You may recall that I recently wrote about an international study which reported that if Sales Managers were more frequently and better trained and coached, their sales teams achieved higher performance and results.  In no other type of sales training was a more positive correlation found between frequency of training and sales performance. This article is dedicated to the importance of sales coaching and what you need to do to be an effective sales coach.

Despite popular opinion, the sales profession is very skillful with many technical and interpersonal skills that need to be continuously honed and developed.   Despite this, most sales people are given no formal training or coaching rather they are often left to work out for themselves how to be effective at sales.

Even if they are able to attend sales training, most sales people do not realise their full potential because nothing was done post the training session to get people adapting their behaviours, skills and performance to the new standards.

Why sales coaching matters

• Without systematic, on-the-job coaching post a sales training program 87% of skills that were covered in the sales training program are lost within 30 days
• With systematic, on-the-job coaching post a sales training program the return on the sales training program is four fold.

Lesson: Sales training without coaching is a cost liability rather than an investment.

Is sales coaching just linked to sales training?

In a word, no.  Whether or not coaching follows a formal training program, it is recommended that at least 40-60% of a sales manager’s job should be dedicated to coaching their sales people.

Yet, sales coaching still remains an area that is poorly executed and often ignored.

What is coaching?

Coaching is a process which allows for an individual to strive for excellence in any endeavour through personal insight and purposeful action. At a broad level, the process involves three key elements:

• Feedback: without feedback a person is unaware of the opportunity for ‘change’
• Reflection: relates to what a person thinks about the feedback received; as well as the range of actions they can undertake as a result of receiving the feedback
• Purposeful action: those activities the person may undertake and either adopt the provided feedback or alternatively explain why they will not address the feedback provided

Coaching usually focuses on two key areas of development to achieve excellence: skills and performance.  Excellence in performance is knowing the right processes to apply in the right situation, coupled with the personal insight to know how to apply them wisely.

So, how do we get the best out of our sales coaches in order to be our best?

1. Train your sales managers to be effective sales coaches
2. Supply them with proven tools and frameworks to coach successfully
3. Provide ongoing coaching to your sales managers to be better sales coaches (usually external coaching support works well here as it provides an agenda free focus on coaching only)
4. Make sales coaching a necessary part of the sales manager’s job performance criteria
5. Encourage a coaching culture in your business across all levels

What do you need in your sales coaching tool box?

• A coaching framework that guides you through the various coaching steps – this ensures that people are aware coaching is taking place
• The ability to analyse or assess the development needs of an individual or team
• Coaching communication tools and approaches that help you understand, communicate, and connect with the person you are coaching
• Knowledge about the different types of coaching approaches you can use with people i.e. skills, performance, remedial, strategic, or transformational coaching

• Ideally a sales competency based model and sales process framework that reflects the sales skills, behaviours, and attitudes you need to coach your sales people to.
• Skillful and active communication skills
• A positive, trust based, environment
• Clear purpose and intent about what you are trying to achieve
• Consistency

Coaching can happen in many ways

Here are some examples:

• Joint sales visits: attending a client sales meeting with a salesperson – Set up the pre, during and post stages of your coaching session.  Decide on what role you will take as a coach: observer, joint call participation, or role model.  You need to decide on which role you will play before you enter the meeting so as not to confuse the salesperson or the client/prospect

• One-on-one skills review and action plan: Ideally you would use a competency based model and framework to coach
• Role playing sales activities such as prospecting, client calls, pitch presentations and so on
• Team coaching sessions

4 important points to remember:

1. There are a variety of coaching tools out there, however avoid the one-size-fits-all approach i.e. trying to stretch one tool to fit all situations.  You need a blend of tools in your coaching tool box to be able to adapt to a variety of situations such as personal styles, needs etc.
2. You are not a ‘life coach’ or counsellor either.  This is a very dubious and potentially dangerous area to get into and should be left to qualified, skilled professionals who work specifically in this space.
3. Make sure you make time to coach and let the person you are coaching know that it is a coaching session and nothing else
4. Many of the case studies at the recent OSF2009 conference indicated that a blend of competent internal sales coaching by sales managers supported by external experts in sales coaching was very advantageous to their sales teams’ performance and productivity.

While many sales managers do not have the framework or tools in place to coach with purpose, skillful coaching can be incredibly rewarding and provide huge benefits for the individuals, team and organisation.  It not only makes your sales people perform better, you can also become a better manager as a result.

Feedback from sales managers we have worked with who have learned and applied skillful coaching has been very positive.

“It’s really been the template I’ve structured my sales agenda around with my people. It’s provided a practical approach that’s behavioural based and through the follow up sessions really help embed sustained change and clear direction as to how we achieve goals through prospecting existing or new to business opportunities.”

“How have I changed? – an interesting question. I think I’ve become a better coach, and I enjoy it much more – seeing sales people get great responses from clients when they use your principles is a big buzz for all of us.  I’m a better coach because I’m more focused on what I’m looking for, and concentrate on sales people’s strengths as the basis to start (in the past I was too critical and less supportive).  I believe more now that I can help sales people change (and I have also), and it’s helped me to more clearly identify which areas sales people need help with. I can also better express my own successes as a sales person in my past, as a reference and example of the practices sales people should use – it’s easier to talk specific examples and situations and then relate them to your principles.”

Remember, a culture of coaching is really a continuous improvement strategy.

And everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT.

Like many people in Australia, my family and employees have been captivated by MasterChef Australia.

What I love about MasterChef is that it can be seen as a metaphor for expressing our talents and being the best we can be.  Given my interest in everything to do with sales, personal mastery and performance, I particularly love the parallel I have been able to draw about what it takes to be an elite master chef and an elite sales person and elite sales leader by the observation I have made in MasterChef.

As lessons for people wanting to master the sales profession,MasterChef works on many levels:

• It’s about acquiring and honing a range of skills, often difficult to master skills individually and even more so in concert with each other
• It’s about receiving and dealing with real feedback about real results
• It’s about learning from your mistakes – practice, practice, practice
• It’s about resilience – being able to get back up when you are down and face a new day whatever it may bring
• It’s about personal insight and self-awareness
• It’s about humility – letting go of the old to embrace the new
• It’s about listening to and understanding what needs to be achieved
• It’s about operating under pressure, sometimes extreme pressure (internal and external)
• It’s about finding your own character and what you stand for; your values, your purpose
• It’s about friendship and community even in a competitive environment
• It’s about skillful learning – including learning how to be coached and mentored
• It’s about personal responsibility
• It’s about respect – for self, for peers, your leaders, and your profession
• It’s about process – following the recipe, the fundamental rules of chemistry that work
• It’s about personal leadership and being true to yourself
• It’s about potential, opportunity, creativity, innovation and achievement

In my opinion, the real heroes of this program are the judges and guest chefs who have shown leadership and clarity of purpose in their mentoring and managing of the various contestants.

As leaders they display and model:

• Their skillful leadership as masters in their own profession – they know what it takes to be a master craftsman in their profession.  There is something magical in watching a skillful person create something wonderful.
• Their respect for the discipline of training, learning, constant practice and continuous improvement
• Their respect for process and quality – the foundations, the recipes, the ingredients. As leaders they leave nothing is half baked (pardon the pun).
• Their love of and passion for what they do and the expectation they have for each contestant to reach and push beyond their own potential and what they thought they were capable of.  Their encouragement and desire for excellence in each person is outstanding.
• Their coaching skills – from running the master classes to their observations and feedback at the contestants work bench as they work through real life challenging situations is nothing short of text book.
• Their constructive and honest feedback at judgment time as well as their ability to drill down to the fine detail to show where contestants did well and where they could improve makes for fine example of performance management conversations at their best.
• Their care, respect and concern for each person and each person’s special gifts and talents.
• Their regular referencing to and questioning of the real intentions of each person to make sure each contestant was in it for real.
• Their knowledge about how to run a viable business – from cost of ingredients to the true value of a dish.
• The standards they set.  There is nothing mediocre aboutMasterChef.

My hope is that we as Sales Leaders can aspire to be role models in the same way these leaders are for their people.

We each could learn lessons from how all the people on this show have managed their part in it – the good and the bad.

MasterChef inspires me to continue to live by our motto at BARRETT, ‘excellence through purposeful action’.

Excellence means giving our best to whatever we do and giving our best to relationships. Setting noble and realistic goals and remembering to plan and practice. We don’t try to do everything; instead we focus on developing our special gifts.

Purposeful Action means having a clear vision of what we want to accomplish. Knowing why we are doing what we are doing. Having a clear goal and getting back on track if we get scattered or distracted. Finishing what we start and persevering until we get results.

As author William Arthur Ward quotes  “The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.”

I commend MasterChef for its devotion to excellence through purposeful action. Thank you.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.