s ultimate goal is to help your people to be self-sufficient. When your people can connect dots and operate within the framework supplied during coaching, the sales leader is a coaching success.
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Only the best sales reps can consistently navigate the "last mile" of the sale. They ensure ahead of time, that the customer has a problem their solution can solve, a budget they are willing to spend, and a decision-making process within which they can succeed. |
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