Sales Coaching

The single greatest lever of change any organisation can employ is effective sales coaching. Front-line managers have the pivotal role in ensuring behaviour change by giving meaningful guidance for continued improvement.

Few sales organisations today would deny the importance of professional sales coaching. But the reality is that most sales managers don’t coach effectively because they don’t know how to, they don’t have the time, they don’t like to or they’re afraid to.

The majority of managers who say they coach their sales team are typically not engaging in activities that actually help their reps become better sellers. Most “coaching” is ineffectual because managers:

• Don’t know how to focus on individual skills
• Don’t recognise when to coach versus when to sell
• Think they are coaching when they take the lead on sales calls

Sales coaching need not be daunting or ineffectual. The key to success is establishing reasonable priorities and incorporating best practices, as outlined in the Whitepaper: Six Characteristics of World-Class Sales Coaches . The best coaches spend less than 10% of their time selling. They understand that they can drive more business by spending their customer-facing time carefully observing their reps. This allows them to provide feedback that promotes the use of skills that produce results.

Steeped in behavioural research, Huthwaite’s approach to effective coaching teaches managers:

• When to coach and when to sell
• How to avoid barriers to coaching
• To set coaching priorities—who to coach and when to coach them
• How to help sellers plan
• How to provide effective feedback