The Sales Manager as a Coach
Have you ever watched a professional sports coach working with a player? It's a hands-on event. The coach is actively involved in the process. There is pushing, directing, handling, pointing and instructing. Coaching may be a teaching process, but it's more than just teaching.
Sports and sales are learned in the field, and they are best taught by a coach who has experienced the event in the field. For instance, a teacher could conduct a tennis class with a text, slides, film clips and overheads, but it would take a coach to show the player how to serve and volley. Until the player hits the courts, everything is theory. It's the same with sales.
Selling skills, as well as most sports skills, are acquired through information, practice, follow-up instruction and hands-on coaching. Selling coaches understand this and become professionals at the skill of coaching. And while most successful coaches have field experience, the best players do not always make the best coaches.
The committed sales manager is a selling coach. His or her goal is to help others improve their competence and, ultimately, their confidence at performing critical selling skills.
The Coaching Process
To bring about genuine performance improvement, the coach needs to follow a predictable process. It is a process you need to learn and practice in order to use effectively.
Here are the essential rules of coaching:
1. Set expectations
Clearly and simply state your goals for each coaching session. For example:
"Today, Marie, we are going to focus on qualifying your prospect."
If you believe the salesperson needs the information, it may be desirable to explain why the skill is important, or why you are repeating a coaching session on this particular skill. Focus on just one or two skills. It is easy to confuse and frustrate people who begin to feel they can't do anything right.
2. Confirm knowledge
The coach needs to confirm that the salesperson understands the skills needed to meet the expectation. Does the salesperson have the knowledge necessary to perform? Can she recognize a customer need and grasp how that need can be solved by the vehicle you are selling? Does she know how to construct an effective qualifying session? Can she build an open-ended question based on a customer's comment? Ask her to give you some examples of good qualifying questions.
If she cannot perform these skills, coaching and teaching needs to begin in the training room. There is no sense in setting the salesperson up for confidence-breaking failure just to prove a point.
3. Observe performance
Once you are certain the salesperson understands the concepts and knows how to perform the skill, you are ready to observe performance on the showroom floor and evaluate the salesperson's ability. You should overlook minor skill problems that occur in the process. Make a note of problems when you observe them and correct them later. Remember, it is always best to stay focused on a narrow set of skills that relate to the expectations you established.
Observe to determine her ability to recognize the selling situation correctly. Does she understand what to do? Is it executed properly? Does she demonstrate confidence? A good coach is concerned with identifying and coaching Marie for long-term results. This is actually more important than the outcome of the qualifying session.
Please remember, the coach cannot go to bat for the player, even if he or she recognizes that the player is going to strike out. It's a hard lesson, and the coach must often bite his or her lip. But the player will never learn to hit a curve ball if the coach keeps taking the bat away.
4. Coach the skill
Begin the coaching process by asking the salesperson to evaluate his or her results.
"Marie, tell me how you felt you did with your qualifying session."
This gives her the opportunity to evaluate and explore options and alternatives to her own performance, and even ask for help in a particular area. Her responses will allow you to focus on her questions and concerns. Most of the time, people will underestimate their own progress, but sometimes they are off target. It's your job to challenge the excuses that lead to failure, and recognize and help the salesperson stop any destructive habits and behaviors.
Identify areas and cite specific examples within the qualifying session where you can offer advice:
"Marie, what do you think you could have done differently when the prospect said he wasn't interested in purchasing today?"
Here, you are giving the salesperson the opportunity to recognize a mistake for herself and develop her own answer to the problem.
If she solves the problem, you can congratulate her. You have reinforced that she is bright enough and has the skills to solve her own selling dilemmas. You can bolster her confidence while coaching her. She will buy her own solutions much quicker than she accepts yours.
If she does not develop an acceptable answer, you can then ask her to evaluate one of yours:
"Marie, what would have happened if you had asked him why he wasn't planning on purchasing today?"
5. Recognize progress
Most progress can be measured in small steps. Unless you recognize it and reward the behavior, the steps might start going backwards, as the salesperson begins to grope for answers and shortcuts. Point out areas of competence and strength and use them as stepping stones for skills success.
6. Follow-up for success
Come back to the skill and recognize where progress has been made. Acknowledge progress, encourage future improvements and point toward solutions and answers instead of focusing only on what went wrong. Help the salesperson focus on the wins. This makes the coaching process an event Marie will look forward to, and it will help her accept the coaching as well. To find out more about Mike Whitty and Salesperson, Inc., visit www.mikewhitty.com and www.slpinc.net.
Reprinted with permission from: Mike Whitty and Salesperson, Inc. (800) 453-2787. |
Past Issues
