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5 Ways to Gauge Sales Management Coaching

A highly successful vice president of sales recently shared his frustration with the members of his sales management team, who he felt were focused only on results. He worried that they were not spending any time developing their salespeople.
His longer-term view is based on the belief that developing people to the best of their potential improves performance and retention, and it also helps develop a pool of succession candidates.

Most sales leaders would agree that coaching is the most impactful activity a sales manager can do to drive sales team performance. Studies reinforce this by showing that above-average coaches deliver 20 percent more sales.
 

The challenge?
Sales management coaching is the weakest-performing activity among managers. How do you know if your managers are effective coaches? Here are five ways to find out.

1. Asking vs. Telling
If most of a manager’s interaction with his salespeople includes the words “do this” or “why are you not doing that?” your manager is in “tell mode” rather than “coach mode.” This is highly directive and subservient communication. It does little to motivate salespeople, makes them feel like robots, creates mediocre performers, and strains their relationships with their manager.
Coaching is about asking thoughtful questions. It is based on the belief that individuals have the answers to their own sales challenges. The manager’s role is to help individuals develop their ability to self-direct and solve their own problems. A coach would spend a majority of the time asking “how do you think you can best accomplish this goal?” or “how would you like to address this opportunity?”
Spend 15 minutes in one of your manager’s sales meetings and you can quickly determine which mode she or he operates in.

2. Time Spent in the Field
Managers tend to spend their time on the activities they are the best at and most enjoy. A manager who is fixated on administrative tasks such as submitting reports on time probably enjoys this activity and is less comfortable coaching. A strong manager recognizes the value of finding creative ways to get into the field and spend more time with his or her reps. Remember that administration doesn’t generate revenue or help develop your salespeople. Conversely, time spent in the field improves your salespeople’s ability to be the best they can be, and time in front of the customer is the best return on investment of the manager’s time.

3. Accountability
Coaching is about accelerating a sales rep’s growth and ability to achieve personal goals and reach full potential. Simply put, sales coaching is a four-step process:
1. It identifies opportunities for improvement.
2. It gains commitment.
3. It develops a plan.
4. It sets an accountability meeting to discuss progress.
Set aside one hour a month to review your managers’ field visit reports. You are looking for progress toward improving one or two areas of a rep’s development.

4. Sales Rep Engagement and Turnover
Many companies track two metrics. First, they perform an annual engagement survey in which the key is to drill down to the level of the sales manager. This provides insight into the differences between managers as well as the managers’ effectiveness in coaching their reps. Effective coaches will score much higher in sales rep engagement. Second, turnover is also a sign of reps’ relationships with their managers. In fact 70 percent of top performers who leave will do so based on their relationships with their managers.

5. Observation
Spend a couple of days in the field each month getting to know your managers. Ask them about their day’s work with your salespeople and find out about their development plans. Ask them about the level and quality of coaching they are getting. Consider sitting in with a sales manager and his rep for a day. You observe the coach at work and get a firsthand perspective on the coaching effectiveness.

Despite the economic downturn progressive sales organizations are continuing to invest 2-5% of their annual sales budgets in sales training and development. These organizations undoubtedly will outperform their competitors who don’t invest. Training and development is one of the key factors that lead to improved sales performance.

The problem is that 90% of sales training is a waste of time and money. Most sales training is an event. It may increase sales force engagement but has little lasting impact. Without effective reinforcement the impact of your training will be lost within 30 days. The basis of reinforcement comes from sales managers coaching reps, post-training.

Post-training sales coaching and reinforcement is the key to sustaining your sales training investment. We know that coaching is the No. 1 sales management activity that drives sales performance. Studies reinforce this by showing that above-average coaches deliver 20% more sales. The challenge is that sales coaching is the weakest-performing activity among managers.

Before you invest $1 in training you need to find out how effective your sales managers are at coaching in order to maximise your sales training investment. In fact if you only had $1 to invest I would suggest that you would get the biggest ROI on training your sales managers to be great coaches. Not only will you get better sales results, you will also better leverage additional training investment.

The 4-step process outlined below will give you insight in how to maximise any training investment. The example I use is based on Best Practices For Training Sales Managers to be great coaches. This model is applicable for all training.

Four Step Training Model:

Step 1: Assessing Skills and Behaviors

Assuming you already know what you want to achieve with your training investment (i.e., develop “great sales coaches”) you need to find out where you are before you embark on your journey. It is important to understand the skill level of the people you are training. Many tools can be used to benchmark skills, like 360-degree review. We have developed the Sales Manager Coaching Assessment which benchmarks each sales manager on 6 dimensions of effective coaching. You can also benchmark the level of sales rep engagement in each district as a starting base.

STEP 2: Delivery of Training

Once you have benchmarked the level skill/behaviors/competencies, there are several ways to make the actual delivery of training more impactful. Assign participants advanced reading and other pre-work so they will come to the training with a base level of knowledge as well as some exposure to the content beforehand. Role-playing and case studies allow for real-life application of the learning, which improves understanding and applicability. Trainers who are dynamic and create a high-impact learning environment add to the training experience.

Most trainers will do a “happy face” post-training questionnaire to gauge their effectiveness. All this does is allow them to pat themselves on the back and check the box that they have delivered effective training. As I stated earlier,  the impact of training delivered by the best trainers is lost within 30 days without proper reinforcement.

Step 3: Reinforcement to sustain skills/behavior/competency changes

When sales reps take a training course the responsibility for reinforcement lies with their district sales managers. What happens when a district sales manager is trained? Who is responsible for reinforcing the training? Will the VP of Sales do it? Will the trainer be responsible? If no one does it you can kiss your training dollars good bye.

I have spent a lot of time developing effective reinforcement skills/behaviors/competencies for post-training learning. In the diagram below it is clear that effective training that includes reading, audio visual presentation/lecture and some demonstration will produce knowledge retention of at least 30%.

How do you ensure that you move the retention rate closer to 100%?

I use a multi-pronged approach to ensure that post training reinforcement leads to effective learning and creates sustainable changes in skills, behaviors or competencies. 1-on-1 coaching with a sales management coach is by far the best way to ensure effective results for your training investment. Sharing best practices and discussing challenges with peers in monthly facilitated group tele-sessions has great benefit as well. Lastly, coaching the VP of Sales to effectively role-model and support the training completes the reinforcement process. The bottom line is that coaching reinforces training to establish permanent skill and behavioral changes.
STEP 4 – Reassessing Skills and Behaviors

Six to nine months down the road we reassess the level of skills/competencies /behaviors using the same tool we used up front. This step serves several purposes. First, when training participants know they will be held accountable to demonstrate behavioral/skill/competency development post- training and that they will be measured, you get better results. Second, it allows management to gauge the impact of their investment in training.

This four-step process is the best way to ensure you maximise the ROI of your training dollars.

Sales coaching is the management No. 1 activity that drives sales performance. The only problem is that managers have not been taught how to effectively coach. Coaching is a skill that takes time to perfect and unless effectively coached or trained managers make all types of blunders.

Do You Want To Increase Sales Performance?

Transforming your sales managers from good to great coaches can have a dramatic impact on sales. In fact, sales coaching is the management No. 1 activity that drives sales performance. The only problem is that managers have not been taught how to effectively coach. Coaching is a skill that takes time to perfect and unless effectively coached or trained managers make all types of blunders.

As the head of sales or as a frontline sales manager you can greatly enhance the performance of your sales team if you can develop great coaches.

Coaching Blunder #1 – “Telling vs. Asking Coaching”

As a sales manager you probably were a top sales rep. You may still see yourself as a problem-solver, like “If I solve this rep’s issue then she/he can make the sale.” As a result of your action orientation you are likely to tell the salesperson how to solve the issue. “Telling” does not create self-managing salespeople. In fact, there are numerous downsides to the tell-first approach.

First, you are not empowering your sales reps, who may perceive you as being a micro manager. Second, you are also creating a dependency on you to be their problem-solver. This creates endless emails, phone calls and resulting in needy reps. And third, you are not developing them. One of the critical areas for development is the ability to be a self manager.

Be aware of when you are in “tell” mode and remind yourself, when you have fallen into a bad habit.

Coaching Blunder #2 – “I’ll get to it Coaching”

Time management is a challenge we all face. With emails, meetings and administrative work what is a sales manager to do? If sales results are what you desire then the easy answer is to do the activities that will drive the greatest revenue. Generally we do the busy work first as they are the easiest to. It feels good when we are up to date on our emails. The stress is reduced when we have all our reports in on time and we have followed up on all our messages.

But all those activities don’t contribute to the bottom line. If great sales coaching can have a direct impact of up to 19% more sales, why is coaching not the #1 priority?

Stop making excuses and get out of the office. Get out in the field and make coaching your #1 priority. Your boss will thank you and your reps will make lots of money.

Sales’ coaching is the No. 1 management activity that drives sales performance. The only problem is that managers have not been taught how to effectively coach. Coaching is a skill that takes time to perfect and unless effectively coached or trained managers make all types of mistakes. This is the 3rd in a series of coaching pitfalls that mangers should avoid.

Coaching Blunder #3 “Laundry List Coaching”

Personal growth and change is a challenge for all of us. We all have strengths and areas for development. Mangers who decide who create a laundry list of areas for development will have little success. It is too difficult for sales rep to make wholesale changes in how they sell. Development is about working on improving 1 or 2 things and once the sales person has demonstrated that they have acquired the skill or behaviour then you can move on to the next area. 

From a sales reps perspective imagine getting a field report listing all of the things you do wrong? Some reps would not even read the report. Many will read and wonder where I start. Others may read it and be completely overwhelmed.

Great coaching is about focus focus and focus. Helping a sales rep improve in one area of their job can have a major impact on their performance.

Coaching Blunder #4 “One Size Fits All Coaching”

One of the key pitfalls sales managers fall into is when the take the “one size fits all approach”.

 How many times have we witnessed a sales rep working in auto pilot? This is the rep doing the same sales pitch to each customer and delivering the message in the same way. As coaches we fail to see when we go into auto pilot, taking the same approach with each rep.

Do you ever find yourself coaching all your reps the same way? Your feedback to each rep is the same? You have fallen into the rut of one size fits all coaching. Coaching differs from training. Training is about having everyone learn the same information or skills. Coaching on the other hand is about diagnosing each reps particular area for improvement. It is about adapting your coaching style to the individual and about developing individualised development plans.

Coaching is a one to one sport. It is about growing individuals to develop to their full potential.

Coaching Blunder #5 – “Way to go Coaching”

One of the key blunders managers make is not getting a commitment to change. They have done a perfect job coaching by asking all right questions, come to agreement on areas for development but forget to get buy in on how the problem will be fixed. When the manger and rep agree on an area for development it is critical to have the rep buy in to what steps they will take to develop.

This requires a simple 3 or 4 point plan which includes what the sales rep will do between coaching sessions. The key is to have the rep develop their own next steps and your role becomes one of holding them accountable. Without this in place the odds are that there will be no change in rep behaviour or skills on the next coaching session.

Great coaching means great performance. Sales organizations that embrace a coaching culture and invest in their front line managers’ ability to coach will have a competitive advantage and outsell the competition.

Last week I explored the mistake that many managers make of being in tell mode. Today I want to explore where coaching sits amongst a sales managers many priorities.

Time management is a challenge we all face. With emails, meetings and administrative work what is a sales manager to do? If sales results are what you desire then the easy answer is to do the activities that will drive the greatest revenue. Generally we do the busy work first as they are the easiest to. It feels good when we are up to date on our emails. The stress is reduced when we have all our reports in on time and we have followed up on all our messages.

But all those activities don’t contribute to the bottom line. If great sales coaching can have a direct impact of up to 19% more sales, why is coaching not the #1 priority?

Stop making excuses and get out of the office. Get out in the field and make coaching your #1 priority. Your boss will thank you and your reps will make lots of money.