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Tom Reilly Training Home of Value-Added Selling and Coaching for Sales Success |
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by Tom Reilly If salespeople report directly to you, coaching is your number one job. Even if you have account responsibility, coaching your salespeople is still your primary job function. This is how you add value to your sales team. If you believe you are too busy to coach, reread rule number one. Imagine saying to your family, “I am too busy to spend time with you.” If you believe that hiring experienced professionals relieves you from coaching, reread rule number one. Even Tiger Woods works with a golf coach. Are your salespeople better at their jobs than Tiger is at golf? You cannot coach from the locker room. You must be in the field with your reps to provide them with accurate and meaningful direct feedback. How many professional sports team coaches sit in the locker room during a game and wait to give feedback until after the game? They understand the importance of being on the field with the team. Coaching from the field gives you the opportunity to provide feedback when it can still make a difference in the outcome of the game. Don’t be a desk jockey! Coaching is for the salesperson’s benefit. This is not the time for you to unload pent-up frustration with the sales force. Your objective in coaching is to guide your salespeople, provide corrective feedback, and inspire them to rise to the challenge. It is about them, not you. The quickest way to change behavior is to reinforce the effort initially, not the results. Profit follows performance, and performance follows effort. If salespeople put forth the effort you desire, they will create the results you want, and they need your on-the-spot coaching to adjust their performance to work more effectively. Coach behavior and shape attitudes. You have greater control over your sales force’s behavior than you do their attitudes. However, the more you coach their behavior, the greater the likelihood you can influence their attitudes. If you coach them to perform at a certain level, their attitudes will shift to fit their behavior. Cold calling is a good example. When the sales force realizes that cold calling is not as difficult as they had imagined, their attitudes will shift to parallel the calling behavior. Copyright 2005 This is excerpted from Tom Reilly’s book, Coaching for Sales Success: How to create the value added sales culture (Motivation Press, 2005) |
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