How To Be A Great Sales Coach
Great sales managers are great sales coaches. It’s critical. Without coaching, sales processes are not applied, sales trainings short-lived, and sales rep performance falls short.
So, what makes a great sales coach? There are many things – we’ll share a few:
1. Respect. In order to really hear and receive your coaching, reps must respect you as a leader. Without that foundation, your coaching will fall on deaf ears. What are you doing to ensure you have a solid relationship with your team members.
2. Focus. We could have said “tailored” or “personalized”, but these words often get overused. So, we’ll use “focus” instead. What does it mean? Simply that great coaches narrow their feedback to development areas specific to each individual. Where do they most need to grow? What techniques can they use to drive the sale forward? (hint: great coaches spend more time coaching at the beginning of the sale cycle than at the end).
3. Question. Great sales coaches understand the power of self-discovery. People are most convinced by ideas they themselves create. As a coach, often the best way to teach your reps a certain skill is to ask targeted but open-ended questions to get them to arrive at the answer on their own terms.
4. Push. Sales reps are often asked to do things that are outside their comfort zone – like go out and get new business or ask tough questions to fully qualify an opportunity. As a sales coach, do you encourage them to stretch themselves in order to improve? Do you provide a safe environment to nurture that growth?
5. Believe. Last but not least, you must believe in the potential of your sales reps to meet and/or beat their sales goals. Without this genuine belief, your reps will lack the confidence they’ll need to practice and try and build and grow.