We’ve emphasized the importance of making an effort to make sales coaching a part of your sales team’s regular process on this blog before. But really, it goes farther than that. It’s not good enough just to make the bare minimum effort to coach your sales team. It will help to an extent, but if you’re just going through the motions, in the end it won’t do much. You have to commit to it, and do it right. You may know the basics, but there’s fine-tuning left to do.
One higher-level mistake to avoid is coaching only in the way that you would want to be coached. Owners and managers sometimes complain that their salespeople “shouldn’t need all the details, just the bottom line” or that they “need to be babysat” too much. Most of the time, that specific manager is projecting himself or herself on the rep in question. The manager didn’t need extra help, so why should they? They believe that since this is how they operated, everyone should operate the same way.
This is extremely common in entrepreneurial companies where the owner is also playing the role of sales manager. As simple as it sounds, always remember: your people can and will be different from you. Some may need extra help, and it’s unfair – not to mention damaging to your bottom line – to withhold it just because you never needed it.
Figuring out the right time to coach is also important, particularly when also balancing it with training. Training is teaching a skill, where coaching is teaching finesse. Too often, managers are still looking to impart a specific skill or “teach” the rep a lesson rather than helping them master the finer points of what they have already learned.
When rookie athletes arrive into a professional sports organization, they are trained on the playbook. They start with the basics. Once they understand the plays, the emphasis moves to coaching them on the details associated with those plays. Your situation as a sales manager is the same.
It’s not enough to just go through the motions, or subject your salespeople to “just okay” sales coaching. That’s not the way to take your company to the next level. You need to tighten the nuts and bolts and make sure the coaching you give is the best that it can be. Do it, and do it right.
