Who does the coaching?

Who does the coaching at your place?

A major mistake that business owners and managers make is that of not coaching their salespeople. While this is especially true in respect of new salespeople it also applies to salespeople with experience. If coaching is so important, and failure to do so costly, why is this mistake made so often?

It is because we assume that, when a salesperson says they know something they will also do it. In the words of the song “It ain’t necessarily so”.

To understand that knowing and doing don’t always go together we need only to look in a mirror. How often do we not do things that we know we should do, or do things that we know we shouldn’t do? It’s basic human behaviour. But why? And how can the answer help us to help our salespeople perform better?

Knowing but not doing is caused by a lack of self-discipline. It follows then that, if a salesperson doesn’t have the necessary self-discipline, the discipline must come from an outside source. Business owners and managers must accept the challenge of being that outside source and work on, over time, helping the salesperson develop self-discipline. This is a key part of sales coaching.

Put another way, business owners and managers must accept the Sales Coaches’ key responsibility of making their salespeople work effectively.

The following tips will help you do a better job of coaching inexperienced salespeople; you will also get some ideas for use with experienced people.

Firstly, decide how you want things done in the sales function of Your Business and publish clear expectations in areas like
- prospecting sources and technique
- approach technique
- qualifying practices
- presentation/demonstration structure
- work effort and activity levels
- Time Management, especially the use of To Do Lists and a Diary.

Secondly, inspect what you expect. While you do this keep a close eye on
- what is being said during the four critical sales steps; the Approach, the Qualifying, the Presentation/demonstration and the Close?
- how is it being said?
- how often is it being said?
- to whom is it being said?

Let’s look at each in order.

What is being said in the Approach, Qualifying, Presentation/demonstration and Close?

The Coach has the responsibility of ensuring that their sales team has access to the best and most useful sales material affordable. This includes approach and other sales scripts that work. The Coach must then provide plenty of drill in the use of these scripts to ensure that the salesperson knows what to say and how to say it under the pressure of a real life sales situation.

The Coach chooses the scripts to be followed and shouldn’t allow any alterations to be made by the salesperson. If a better way is identified then that ‘better way’ must be adopted as the standard.

In particular, remember that lots of sales are lost because the salesperson either doesn’t Close or Closes clumsily. This means that Closing must be practised until it is seamless.

How is it being said?

This is about style, tone and tempo. Is the salesperson conversing with the customer confidently and persuasively? Or is their performance lacklustre and unconvincing?

The best way to find out the answers to these questions is to observe the salesperson in real life sales situations. This means that the Coach sets aside time on a regular basis to observe the salesperson in the field. Sometimes the Coach should do the presenting; thus giving the salesperson a valuable opportunity to ‘learn by observing’.

How often is it being said?

This is about activity levels. Some salespeople fail solely through lack of activity. If activity levels are to be monitored the Coach must insist that the salesperson keep accurate records of units of activity like numbers of Calls Made (or Received), Sales Appointments Secured, Sales Appointments Conducted, Asked to Buys, Sales Made (and their $ value).

If these records are kept a lack of activity can be spotted early; it can then be fixed before too much damage is done.

At the end of each week this information should be entered on a spreadsheet set up to calculate key ratios such as Average Calls per Sale, Average Asked to Buys per Sale and Average $ value per Sale. These are the Coach’s match stats; they help pinpoint opportunities for improvement.

Who are they saying it to?

Some salespeople struggle because they waste too much time on poor quality prospects. It is the Coach’s responsibility to prevent this from happening by assisting a new salesperson to prepare profiles of 2 or 3 ‘prime prospect’ groups and then insist that the salesperson maintain focus on those groups.

For example, in the Business-to-Business market prime prospect groups could be described by Industry sector, location of Head Office and number of employees

The Coach then needs to show the salesperson how to locate such prospects and how to Qualify them properly.

Additional prospect groups can be added to the mix as the salesperson develops.

A final point

If all this seems to be too much trouble, remember that a poorly performing salesperson is costly. They’ll eventually leave and you’ll have to do it all over again. Why not strive to get it right from the start?


(The up-coming post for Friday is Sell more with a Concerns Menu. It's about a little-used but very effective sales aid.)