Common sales management challenges.

I want to thank those of you who have shared their thoughts on “How to coach the self doubter?”

We all know self doubters in our personal and professional lives. Many of them are highly successful. From a cognitive perspective the self doubter looks at the 10% of things there don’t do well and apply it to 100% of what they do. Therefore they lack the self confidence to accept sales coaching.

The key to self confidence is being conscious about know what you do well and what you don’t do well. The self doubter lacks is unconsciously competent and consciously incompetent. Another words, they do not know what they do well but are all too aware of what they don’t do well. If you try to tell them what they do well by nature they remain in doubt. They are difficult to coach because they naturally become defensive to your sales coaching.

As an executive sales coach you need to help this individual to self discover what they do well. Help them become consciously competent!

Feel free to share your thoughts,

Steven Rosen

Sales Management Expert

Meet Joe.

Joe is a successful district sales manager who could work in any industry and for any company. In fact, there are many Joe’s in all companies. Each month Joe is put to the test with different sales reps he must coach to success. 

Joe has decided to start the year by building development plans with each of his reps. Joe is a strong believer that his role as district sales manager is to help each rep develop their skills as well as ensure that the district achieve their sales numbers. With the economic down turn the market place is becoming increasingly more competitive. Baltic senior sales management feels that new business will help them reduction in business from existing clients. The company has had good growth over the last 5 years but there is an overall sense that the sales force is composed of many gathers and there is a need for more hunters. 

In our follow up coaching session Joe singled out a rep he felt was his biggest challenge. In Joe’s own words:

Tom has been with Baltic for 10 years. He has been through the company selling course and has also taken the CPSA Professional Selling course. He is the district “go to” person in terms of his product knowledge. He has been an above average performer with lots of potential. Tom’s success has been built on his existing customer relationships.

Joe has been Tom’s manager for the last 2 years. Tom is a hard worker; “every time I go out with him we have a full and busy day”. Tom has an excellent understanding of his products, his customers like him and appreciate his technical ability. Not only does he doubt his value, Tom constantly apologies to customers and rarely asks for the business.”

Every time Joe provides feedback it is taken negatively and Tom becomes very defensive.

Questions:

1. How can Joe coach Tom and help him develop into a STAR?
2. What is the best approach to help a Self Doubter become a better sales rep?

Here are my thoughts …..

Dear Joe,

Reps who are Self Doubters can be challenging to coach. If you provide direct feedback it may be met with “I already do that” or reasons why they don’t. The Self Doubter perceives any critiquing as weakness and personalizes it as confirmation that they are doing a horrible job! The trick with this type of individual is to lead them through a process of self discovery and improvement.

Here’s how:

1. You need to ask a series of questions (listed below), 
2. Guide Tom to write out his own course of self discovery and improvement.

Ask Tom:

1. What are the key elements critical for effective closing? Write out a list.
2. Which elements of closing do you excel at? Write in order.
3. Are there opportunities for growth? Write them down.
4. Which of the elements would he like to work on?
5. What is in it for you to grow your competencies in these particular elements? Have him write those down.
6. What are you committed to doing? All commitments should be written down.
7. When should I follow up with you? Put a follow-up date at the bottom of the paper. Sign it.
8. Congratulations now you have buy-in from Tom and a high level of commitment.

Let me know how it goes,

Steven Rosen, MBA

Sales Executive Coach

In a strong economy just showing up to play is enough to achieve your sales objectives. In today’s economic environment sales leaders are facing sales force downsizing and poor sales rep morale. Sales reps are frustrated by longer sales cycles, dropping demand, unrealistic quotas, concerns about declining income and losing their jobs.

The key to success is Focus, Focus, and Focus. As the leader of your sales organization you should ask yourself 1. Am I focused? 2. What is Focused Leadership? and 3. Why is focus so important to my success?

Ask yourself the following questions to ascertain your FOCUS factor.

• Have you established your 2-3 critical success factors (CSFs) that will help you achieve your objectives?
• Have you determined the key activities that will help you achieve your CSFs?
• Have you communicated the key activities to your sales team?
• Does each and every one of your sales people know what the key activities are?
• Have they incorporated these key activities into their daily plans?
• Are your sales managers coaching the reps on these key activities?
• Are the sales reps accountable to delivering on these key activities?

If you have answered “YES” to a majority of these questions, then you’re Focused! Congratulations you will thrive. Feel free to share what you are doing. Send me an email. 

If you answered “NO” to more than 2 questions keep reading.

Focused Sales Leadership is about determining, communicating and inspiring your sales to apply all their energy on the critical success factors/activities.

Many of your competitors have surveyed the market and may have come up with similar strategies. The differentiating factor between surviving these difficult times and getting your butt kicked relates to how well your sales team executes. Successful sales execution is about ensuring that each and every one of your sales reps clearly understands their marching orders (CSF). It is imperative that your front line sales managers keep their sales teams focused on executing the critical success activities.

If you would like to find out more about how The Focus Factor can benefit your organization coming soon at www.starresults.com

Focused on your success,

Steven Rosen, MBA

Sales Management Expert