Coaching is KEY to build leadership and trust in a sales team.
'Coaching is doing the enough number of interventions to get results through others.' -Ferdinand Fournies
'Coaching is doing the enough number of interventions to get results through others.' -Ferdinand Fournies
It is an excellent tool to change the mood of the coachee.
If you want to influence and/or persuade your sales team, you better be coaching them or at least, some of them.
Coaching, as a tool of leadership, provides POWER to the sales representative AND to the sales manager. You could be a very powerful sales manager.
Example of my experience
A sales manager of a life insurance organization asked me to coach him. He wanted to meet his sales goals and he wanted to understand how 'this coaching thing' could help him and
his team.
his team.
In our first conversation, I asked him to choose several people from his team as he was going to coach them. He told me that he didn't know how to coach. I replied that that was precisely the reason why I was there: to mentor him on how to coach his sales reps.
(This is an interesting aspect: I coached lots of sales managers in Mexico and now that some of them are certifying themselves as coaches, they are finding that they already knew how to do it!)
(This is an interesting aspect: I coached lots of sales managers in Mexico and now that some of them are certifying themselves as coaches, they are finding that they already knew how to do it!)
The first stage of the process lasted 6 months.
First Challenges
During the first three months, he faced some minor challenges coaching his sales reps: they didn't arrive on time, sometimes they canceled the session or they just didn't show up at the time of the session, during the session, they were resistant or they agreed almost with everything but they didn't do anything.
He was disappointed (now I understand why sales managers don't want to coach their sales reps) and he wanted to quit the process. I laughed and told him that it was part of the process and that it was very important for him to keep the process alive.
At the same time, he was building his coaching techniques repertoire (we covered from Grinder, to Fournies, to Leonard, to Flores, to O´Hanlon) and his 'how to influence' them repertoire. One of the main purposes on his coaching process was to analyze and solve: his sales reps' problems, his problems with the coaching process, his communication skills, his selling communication repertoire and everything related to his sales goals.
On the third month of our process, he started to notice that most of his sales rep in the coaching process, weren't canceling the sessions, they were arriving on time and that they were asking for help, real help to solve real problems/situations with their sales process execution.
Things started to flow and the resistance was almost gone. They were starting to trust him. This brought a very interesting issue for him: they were working with him, in his sales team before this coaching process started so he started to ask himself: 'what was the exact nature of my relationship with them?' Because the difference is huge. The quality of the relationship now is greater that the one we had before. And the rest of the team? The quality of the relationship with the rest of the team is so poor...' A shocking moment.
I affirm that with this coaching process he made a shift in the quality of the relationship that he had with them. Before, they where related but at a level that wasn't directly related with the committed results selling life insurance. The only thing that is required to transform a group into a team is a shift in the quality of the relationship. But I'm sure that you already know that.
Impact in the Sales Organization
Now, between the 4th-6th month of the coaching process, he started to notice something more. The coachees, his sales representatives, were getting better results. He was already delighted with the trust that he was building so with the results, he became a fan of coaching. They started to sell, to have their pipeline full, their income started to get better, they started to have a relevant activity and to get noticed by the rest of the group.
His team has 20 sales representatives. He was coaching only 5. The other 15 were asking what was happening in the coaching sessions, they wanted to have coaching and they were asking for it.
His team has 20 sales representatives. He was coaching only 5. The other 15 were asking what was happening in the coaching sessions, they wanted to have coaching and they were asking for it.
One day, in one of our sessions, he told me that he was noticing something more. That the mood of his entire sales organization was shifting, was more positive, more ambitious. In the general Monday morning meetings, the team was not only more relaxed but, they were more cooperative instead of more defiant and willing to do more to get better results, to sell more. They were complaining less. We must remember that he was only coaching 5 of the 20 sales reps that were in his team. Could be possible that these five were influencing the other 15?
What happened
I was coaching him on how to coach them. We had four sessions per month. At the very beginning he was having the usual problems that every sales manager has when he hasn't installed the practice of coaching in his sales organization. He was having resistance and they weren't doing what they agreed on doing. He was frustrated BUT suddenly this changed. Now, the change could just have stayed withing these 5 sales reps but it was quite different: his entire organization started to change, particularly the mood, just by coaching these 5 sales reps. Why?
It's easy. During the sales coaching process, these sales reps were experiencing changes in their performance and results as an effect of going to their sessions with their manager. These sessions were the first opportunity in their careers to analize their sales situation, performance, moods, expectations, professional and personal goals.
The sales manager told me once that at the beginning, most of them arrived to their session unmotivated, but, after the coaching conversation, they left it with a completely different mood: ambition. And from there, they were talking to the other members of the team. It was like, as one of them described, as if 'I arrived feeling like a candle with the light off and after the conversation with R., I felt like a candle, but with the light on'. They were acting as 'change agents'. 'Moods are contagious', says Jim Selman. They got out of the coaching sessions in a different mood and then, other sales reps asked them what was happening, what exactly they were talking about and they shared the content to others. After some weeks, the sales reps that weren't receiving coaching, started to ask to the ones that were in the process about what to do in this or that situation. The coach was coaching some sales reps that were doing some unofficial coaching to the rest of the team.
It's easy. During the sales coaching process, these sales reps were experiencing changes in their performance and results as an effect of going to their sessions with their manager. These sessions were the first opportunity in their careers to analize their sales situation, performance, moods, expectations, professional and personal goals.
The sales manager told me once that at the beginning, most of them arrived to their session unmotivated, but, after the coaching conversation, they left it with a completely different mood: ambition. And from there, they were talking to the other members of the team. It was like, as one of them described, as if 'I arrived feeling like a candle with the light off and after the conversation with R., I felt like a candle, but with the light on'. They were acting as 'change agents'. 'Moods are contagious', says Jim Selman. They got out of the coaching sessions in a different mood and then, other sales reps asked them what was happening, what exactly they were talking about and they shared the content to others. After some weeks, the sales reps that weren't receiving coaching, started to ask to the ones that were in the process about what to do in this or that situation. The coach was coaching some sales reps that were doing some unofficial coaching to the rest of the team.
Please, we weren't creating, for the sake of results, a coaching team. But, the leader, the sales manager was able to make a difference in the moods AND results of his team coaching only 5 people. He was delighted. The group dynamics changed and his team started getting great results.
After the Coaching Process
We did this for one year. During the first six months he coached, with a lot of discipline, a few of the members of his team. With this, he was able, through others, to change the group dynamics, performance, results and the particular and general moods.
He learned how to intervene in both: if a person was having problems in his production or in the team. He was aware where his power as a leader resided: in making enough number and timed interventions... he suddenly discovered that he was able to change positively his entire organization, instead of leaving it to training courses, tactical strategies or motivational meetings. He discovered that he could do something. It was very important for him to learn how to own, to take charge, to appropriate. And money, money started to flow.
During the next 6 months, we designed the leadership dynamics that he required in order to achieve his desired results. He was able to exercise more power to transform and mobilize his sales force.
He learned how to intervene in both: if a person was having problems in his production or in the team. He was aware where his power as a leader resided: in making enough number and timed interventions... he suddenly discovered that he was able to change positively his entire organization, instead of leaving it to training courses, tactical strategies or motivational meetings. He discovered that he could do something. It was very important for him to learn how to own, to take charge, to appropriate. And money, money started to flow.
During the next 6 months, we designed the leadership dynamics that he required in order to achieve his desired results. He was able to exercise more power to transform and mobilize his sales force.
