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Sales Coaching Simplified: Increasing Sales with Five Steps

Nov 12, 2009 Sales

Confused about which coaching theory to follow? Should you only ask questions like some experts are saying or should you just “tell” your team what to do? It’s hard to know which theory to follow. Both make some sense. The “only ask” model makes your team members independent and the “only tell” model seems like the fastest way to go. Yet, each method on its own really doesn’t work when it comes to sales coaching.

If you go with just asking questions, you don’t leverage your team’s best practices. It would be like expecting someone who doesn’t have an address for a meeting to get there simply by asking them questions. It’s not possible (for the average person). They would need an address and probably a map or some directions. Sales coaching works in a similar way. You’ll find you’ll need to step back from asking questions sometimes to provide a piece of relevant information or a best practice. More about this shortly.

And if you only tell by giving them ideas, suggestions and advice, you limit their ability to really learn and improve their thinking. This reduces the likelihood they will improve their sales behaviors. In fact, picture of it as you are limiting their thinking skills. Way back when you were a student and your teacher went into telling mode, did you pay better attention? If you were like most, you didn’t retain the information and you had to use your personal time to study the information she shared. It works the same way for your team. And I’m guessing your team doesn’t have extra time to go over what you have said. They probably need to be able to apply what they have learned in their coaching right away.

The solution is a sales coaching model which is predominately questions (to discover what your reps are thinking and perceiving) followed with one pertinent idea or piece of information. Give them the most powerful and concise information they need to impact their sales the most.

Ensure your sales coaching includes these five steps so they sell better:

1. Listen until you are sure you fully understand what they are facing (this includes you asking lots of questions)

3. You’ll quickly discover what they don’t know and what information would be helpful to them. Once this is clear to you, ask them if they would like you to tell them about a best practice that worked for someone else in a similar situation.

3. If you get the go ahead, share the best practice(s) with them.

4. Ask if and how that idea or information might apply to one of their sales conversations

5. Facilitate them explaining in detail how they would apply it including what they would say, ask or do

Try this sales coaching goal on for size: focus on “telling” only once per coaching session. This way, your team focuses on learning and then applying ideas. It’s not about them knowing more. It’s about them doing better. They’ll learn more quickly from what they have done and do even better when they are faced with a similar sales situation. This sales coaching focus will help them learn better and sell more.

If you have some team members who need to know more to sell better, give them more but shorter coaching sessions. This will give them the opportunity to learn and apply ideas in digestible bites. You reduce the chances that they will go into an unproductive mode of overwhelm and you increase the chances that they will be more successful in reaching their sales targets.

Your role as their sales coach is to provide your team with the most effective and profitable sales coaching on a regular basis. The more often you coach your sales team, the better their results will be. Following these five steps will help your team increase their sales more quickly.

Want to find out more aboutsales coaching, then watch Peri Shawn’s video to see if your team is really ready to sell more.

Tags: business coaching, Sales, sales coach, sales coaching, sales improvement, sales leadership, sales management, sales management training, sales training