Many leaders do not understand that the ‘game’ is the game of selling.  Managers and internal trainers must really understand the game of selling.  It takes strapping a headset on, making hundreds of dials, asking for introductions, getting rejected, selling big cases and starting with small sales, to really understand the game.  Otherwise, it is like taking flying lessons from a pilot trainer that did all their flight learning in a simulator.

Most sales managers end up in that role because they were good to great salespeople and the company was looking to:

1. Replace a manager
2. Find a way for professional advancement
3. Look for a way to keep a salesperson that is slowing down and has a ‘book’ of business

Rarely if ever does that person go through an intense, fully integrated sales management training development program to help them effectively execute the required skills of an effective coach. Nor do they have a good handle on “what” to do; the sales coaching best practices. The 7 critical coaching competencies from Objective Management Group, our sales evaluation partner and pioneer in the industry, are listed below. How effective are your sales leaders at executing these activities?

Peter Jensen is an Olympic coach from Canada and author of the book “The Third Factor”. Peter states that first two factors for success in anything are nature and nurture. The Third Factor, specific to coaching, is: You must have a coaching bias.

A strong sales leader must have the coaching bias and they must love to coach the game of selling.  They must have a love for seeing and hearing people develop into the best versions of themselves.  That is what it takes to be successful at coaching.  It must be about helping others gain the spotlight, success and financial rewards or a job well done.  It requires sacrificing ego and the need to be right for the other person to discover their path, develop their skills and become the expert.

The challenge for most sales managers or sales leaders is to have the ability to exhibit and execute these skills of being a strong leader:  Strong identity, self-assurance, credible authority, knowledge and a foundational vision, mission and goal orientation.  Strong leaders do not need to be in the spotlight, do not act like they know it all and ask questions instead of always providing answers. These are the important sales coaching best practices that drive effective sales coaching.

There are assessments in the marketplace to help people identify if they have what it takes.  We use Objective Management Group’s Sales Manager Insights Evaluation.  Three key findings are identified and scored:

1. The Will to Manage
2. The Sales Manager Sales DNA
3. The Sales Manager Tactical Competencies

The evaluation provides an index percentage that tells the evaluated sales manager how they rank against others who have taken the evaluation.  Our 30+ history has verified that most sales managers have less than 10% of the skills needed to be an effective sales coach.

In summary, most companies with a manager level in their organization fail to get their salespeople to perform for one of the following reasons:

• The manager doesn’t have what it takes- the skills to be effective at sales coaching
• The manager doesn’t take the time or doesn’t have the bandwidth to handle the job, maintain a book of business, take care of operations and anything else that might be in the job description
• There isn’t a consistent ‘Sales Managed Environment’ to execute to so day in and day out, it’s an inconsistent coaching process.

Do your sales leaders understand the game of selling and have the coaching bias that can make them and effective coach?

How does a company create an effective sales coaching program? Experience tells us that most companies are good at setting sales goals and measuring results, but the statistics around frequent, one on one coaching tell a different story.

Weaknesses of Sales Managers as Coaches

Let’s look at the weaknesses of most managers as coaches:

• Do not consistently coach and debrief.
• Ineffective at joint sales calls.
• Do not ask questions.
• Have a need for approval from salespeople.
• Rescue salespeople.
• Do not have a sales process.
• Ineffective at commitments.
• Beliefs do not support coaching.
• Do not have goals and a plan.
• Do not know what motivates salespeople.

Less than two percent of managers are adept at identifying sales coaching needs and coaching those needs. There are many reasons for this, but among them are: they themselves were not coached or they had a bad experience with coaching; they were elevated to a team lead or manager position based on their sales success and not their coaching performance; and they have not had any coaching training, either formal or informal.

There are some simple, concrete steps managers can take to initiate an effective sales coaching program. It begins with managers developing an understanding of what motivates their salespeople. Less than seven percent of sales managers know the personal goals for their people. Since most salespersons today are intrinsically versus extrinsically motivated, this is key in the manager-salesperson relationship as well as the salesperson-client relationship. 

Effective coaching occurs when a manager is proactively asking questions of their team members, giving feedback on a regular basis, and showing a genuine interest in the development of the salesperson.

Successful Sales Managers Should

To get started, managers should:

1. Set time aside for a personal goal discussion

This should be done in-person or via a video conference call so that there is eye “contact.” Salespeople are motivated first by their personal goals. The goal is the find out what drives the producer and what is important to them. Encourage them to dream big and free think about their life goals, including family and personal aspirations. No goal should be too big or too small. After that, goals should be translated into SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Based) goals.   

2. Set Professional Goals

Begin by asking the salesperson to consider how meeting their professional goals can help them reach their personal goals. Working with the salesperson, set professional goals that not only include targets for sales, cross-sell, and retention, but also what the salesperson has shared is important to them.

3. Set weekly check-ins

Establish a rhythm for follow-up and discussion about both the salesperson’s personal and professional goals. These check-ins should include managing activities identified in the plan, holding salespersons accountable to activity levels, helping to identify choke points, coaching how they are doing what they do, and asking for the opportunity to observe sales calls and encouraging de-briefs.

Developing an effective sales coaching program is ultimately about developing a meaningful human connection, a relationship. This has to begin with the sales manager and the salesperson before it can translate into a salesperson and client relationship. When this is accomplished—and it’s not a one and done proposition, but an art that requires regular attention—companies can develop a service to sales career path for its salespeople that leads to success for all.    

In analyzing those salespeople who are successful year after year, we have found significant consistencies in behavior, sales skills, and practice management. We call these The 7 Activities for Sales Success. If your sales team can adopt these 7 habits, you will be amazed at how your sales will improve.

1. The ONLY “A” priority is prospecting. Successful salespeople service accounts just like everyone else. They also have“fires” to extinguish and meetings to attend. But they let nothing get in the way of consistent prospecting. They don’t have to like prospecting; they just have to do it. Of course, if your salespeople learn to like prospecting, they will do more of it. A sales leader’s coaching of this important sales behavior is also critical for success.
   
   
2. Don’t look, act or sound like every other salesperson calling on the prospect. Create a unique approach – your salespeople can’t just say that they are different. They must also demonstrate it. As sales leader, if you were the prospect, would you take their call? If not, then their approach needs some work.
   
   
3. Have an ideal prospect profile and look for candidates that fit this profile. You can help your salespeople do this by evaluating their best clients. Are their best customers typically Fortune 500 size or small family-owned companies? Are they regionally based, national, or are they local? Do they have thousands of employees? Are they retail organizations? , etc. Your salespeople must know who they are targeting.
   
   
4. Successful prospectors understand that the purpose of a call is to set an appointment with a qualified candidate. Your salespeople must stop seeing everyone and anyone who will see them. They must make sure the prospect qualifies to do business prior to setting an appointment. They also must stop selling on the phone.
   
   
5. The quality of the phone call determines the quality of the appointment. The goal, while on the phone, is to identify if the prospect has a problem that can be solved. First, they must establish that the prospect would like to fix the problem. Even though the prospect may identify a “problem” on the phone, this isn’t typically the real problem. Your salespeople must ask questions like “Why is that a problem?” and “How much is the problem costing you?”

6. Prospects want to meet professionals through introductions, not cold calls. Help your producers learn how to ask for introductions from their COIs and current clients as their first prospecting strategy. This is a proven practice of “elite” producers.
   
   
7. “Drill down” past the pain or problem indicators (symptoms). Here are a series of questions to provide and help your salespeople get past the initial symptoms that a prospect will verbalize:
   
   
   • Tell me…
   • How long has this been a problem?
   • What have you done…?
   • When you spoke with…?
   • What has your current provider done to make this problem go away?
   • What happens if you don’t fix…?
   • How much is it costing…?
   • Is that a problem?
   • Do you want to or have to fix it?

As sales leader and coach, you must track their activity and look for ways to coach and improve revenue by improving technique. For instance, your salesperson may be great at getting a first meeting, but not adept at uncovering real opportunities. There is your area to coach them. If you track these vital numbers, you can start to improve the areas where they fall short.

Review The 7 Activities for Sales Success with your sales team and ask them which sales skill or habit is most important today andfor the next 30 days. Then have them commit to adopting or changing that one behavior or practice and track their success.

When you are in an airplane, you may or may not pay much attention to what is going on in the cockpit. You may happen to glance at the massive control panel with all the switches, gauges, nobs and buttons, but it’s just a glance… before you hustle on to your seat to get settled in for the flight.  But the pilot does, thankfully.

When you are getting ready to start your day, you may not pay a lot of attention to what is happening in the cockpit of your sales aircraft or to “the dashboard” that provides critical information about the state of your business. Normally, you jump in the pilot’s chair and fly off into your day. You have a pretty good idea of where you are going THAT day… so you probably don’t give much attention to the “preflight plans” for the rest of the week, month or quarter. If this doesn't apply to you, it may apply to some of your salespeople. 

But, if you stop to think about your flight/business in longer terms, you know that, over the year, you will probably hit a lot of turbulence. And if used properly, your business dashboard, like the control panel of a 757, could provide you with the critical information that you will need to make the vital decisions required at those critical moments. In other words, it would be nice to have a system of alerts to give you warning BEFORE you are on the verge of crashing.

Have you looked at YOUR dashboard lately? Have your salespeople been checking theirs? What does it tell you? What alerts or warning systems do you have in place to let you know when you are losing altitude and attitude? How do you know if all systems are working properly and that your sales aircraft will get you safely to your destination – on time and on target? What should you be monitoring and doing every day (priorities) in your “preflight inspection” to make sure that you improve the probability of “getting there”? Think about these questions in regards to you and your salespeople.

Here’s my suggested short list of selling priorities:  Prospecting, talking to people, scheduling appointments, conducting qualifying (and disqualifying) appointments, presenting and getting decisions. Just like for each engine of the aircraft, each of your priorities should have a gauge (a standard of performance) and a RPMS, or required ground speed (a set time frame), necessary for safely lifting-off and landing your aircraft at the proper destination.

Having a thoroughly monitored dashboard of sales priorities to help you execute a safe landing (your goal) is a MUST! Share this blog with your team to start the conversation about their own "dashboards."