COACHING
“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
Coaching:
It’s An Ongoing Process
T
eams 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
20
after the contest. the sales leader to customers.
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: 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.
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. 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.
2) Joint call - A sales manager and
salesperson both participate in these calls.
Each person contributes appropriately.
Often these calls are used in re-
establishing a relationship or introducing
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