Sales Coaching: Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach

Citation

Hellman, K. (2009), "Sales Coaching: Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 24 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbim.2009.08024gae.001

Sales Coaching: Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach

Sales Coaching: Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach

Article Type: Book reviews From: Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Volume 24, Issue 7

Linda Richardson,McGraw-Hill,New York, NY,2008,208 pp.

Keywords: Selling, Sales strategies, Innovation

Overview

The powerful premise of Sales Coaching: Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach is that “developmental coaching is the single most important thing a sales manager can do to increase the productivity of his or her people and to meet or exceed a business plan.”

Yet, genuine, effective, developmental coaching is rare. Richardson shares her insights from “over 18 years of experience with literally thousands of sales managers and sales people […] that three reasons most managers don’t coach [are]:

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  They themselves are not coached (no role models). The culture does not support coaching.

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  They don’t know how to coach (no skill).

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  They have little or no incentive or accountability to coach – no inspiration or motivation (no will)”.

Her comparison of the counterproductive limitations of conventional sales management to the vitalizing effects of developmental coaching provide ample motivation.

And her book presents the principles and best practices of developmental coaching – the specifics of how to do it. She breaks the coaching process into five steps and within each step defines actions to give managers a path to follow to engage in collaborative and action-oriented coaching discussions. The steps are Connect and Clarify (Rapport and purpose), Compare Perceptions (They talk first), Consider Obstacles (Ask what is the obstacle to doing X, the desired behavior), Construct to Remove Obstacles (Ask what he or she thinks he or she can do to remove the obstacle before giving your view) and Commit to Action (Set next step and desired outcome and encourage).

In addition to the principles, Richardson provides sample dialogues that are like eavesdropping on a master class of role-playing.

She draws a distinction between evaluative feedback of past performance – like getting an A through F grade in school – and future-oriented developmental feedback focused on what we can do to meet/exceed the plan, or how we can fix an issue. Both evaluative and developmental feedback are needed, because they have very different characteristics (see Table I).

Table I

About the author

Linda Richardson is president of The Richardson Company, sales and leadership consultant to business. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and is the author of Selling By Phone; Stop Telling, Start Selling; and Winning Group sales Presentations. Her most recent book is Perfect Selling.

Content

The first two chapters provide definitions and rationale for developmental coaching. Definitions include illustrations of proper conversations contrasted with improper.

Chapter three presents the coaching process, the six elements of developmental coaching and includes a coaching guidelines checklist worktool.

Chapter four describes the art of coaching: removing obstacles. Asking questions is the method, and illustrative dialogues show the difference between prosecutorial grilling questions, and supportive exploration to discover and help the sales person address obstacles. This chapter describes six critical skills for the successful developmental coach.

Chapter five describes the heart of coaching, namely the philosophy: “Developmental coaching is effective because it starts with a belief in the innate value and integrity of people. The aim is progress, not perfection – there is always a next level”. It identifies the need to shift from sales manager as boss and expert, to sales coach as resource.

Chapter six presents the do’s and don’ts of phone coaching and team-call coaching, and contrasts typical developmental coaching with consequence coaching, a derivative form of developmental coaching to address ongoing performance problems.

Chapter seven discusses evaluative coaching – performance assessment, and shows how to link evaluative and developmental coaching. A detailed discussion shows how to transform the performance review from the dreaded necessity to a positive tool for beginning the developmental process.

Chapter eight discusses sales meetings – coaching the team, and outlines how to achieve the true potential of having the team together. The chapter includes logistical and tactical keys to successful meetings. It discusses “the most important skill for creating group participation questioning.” And it presents techniques to optimize the value of participation.

Chapter nine discusses peer coaching. Although peer coaching vastly expands the potential for learning and growth in an organization, most cultures block it. The chapter presents three stages an organization can go through to create a peer coaching culture. A checklist is provided for the peer coaching process.

Chapter ten discusses self-coaching, in which “salespeople learn how to take initiative and assume responsibility for their own learning and development”.

The epilogue advises: “Organizations that want to develop training programs that have real impact must worry more about what goes on outside the seminar room than in the seminar room. The most effective training happens in the coaching ‘corridor’ where people ask each other: What did we do well? What can we do better? Where can we go to learn more?”.

An appendix provides ten coaching tools – worksheets and templates for coaching.

Readers may also want to inquire about the author’s NanoSalesBooks. Two of her downloadable audio booklets are on coaching (Feedback and Effective Coaching). She plans three others (Why Coach?, Focus and Discipline Side of Coaching, and Coaching the Coach).

Karl HellmanCenter for Business and Industrial Marketing, Atlanta, Georgia, USA