Managing a sales team is not an easy job. As a sales manager, you are already busy enough with hiring staff, making sales forecasts, preparing quotes, managing the pipeline, delivering reports and visiting customers. Let alone that you can make time for coaching the entire sales team. The facts also show this, because American research by the TAS group shows that 73% of sales managers spend 5% of their time on coaching. A missed opportunity. Coaching is vital for increasing sales performance. According to an article by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson in the Harvard Business Review, quality coaching can even lead to a 19% increase in a sales professional's performance. Reason enough as a sales manager to make time for coaching, where the pitfalls below should help you on your way.
Pitfalls and pitfall 1: Comparing sales professionals
A pitfall of coaching is coaching in automatic pilot. As a sales manager, you are used to pitching the same story to your potential customers over and over again. Avoid this type of behavior when coaching trajectory from your sales team. Every individual within your sales team is different. Do not give the same tips and tricks to every sales professional, these are intended for general sales training. Focus on the development of the individual, assess past personal results and determine how these can be improved. A point of attention here is not to compare individual results with results of the sales team. This is in contrast to the development that the sales professional is going through.
Pitfall 2: Telling instead of asking
As sales manager you always aim for maximum results. You are more than happy to share all the experiences from your sales career with your sales professionals, so that they ultimately sell more. However, you are helping the sales professional too much in the saddle and you are depriving the sales professional of the opportunity to take a critical look at his or her performance. Ask questions instead of telling and give the sales professional the freedom to generate new ideas about the process. This means that as a sales manager you do not constantly put a personal touch on the sales team and you stimulate the self-solving capacity.
Pitfall 3: Don't be a boss, but a coach
You manage your sales team, but this does not mean that you have to position yourself as the boss during the coaching process. Show that you want to support and guide the sales professional to resolve any problems. The sales professional should not change because you want him to or because poor results mean a loss of face for you. Be a coach instead of a boss!
Pitfall 4: Ad-hoc coaching
As a sales manager you are often on the road and you are short on time. For the continuity of the coaching process, it is essential to schedule coaching sessions tightly and to actually take place late. A quick phone call in the car is not coaching! Prevent the sales professional from falling back into his old routines and prioritize the coaching sessions.
Pitfall 5: Not making it measurable
The final pitfall is forgetting to make appointments. During the coaching process you asked the right questions and discussed where the sales professional can improve. Once these steps have been taken, it is important to make agreements. Have the sales professional draw up a short step-by-step plan, stating what he or she needs to do until the next coaching conversation. The step-by-step plan must ultimately answer four questions: What results are expected? What actions are required for this? How are the results measured and when is the next coaching conversation for the evaluation?
Coaching is essential for unleashing the potential qualities of your sales team. Want to get started with coaching? Our coaches We are happy to advise and support you in this process, which will enable your organization's most important capital to perform optimally.