Sell More With Sales Coaching

Practical Solutions for Your Everyday Sales Challenges

Peri Shawn

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781118785935
• eBook ISBN: 9781118786017
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Mentoring & Coaching
• Index: Business

Sales coaching tools and strategies to help you sell more

Sales executives and business leaders are looking for ways to increase their revenues without major changes to their technology, processes or workforce management. When done effectively, sales coaching can be the catalyst that improves sales results, team morale and employee retention. Sell More with Sales Coaching provides results-proven sales coaching material that includes assessment, exercises and sales coaching questions.

As a result of applying the tools and strategies in this book, sales leaders and teams will drive higher revenues and performance by:

• Assessing team members' sales capacities
• Determining what type of coaching is needed on an individual basis
• Identifying sales mistakes being committed by salespeople
• Coaching salespeople to avoid committing sales mistakes
• Improving the quality of sales conversations
• Increasing the quality of conversations within the team
• Leveraging the use of CRM during sales coaching

The author's company, the Coaching and Sales Institute, has worked with large sales forces and provided training for the launch of the debit card, and one of the fastest-growing divisions of the Royal Bank of Canada.

CHAPTER 1
Ensuring Your Sales Coaching Gets Results

Salespeople sell more when they’re coached effectively and regularly.

Results prove sales coaching increases sales, the Harvard Business Review has reported on it, and the Sales Executive Council documents it. Yet, you may be wondering how it works in your world.

Picture this: You have a new salesperson on your team. Joe’s an average-performing sales guy, and you’re about to have your first sales coaching session with him. He’s just finished a sales interaction with a potential client, Susan. He’s done some things well, and he’s done some things that need improvement (like most salespeople).

Here’s what the line graph of his sales behaviors with Susan looks like:

The high point on Joe’s sales behavior curve represents the most effective behaviors he engaged in with Susan. These include:

• Asking some great discovery questions.
• Providing relevant information at the ideal time in the conversation.
• Remembering to set the agenda for the next time they meet.

The low point represents the least effective behaviors Joe demonstrated with Susan. These involve:

• Forgetting to ask Susan which product solutions her company had tried unsuccessfully.
• Agreeing the product he suggested was expensive without illustrating its valuable ROI.
• Not sharing the success story of a client with a similar issue to Susan’s company.

Despite Joe’s efforts, Susan decided not to buy during their sales interaction.

The magic happens after you coach Joe and he sells to the next potential client with an issue similar to Susan’s.

During the call with that next client, Maria, Joe does not repeat the ineffective behaviors from the low point of his interaction with Susan. His techniques that, on the graph, were labeled “Effective Behaviors,” become his least effective behaviors, while the most effective behaviors from his interaction with Susan now represent his average performance. Overall, the standards of Joe’s sales behaviors trend upward.

And here’s the most exciting benefit of sales coaching with Joe: He engages in new, even more effective sales behaviors with Maria, so his most effective sales behaviors are stronger than they were previously. Therefore, Joe sells better and sooner in his sales conversation with Maria than he did with Susan. As proof of his success, Maria decides to buy during the interaction.

Here’s what the improvement in Joe’s sales behavior looks like:

The line graph to the left shows his sales interaction with Susan, and the line graph to the right is his interaction with Maria. Imagine the sales results Joe will get when you coach him on an ongoing basis. He’ll incrementally continue to sell better and sooner. Translation: He’ll sell more.

This kind of improvement is typical for salespeople who are coached regularly. I call this the Quantum Coaching Effect. If you maintain a coaching relationship with your team members, they’ll continue to reach new sales heights. You’ll find they’ll let go of their least effective sales behaviors and engage in more and more effective ways to help potential clients with their buying decisions.

Sales coaching can be very rewarding for sales leaders and their team members when they experience this level of improvement. It starts with your coaching focus. It’s not about you being the source of all answers; it’s about coaching your team to improve sales behaviors. The following story illustrates this:

With an added glint in his eye from his blade’s reflection, my brother finished off his third victim. And I was his accomplice. (A melodramatic start, yes. Yet you’ll find this holds an essential sales coaching lesson for you.) You see my brother, Brad, was different. At the age of eleven, he was an entomologist (translation: a very serious bug guy, into beetles, butterflies, moths, and spiders).

Among the many creatures he nurtured, were monarch butterflies, which he bred in his bedroom. I remember watching in awe as dozens flew from one end of his room to the other. Orange never looked so beautiful.

Brad would get the monarch butterflies as caterpillars and let them mature. Every year, he and I would watch them go through their metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly.

When the caterpillars would reach their chrysalis stage, which is when they are in cocoons, we would patiently wait for the chrysalides to hatch. We’d watch the growing butterflies inside move around and struggle, and struggle, and struggle. Then finally each one would break free with beautiful wings and hang there before eventually flying off.

One year, Brad and I decided we wanted to help and make the metamorphosis easier on the butterflies, so when the next butterfly started to struggle to emerge from its chrysalis, Brad took out his X-Acto knife and very carefully cut open the side of the cocoon.

We waited and watched.

No struggle. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!

We shared the kind of smile only co-conspirators can understand. I felt like a superhero in the world of nature. We had single-handedly saved the butterfly. I was so proud that I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

The butterfly fell out of the chrysalis with crumpled wings. It sat there and sat there, and sat there. And then, flop, it died.

I hate to admit this, but did it three times before we figured out that the butterflies’ deaths had something to do with us. Brad went to the books, and discovered this: The butterflies’ struggle gives their wings the strength to fly, and when we took away their struggle, they couldn’t fly and they died. So much for being the heroes of nature.

How This Relates to Sales Coaching

Just like Brad and I enjoyed watching the butterflies mature and fly, you probably have wanted your sales team to fly; and just like we wanted to help and make it easier for the butterflies, you probably have wanted to help and make things easier for your team. Just like we thought it was better for the butterflies not to struggle, you may have thought it was better for your team members not to struggle. Just like we had good intentions when we cut open the butterflies’ chrysalides with an X-Acto knife, you probably have good intentions when you give your team members all the answers because you thought you were making it easier for them. Just like we learned that taking away the struggle for the butterflies kills them, you might have discovered that telling your team members the answers doesn’t necessarily improve their thinking or their sales skills.

What No Struggle Means

For the butterflies, no struggle means no strong wings, which translates into no flying. For your team, no struggle means no new neurological connections, which means the same old thinking, which translates into no flying and the same old sales results. Not good. Each time you tell your team members what to do, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1: Ensuring Your Sales Coaching Gets Results
• CHAPTER 2: Sales Mistake #1
• CHAPTER 3: Sales Mistake #2
• CHAPTER 4: Sales Mistake #3
• CHAPTER 5: Sales Mistake #4
• CHAPTER 6: Sales Mistake #5
• CHAPTER 7: Sales Mistake #6
• CHAPTER 8: Sales Mistake #7
• CHAPTER 9: Sales Mistake #8
• CHAPTER 10: Sales Mistake #9
• CHAPTER 11: Sales Mistake #10
• CHAPTER 12: Making Your Sales Coaching Sustainable
• BONUS CHAPTER: Leveraging Your CRM during Sales Coaching
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• INDEX
• End User License Agreement