My business is all about strategy and education. My business provides organizations with a definitive strategy and implementation model that will enable businesses to grow effectively and efficiently. Note, I do not call myself a trainer or a consultant. I avoid these words as both of them imply the application of some standardized methodology that is not as closely engaged to the process of a customized strategy, implementation or results model. My clients bring me in to help them get things done. My methodology and philosophy for effective revenue growth is melded into their business to create a new and powerful sales program. We are in the program together.
A key component of this process is coaching. Buried deep in the Wikipedia definition is this explanation that
“coaching is a recognized discipline used by many professionals engaged in people development.”
In a recent blog, Coaching Results Speak Louder Than Words, there were some excellent points about the powers and benefits of coaching in sales organizations. The author, ForceLogix CEO Patrick Stakenas, makes some great points about the impact of coaching in producing high performing sales teams. Here are two thoughts I would like to focus on:
1. The coaching of sales individuals and leveraging the experiences of existing talent to improve the performance of the entire sales organization has become a requirement.
2. Winning sales organizations are providing a methodical approach to defining, analyzing and managing sales performance indicators.
The emphasis here is on leveraging the experience and the methodologies that make effective sales programs high performing programs. There is a distinct difference between coaching and training. Training is similar to a clinic where people learn and practice sales tactics. Training is facilitated in order to indoctrinate a sales team on a process methodology that they are to learn and embrace, even memorize. In training, you practice the methodology over and over again until you are conditioned to do it effectively, maybe even perfectly.
Coaching is like watching game film. Every sales call is a coaching opportunity. Great coaching takes place when the sales team applies and practices their skills and reports their results and experiences. It is this approach that facilitates the learning process and helps individuals improve and define their skills and abilities. While training provides the fundamental learning of how to understand what to do, effective coaching utilizes those real life results and experiences as learning opportunities. It is those learning experiences that coaches can use to re-inforce the processes more effectively, provide guidance for better technique, or more readily adopt tactics that can enhance performance. Effective coaching is an art that requires insight, experience, and the ability to utilize everyone’s experiences as learning tools.
The next time you are looking for a program for your sales team, skip the classroom stuff. They have had enough of that already. Turn your program over to a coach who has the commitment, the experience, and the passion to help them apply the right skills and abilities to be effective selling professionals.