Recently researchers conducted
a study that indicated after sales training, if there was no coaching or
reinforcement activity, there was a drop-off of 87% of the knowledge acquired.
That’s a waste of 87 cents on every dollar spent on formal development efforts.
Knowledge is power… ONLY if it is applied!
So why is it so difficult to
do well?
In my opinion, it all comes
down to coaching, which is something most sales managers aren’t particularly
adept at — especially if they were promoted to their position from a sales representative
role. Representatives-turned-managers likely got into management because of
their ability to sell, not necessarily their ability to coach, and this
negatively impacts the way they work with struggling sales representatives.
This is compounded in distribution channels where wholesalers are overly
dependent on their channel partners to sell their offerings. Weak loyalties exist in these channels unless
the wholesale entity partners with distribution in providing exceptional sales
training and coaching models.
Evidence repeatedly shows that
turning around a sales team starts with turning around the sales manager. Sales
managers are uniquely positioned to influence and empower sales reps to greater
levels of success, but sales managers sometimes become so busy and distracted
that they neglect their own professional development as they get caught up
trying to survive the latest fire drill.
What we commonly see are sales
managers and leaders who:
- Don’t have time to coach sales representatives
- Aren’t sure what sales coaches are supposed to do
- Don’t have access to the tools and resources that help them get the most of coaching
- Don’t establish consistent rhythm of coaching
- Can’t lead great coaching dialogues
- Don’t have time to build coaching lessons that fit within the brief sales meetings they hold one on one, in groups, on line, on the telephone or in person with sales representatives
- Ignore animosities that exist between financial and sales professionals
- Don’t have a sales coaching coach
Sales coaching is an ongoing
process of developing sales representatives to be better at what they do. It’s
a process that is really up to the individual representative to do the work.
The sales manager’s job is to facilitate, to hold the individual accountable to
the growth or improvements they’re looking for. Coaching is the number one activity
that sales managers do to drive performance.
Effective coaching hits the bottom line.
Sales representatives
receiving great coaching reach over 100% of goal, in contrast to sales
representatives reporting poor coaching who achieve dramatically lower
percentages of their goals in large part due to unrealistic forecasts.
Harvard Business conclusion?
The real payoff from good coaching lies among the middle 60% — your core
performers. For this group, the best-quality coaching can improve performance
up to 19% {defined “performance” as a representatives gap to goal (i.e.,
percentage of quota attained)}. In fact, even moderate improvement
in coaching quality — simply from below to above average — can mean a six to
eight percent increase in performance across 50% of your sales force. Often as
not, that makes the difference between hitting or missing goals.
We offer Sales Pro
Professional Coaching System. Be sure to set up time with me (Jim Ullery) to
talk in more detail about this subject: https://www.timetrade.com/book/YBWCC to
set an appointment to talk or reach out to my email Jim@c4oe.com
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