What is Sales Coaching? Our Assessment of Coaching for Business and Personal Development

Sales Coaching is the perfect way to grow your business, capability and career.

Want to be a CEO? The best CEO’s understand sales and sales leadership.

Want to be an Entrepreneur? The best entrepreneurs understand sales and sales leadership.

Want to be a Founder? The best founders understand sales and sales leadership.

Why do most businesses fail? They did not have enough revenue to cover their expenses. Most leaders know how to cut costs. Few leaders know how to grow revenue.

Sales Coaching is the fastest way to grow your knowledge of sales. It is also the most cost effective, and if done right, Sales Coaching will deliver the best results.

What is Sales Coaching? 

No Google or AI definitions here. We describe it like you’d describe the role of a football coach. Sales Coaching is providing the right advice, guidance and knowhow to a salesperson and a sales team to maximise their performance in the field.

What to look for in a Sales Coach? Your Sales Coach should have the following attributes:

1. A proven sales performer with at least 10 years as an individual contributor in a sales team, and at least 60% of that time on or above target.
2. A proven sales leader with at least 10 years as a sales leader with a sales team that has at least 60% of the salespeople hitting target.
3. Their own sales intellectual property built from their 20 years of experience.

This reduces your risk in using this coach for Sales Coaching as it proves they have walked the walk as a sales winner, been able to pass this knowledge on to others, and leave you with more than a few words of encouragement when the engagement is over.

What takes Sales Coaching to the next level? 

This is where we are different. Like a football coach, the Sales Coach is there to help you perform to your best when you’re in the field. The best coaches go further. Look at these aspects when listening to and watching the best football coaches in action.

Next level Sales Coaching includes:

1. A tailored Sales Coaching approach to your sales team’s situation. This includes understanding your industry, the companies you are selling to, the complexity of what you sell and how decisions are made. It should not feel like one size fits all. To make this a reality, the Sales Coach should also spend some time with you and your team to diagnose where you are at today, and plan how to get to where you want to be at the end of the season.
2. Variation in how knowledge and experience is passed from the Sales Coach to you and your salespeople. There must be one to many and one on one sessions. As do other techniques such as planning workshops, role plays, Q&A sessions and mentoring. This takes Sales Coaching from one way communication to a two-way engagement.
3. A commitment to change management. That is, ensuring the Sales Coaching knowledge transfer becomes embedded in a new approach to sales that changes behaviours, and of course changes outcomes. Lessons taught become lessons learned when a feedback cycle is a part of the change management phase. Salespeople feel the engagement goes beyond “telling” and heads into a partnership style engagement. The Sales Coach must invest in the success of the sales team and all the individuals well after the initial training and coaching has taken place.
4. A proven Sales Framework that continues to guide and leverage the Sales Coaching knowledge transfer well after the engagement has ended. Think of the Sales Framework as like bumper rails in a tenpin bowling alley. They keep the sales team focused on the pins at the end and keep them out of the gutter.

Whether you are a CEO, Entrepreneur, Founder, Business Owner or new Sales Leader, Sales Coaching is a vital part of building your personal capability in Sales and ensuring the success of your sales team and business.

If you’d like to book a confidential meeting to discuss what Sales Coaching could do for you and your business, click one of the links below to book a meeting with a Sales Director Central founder.