Use our free sales resources for coaching salespeople.
Perhaps you remember the One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard. It is an excellent book that advocates catching people doing things right. It was referred to as managing in the book yet Ken was writing about effective, in-the-moment, coaching practices. His principles and advice are ideally suited to coaching salespeople.
For those on your team who are smashing the numbers every month or quarter, you probably don't need to intervene in any way.
As a sales manager, the hard part is getting all the others to achieve like your top performers. If you are one of the chasers, the challenge is to figure out what the top people are doing differently. If you are one of the elite, you can increase your contribution by coaching peers.
If you don't have the time but need to get the results, let us do the coaching for you.
Coaches can be assigned like they are in a football team. What sportsperson would not avail themselves of a coach if they could? There are a few exceptions yet almost all of the top performers have a coach or even a coaching team.
The coach must have credibility unless . . . we don't call it coaching.
How about helping salespeople find better ways to do things?
A simple way to start a conversation is to ask, how do you do . . .
How do you find new sales prospects? How do you deal with the rejection? What's the best way you have found to . . .
How do you get introduced to the people who can start a buying process? How do you get them to discuss their problems?
You can pick any of a dozen or so difficult aspects of selling and start a conversation amongst team members or peers.
So coming back to using the Sales Club resources as coaching tools, simply look through the resources for a topic. Refrain from offering solutions unless asked. Coaching salespeople or any adults is mainly about getting what is inside, out - rather than putting something in.
If you want to discuss attitudes, use the sales aptitude assessment as a prompt. Repeat one of the aptitude statements and then ask those listening how they think most top performers would respond.
Use the statements in the sales skills assessment to prompt discussion of methods and skills in any of the ten aspects examined:
- Expertise – offering, customers, market, and the organisation represented
- Advocacy – speaking, writing, and communicating value
- Communication – listening, questioning, and cold reading skills
- Mentalist – awareness, observation, and control of non-verbal signals
- Persuasion – the ability to change people’s minds and prompt action
- Door opening – networking, obtaining enough leads, and engaging buyers
- Qualification – pre-qualification, qualifying for value, and quantifying qualification
- Deal maker – recognising preferred choice, competitive strategy, closing, and negotiation
- Organisation – planning, contingency, and using a process
- Problem-solving – Foreknowledge, difficult problems, and solving methods
Article by Clive Miller
If you need to change sales behaviour through coaching salespeople, we can help. Telephone +44 (0)1392 851500. We will be pleased to discuss your needs or talk through some options. Alternatively, send an email to custserv@salessense.co.uk for a prompt reply or use the contact form here.
