WHY MOST SALES MANAGERS DON’T COACH THEIR
SALESPEOPLE
-
Even when they think they do!
Author: Graham French, gfa Sales Improvement. - graham@sellingcoach.co.uk
“We do that” said Tim,
“that’s part of the sales managers’ role”.
I was going through a
checklist of effective performance drivers with a client, a senior sales VP of
a financial software vendor. We came to coaching the sales people.
Tim and his sales managers
sincerely believed that they coached their sales people. I don’t think you would get a very different
response from sales chiefs in most IT companies. In our experience, however,
the reality is that sales management doesn’t coach their salespeople
effectively. There’s a lot of vague thinking about coaching.
People tend to associate
coaching with sport. The majority of the top professional golf and tennis stars
have a coach. Occasionally, they fire the coach and go it alone. Generally coaches are credited with helping
the sportsperson to improve their performance - in the fastest way possible.
The hallmark of a
successful sports coach is a one-on-one relationship, built on trust and
dedicated to improving the “coachee’s” performance. A coach has the advantage
of objectivity - being able to see and show exactly where the coachee can
improve.
There is plenty of evidence
to suggest that coaching sales people, if done properly, really does produce
improved sales performance. Some
Neil Rackham, founder of
Huthwaite Research (the people who invented SPIN) says “no other activity has
so positive an impact on the success of consultative selling… a strong coaching
culture is the hallmark of success”
Sales Coaching – the Wasteland of
Corporate
Linda Richardson, President
of the Richardson Company and a lecturer at
“The critical importance of
coaching a sales force is universally acknowledged – as is its almost total
absence. Sales coaching is the wasteland of corporate
Working one- to- one with a
salesperson is generally considered coaching. An example of
this - reviewing the salesperson’s pipeline or progress with a particular
opportunity.
Let’s look at a typical
example of what all too often passes for coaching.
Suppose a salesperson
requests help from his/her sales manager because they feel that they need some
assistance with a big deal. They may have set up a meeting with a more senior
person and want the manager along. Maybe I’m being too cynical but perhaps the
salesperson feels that by involving the sales manager they are covering their
backside. That way they can spread the blame if anything goes wrong!
Who handles the call? The sales manager. How much learning takes place?
Some – the ‘watch- how- I-
do- it’ method of training has its place. This is
thought of as coaching. But is it?
According to Neil Rackham,
there are two types of sales coaching – strategy coaching and skills coaching.
Strategy coaching is a bit like the coach and the player poring over a map of
the course in the club house discussing the way the golfer might play the
course. Tactics could be likened to the coach observing play - perhaps noting
the way the player positions his feet and suggesting a better stance.
Similarly, sales strategy
coaching might take place in the office – discussing what needs to happen to win
a deal. Using something like Target Account Selling or Miller Heiman’s blue
sheets is a form of strategic coaching. Even if the salesman sometimes feels
that it’s a way of catching them out, this coaching is very valuable.
What is
largely missing, in our experience, is skills or tactics coaching. This may be
because there’s never enough time. Or perhaps because sales managers like to
think that they have hired salespeople who know how to sell.
Let’s revisit the sales
manager out on a call with one of his sales people. More often than not little
or no preparation gets done. A few words may be exchanged over coffee in the
local Starbucks or driving to the call. Worse,
(and I’ve done it) a few words are exchanged in the lift on the way up to the
meeting!
Next, how often does the
sales manager assume the running of the call? 95% of the
time? Why does this happen? The sales manager is there for a purpose. He
or she is there to help close the deal perhaps - and that generally involves,
as they see it, controlling the meeting. If it’s an important deal the manager
doesn’t want to see the call go wrong. Once the sales manager
takes over the conversation, the prospect’s focus switches away from the salesperson.
Result? The salesperson is sidelined; their authority shot to pieces. But our
sales manager fondly imagines that he has coached the salesperson in how to do
it.
Whatever the outcome of the
meeting, doing the call for the salesman isn’t developmental
coaching any more than the tennis coach playing a shot for the player in a match
would be coaching.
Sitting
down with the salesperson to plan the call. Careful
preparation is never time wasted. Question the salesperson about their
objectives for the call. How is he/she going to handle it? What issues is the
prospect likely to have? Is there any skill that the salesperson wants to
improve and practise in the call?
The meeting should ideally
be run by the salesperson with the manager saying as little as possible. (A
useful accessory might be a large piece of sticking plaster for this to
happen!) After the call, a formal de-brief should happen. The manager asks the
salesperson about the extent that the call objectives have been achieved and
listens to the salesperson’s answers. What does the salesperson think could
have been done better? The manager should went wrong!
Ok, I know life isn’t like
that and the relentless pressure to make the numbers can militate against doing
coaching properly. But no sales manager can sell everything personally. The
more he can develop and enhance the skill sets of his sales team the greater
will be the improvement in their performance overall. The immediate sales
manager is THE best placed person to improve selling effectiveness. Personal
coaching is increasingly recognised as the best vehicle for him or her to
accomplish this.
Tim and his sales managers
plan to devote a proportion of their time to real coaching and not playing the
shots themselves. They are developing some KPIs to allow them to measure
individual performance improvement.
Linda Richardson again: “The sales manager role is re-emerging into a new and vital role – from evaluator to developer, from expert to resource, from teller to questioner… it is a 180 degree shift from how most sales managers manage”
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