Sales Coaches and Sales Professionals: Creating an Effective Sales Coaching Relationship

Sales coaches can develop the game plan and provide guidance and encouragement, but the team has to make the plays and sharpen their own skills and abilities.

For centuries, tossing a coin has been a traditional way of choosing between two alternatives. In 1903 Wilbur Wright won a coin toss against his brother, Orville, making him the first person to fly their airplane. In more contemporary times, an American football game begins with a coin toss to determine which team is on offense first.

When you flip a coin, you call a side. But the law of probability tells us that it doesn’t really matter whether you call “heads” or “tails” because there’s an equal chance of it landing on either side. Not only that, both sides are equally important. After all, one can’t exist without the other.

The same applies to coaches and their players. Great coaches are nothing without their players, and even the best team will struggle without a coach to guide, inspire and empower them. While each position—coach and player—has its own responsibilities, you can’t perform either role effectively until you know what those different responsibilities are and how they work together in the overall strategy of execution and winning.

Effective Sales Coaches: It Takes Two

What applies in the world of sports holds true for sales professionals and their coaches. Each relies on the other to do their part to get the job done. As much as the sales leaders have to commit to and create a culture of coaching on their teams, just as important is the salesperson’s willingness to accept it, their acumen for applying what they’re learning. and accountability to themselves and their teammates.

Let’s take a closer look at both sides of a successful sales coaching relationship—the kind that will help players perform at their peak and reach their goals.

What Winning Sales Coaches Do

Just like in sports, a sales coach’s role is to bring out the best in people by first believing in them. A great coach reinforces the value they see in their salespeople, which in turn, increases their belief in themselves. Next, a leader must develop people and provide frequent feedback. The key to good feedback is recognizing that coaching is about asking questions and presenting new possibilities, not telling and giving all the answers.

Effective sales coaches know the questions to ask that will encourage team members to reflect on their performance and come up with ideas for growth and improvement—because those are the ones they will personally own and commit to. Great coaches help eliminate negative self-talk and can help even the most tenured and successful sales reps rise above inevitable plateaus. Sales leaders who consistently apply these coaching best practices can confidently watch from the sidelines as their team thrives.

Techniques of Great Sales Coaches

We’ve known for years that sales coaching is one of, if not the, most important aspect of sales leadership. The question becomes, why isn’t sales coaching activity actually happening more consistently?

“There isn’t time” is a convenient and often stated, yet flimsy, excuse for why coaching never takes hold. Many other myths persist that can be quickly put to bed as well. And we know that, in an environment where it seems like sales leaders are constantly having to put out fires, sales coaching is fire prevention. 

So the better question might be:

How committed to the activity and culture of coaching is this sales coach?

If he or she has a negative (or even indifferent) view of coaching the output and habits won’t be there to help sellers be successful. And then there are some managers who might not even really believe they’re good at it or qualified to be coaching sales reps. That often occurs when sales managers have been promoted to the role and are then left on an island to fend for themselves– told to “go coach” but never given clarity about how to define coaching and what effective sales coaching actually means and looks like.

Many sales managers are formerly successful individual sales contributors who simply don’t know what to do. They don’t understand or have a consistent, proven sales coaching process that can give them the flexibility to coach to the person, coach to the deal and coach to the salesperson’s goals (both business and personal).  

As a result, some sales leaders end up ‘winging it’ when it comes to sales coaching conversations. What we tend to see in these cases is managers who “coach to the numbers” and to-do lists and point out mistakes without any focus on developing the salesperson and motivating them, helping them see more than they may see in themselves.

For sales performance and productivity to improve, the manager needs flexibility to coach to the individual while following some specific steps.

A Framework for Effective Sales Coaching

Here’s a simple process and coaching framework for sales leaders to have highly effective one-on-ones with their team: Ask. Listen. Coach. Praise. Challenge.

Ask questions to understand the situation, where the rep is succeeding and where they’re struggling.

Listen for their specific solutions and ideas. And by listen, I mean really listen vs. listening for the chance to speak up and offer direction.

Coach by sharing a few ideas and stories that have worked for yourself and others and might work for them. But make sure to give them the space the solve the problem themselves.

Praise in ways that are specific, measurable and timely. Saying “good job” is vague and lacks precision. It’s more empowering to praise something specific and acknowledge an action taken or performance in a detailed way. What gets praised is typically duplicated.

Challenge them to get out of their comfort zones by showing that you see more in them than perhaps they see in themselves. But challenging also involves exploring with them how they’d like to be held accountable to specific challenges and next steps.

Above all, remember that sales coaching one-on-ones are about goal-setting, motivating and goal clarity, not performance evaluation. It’s about making sure someone’s compass is pointed in the right direction and that he or she feels empowered and enabled to get there. And it’s about coaching them to be their very best- not to be just like you. What one person is motivated by and responsive to may be totally different from another. This is about where they’re going, not about where they’ve been, which is a different conversation. Have them tell you their goals vs. you defining them. When people identify their goals, they believe in them and they will take ownership.

How Successful Sales Professionals Get in the Game

Just like on a sports team, in sales organizations the coach might map out the sales strategy and develop the game plan, but the ones doing the selling have to actually make the plays. And while coaches provide guidance, players must sharpen their own skills and abilities to keep up with performance demands and competitive pressures. They also need to have a full understanding of their position. In sales, this not only means having a positive view of selling but also a solid grasp of and sincere belief in the products and service they’re selling.

Sales coaches can provide information and guidance, but each salesperson is responsible for acting on and mastering it. Their beliefs about what selling really is have to work for, not against, them. And the more they understand what it is they are selling- not just the product specs and features but the actual impact it makes for customers- the stronger their belief will be in the value it brings.

The more positive their view of selling, the stronger their belief will be in the value they themselves bring to customers every day. This is increasingly pivotal in a world where technology dominates many facets of the buying cycle. Salespeople have a critical role to play and it’s one that only they can play: They bring the human value to the relationship, the biggest differentiator any organization has and one of the most important ways to build client trust and loyalty. Purpose-driven salespeople believe that everything they do makes a difference for their customers, and that keeps them motivated to deliver even more value.

Finally, it’s important for players to be prepared for any situation. Huddling with the coach in the moment increases the chance of scoring the next play, while preparing for those sales interactions that happen in the field increases the chance of closing.

With PlanNED, Intentional Sales Coaching, Everyone Wins

The coin toss at the Super Bowl may be random, but a good coach never leaves a team member’s success to chance. Successful sales coaching is intentional and planned. It’s part of the overall strategic business priorities and becomes part of the fabric of the organization itself. It will increase revenue and productivity and reduce costly turnover.

But in order to achieve those lofty goals, it has to be supported from and championed by the senior leadership ranks on down through front-line sales managers and individual sales reps. And it requires both sides to take ownership of their responsibilities, in level support of each other.

Everyone needs a great coach by their side. That’s why companies have to approach coaching as a process for getting their people—and the customer—from where they are to where they want to be.

Salespeople who feel understood, heard, appreciated and invested in will be far more likely to stay with their organization longer. They’ll perform at higher levels. And many of the decisions they were previously running to their sales leaders for they will start solving for themselves.

How can you move the needle on developing a sales coaching culture? Contact us to find out.