7 Secrets Of A Winning Sales Coach

I recently heard a fascinating story from a Sales Coach who told me how he succeeded in overcoming some major challenges when he was recruited as a rookie sales manager for a major-brand forklift dealership in the late 1990s. Despite the brand name and the brand’s reputation for quality and excellent resale value, the dealer’s sales record for new, reconditioned, and used forklifts was abominable and had been lousy for quite some time.

At this Sales Manager’s request, I’ve agreed to keep him anonymous, so for our purposes, I’ll simply refer to him as George.

George had been the number one salesman for a southern California forklift company selling more units in his territory in a month than most of his competitors sold in a quarter. George was fairly well known throughout the industry so a failing dealership in the northwest desperately needed to sell or die, so management went after George like the hare chasing the tortoise.

Well, this was nothing new for George. He’d been recruited for years by dozens of other dealers all over the country. But the dealership the northwest was something else. Sales had been slipping for several years, market share had plummeted to historic lows, and the service and parts departments were experiencing a serious revenue shortfall due to the cumulative, drop-off in overall new, reconditioned, and used forklift sales. So, the dealer principal called George and literally begged him to meet for dinner so he could offer him tons of money and complete freedom to run the sales department anyway he saw fit.

George is anything but dense. So he looked at this opportunity for what it could be, not for what it seemed to be. The new job would undoubtedly be tough challenge with lots of inherent risk of failure. On the other hand, it could be an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When he looked at the new job’s potential, George realized he had nothing to lose. Not really. After all, if he could turn this company around, he’d be able to write his own ticket with anyone, anywhere. On the other hand, even if he failed, he could always hit the road and earn six figures selling forklifts for any dealer, anywhere.

So, he looked the dealer principal in the eye, shook his hand, and accepted the position.
George inherited seven salesmen and two saleswomen with his new job. The only producer in the entire sales department was a mid-forties lady we will call Jasmine (not her real name). Now, Jasmine had only been in the industry for about five years, yet she was selling forklifts like there was no tomorrow. None of the other eight salespeople seemed to have the experience, training, motivation, or the character necessary to focus on much of anything beyond a draw, driving a company car, and taking paid holidays.

Morale had dropped as low as sales, profits, and the infrequent commissions check.

George immediately sat down individually with each sales person to talk about what was really going on. He promised to keep each conversation confidential as he asked each sales person to talk about why they weren’t generating more sales and profits. He was disappointed but not surprised to hear the usual excuses for poor performance he’d heard from salespeople for years: “There’s no business in my territory because it’s saturated with forklifts” and, “Our competitors outsell us because their prices are lower and I can’t compete” and, “The economy is slowing down and no one is buying” and on and on.

Within 3 months of George’s arrival in the sunshine, all those excuses faded like memories of last year’s Grammies, and the sales department was selling new, reconditioned, and used forklifts like never before.

So, what happened?

What did George do to change things around so dramatically?

Well, here’s what he told me:

GEORGE’S 7 SECRETS

George’s 1ST Secret – Do nothing: For the first few weeks after he became Sales Manager, George did nothing at all. He didn’t make any changes; in fact, he didn’t even make any suggestions.

The sales crew was delighted because they began to believe that George would never be as good a sales manager as he had been a territory salesman. There were two reasons for this unlikely attitude. First and foremost, the sales crew didn’t want things to change, not really, because they didn’t believe change would do anything but make them work harder for less. Secondly, they’d heard all about George’s heavy hitter reputation, thought it made them look bad, so they secretly rooted for George to finally fall flat on his behind.

Given the severity of the sales situation, the big question floating around the company was why isn’t George doing anything? Is he just lazy? Is this the Peter Principle in action? Is George simply not up to the job? Or, is he too much of a wimp, too scared to tackle this huge, long-term problem head-on?

Not hardly.

George did nothing because he was too smart to move too quickly, too soon. He knew that before he could institute changes to increase sales and profits, he first needed to invest some serious time and patience learning to understand the dynamics that had killed sales for so long at this particular dealership.

This time and patience thing took more than a little courage on George’s part. It was tough for a results oriented guy like George to overlook caustic comments from Senior Management and pass off the disappointed stares flashed his way by the few people in the sales department who really did want change. Nevertheless, he stayed focused on gathering information, analyzing sales records and call reports, talking with sales people, managers, department heads, and customers, digging for the root causes of the only problem that really mattered: Not Enough Sales!

GEORGE’S 2ND Secret – Build Relationships with Sales Players: After George analyzed management support, financial resources, company image in the territory, facilities, equipment, customer service, parts and service support, product quality, and the company’s relationship to its factories, he concluded that he was right about the root cause: The sales team was simply incapable of doing its job. Sure, like any warm body, each sales person was capable of taking an order for a forklift, but nine of nine sales people weren’t trained in the skills they needed to sell significant numbers of forklifts. Eight of the nine obviously lacked confidence and direction and had never experienced any consistent success . . . so they had no positive history to fall back on. Nine of nine sales people worked – when they worked – only for themselves because not a one of them had a clue about the collective importance of working together as a team. Last but not least, since Jasmine had always been off doing her own thing, completely disassociated with the rest of the group, her colleagues had no role model to emulate.

George made it his business to continue to get to know each sales person, both as an employee and as a person. Each afternoon, he would invite one of the nine to come to his office early the next morning for 15 minutes or so before the switchboard opened, just to talk. He provided fresh coffee, hot chocolate, and a variety of pastries to please any taste. Discussions were friendly, casual with lots of give and take. Over time, each individual came to learn that George wasn’t a threat and, at the same time, they began to believe in George as a leader and as a coach who could and would help them sell more and earn more, more often.

GEORGE’S 3RD Secret – Create a success role model on the team: If you’ve heard the term “Stepping Up”, you probably heard it in the NBA or NFL. “Stepping Up” means that a top performing player assumes a leadership role on the team. Because Jasmine was the only real performer in the sales department, George decided to help her “Step Up”. He trained her thoroughly on the ins and outs of the Sales Coaching concept to help her realize that despite years of separation, the team really needed her to become a Success Role Model. George knew very well that the best way to transform eight below average producers was to get them to emulate the one strong performer.

George also realized that if Jasmine’s sales began to drop – for any reason – she would lose credibility with the rest of the team. So, he worked to coach her, subtly and quietly, because he didn’t want to offend her sensibilities as a top performer. He worked with her consistently because he wanted to keep her numbers strong. In George’s second month as Sales Coach, Jasmine was able to generate nearly 200% of budgeted new, reconditioned, and used sales in her territory. And, senior management and others around the company began to drop their doubts about George’s abilities.

At this point, we asked George why he didn’t simply set himself up as the team’s role model. After all, his sales history was nothing to sneeze at!

His reply?

“I felt that my example wouldn’t be as meaningful as the example Jasmine could set,” he said with a smile. “After all, even though these sales people weren’t particularly friendly with each other, they knew Jasmine well enough to respect her abilities as a top-notch sales person and would therefore be more likely to emulate her strategies and tactics.

“We started slowly at first. In Sales Practices and Team Meetings, I’d ask Jasmine to talk about her week was going. She’d tell us who she sold to and why. It was just casual conversation. No lectures, no pressure. After a couple of weeks, I began to encourage the others to interact with Jasmine, to ask questions, to talk about their successes and failures. And, in no time at all, we had our Success Role Model working to help the team sell more, more often, with no resentments and no resistance.

“Over time, I realized that Jasmine had become Sales Coach in Sales Practices and Team Meetings while I had become the moderator. Gotta tell you, I couldn’t have been more pleased that my plan worked out so well, so quickly.”

GEORGE’S 4TH Secret – Clearly communicate performance goals: George refused to waste time with mealy-mouthed platitudes. Because he felt obligated to turn the company around as quickly as possible, because forklift sales people work in an incredibly competitive business, George refused to take anything for granted. He believed that he owed it to Senior Management, to himself, and especially to Sales Players, to come clean and communicate his expectations to everyone concerned.

So, George established the following three categories of Performance Goals for the team:
Activity Goals, Behavior Goals, and Results Goals.

An ACTIVITY GOAL, for example, requires each Sales Player to send out a minimum of 25 mailers per week with telephone follow up calls within seven days of each mailing.

A BEHAVIOR GOAL requires each Sales Player to provide a customer quote within 24 hours of the initial contact.

The RESULTS GOAL that got the most attention requires each Sales Player with at least one year in a territory to sell a minimum of $100,000.00 in sales of new, reconditioned, and used forklifts each and every month.

GEORGE’S 5TH Secret – Set your standards high: No matter how effective you are as a Sales Coach, George says, no matter how hard you and the company work to support the sales department, there will always be someone who won’t step up to the plate. George doesn’t hesitate to confront poor performers because he refuses to tie the team’s performance to the lowest common denominator. He focuses on the only thing that really matters: Consistent, profitable sales! If a sales person can’t or won’t generate enough in profits to exceed the company’s cost in payroll, commissions, benefits, etc., George recruits a replacement and immediately cuts the player from the team.

If a Sales Player is a marginal performer but is willing to admit the shortcomings that need to be fixed, George, Sales Coach, works to bring that person to the point of making the “Final Decision” which means they either ‘decide’ to join the team, immerse themselves in the Sales Coaching process, and start selling or they ‘decide’ to leave the company . . . immediately.

George told us that that the only thing worse than someone who quits and leaves is someone who quits and stays . . . so he never allows anyone to quit and stay.

Author’s comment: Sensible approach . . . no wonder this guy’s a winner.

GEORGE’S 6TH Secret – Emphasize dignity and respect for all: Look, George says, after the dust settles, we are all just people. We are fallible human beings who make more mistakes than we care to admit. So, George makes it his business to firstly admit his own mistakes, no matter how tough it may be to do so. Because he agrees with Dr. Phil when he says you can’t change what you won’t admit, George expects Sales Players to accept responsibility for their own shortcomings. Irrespective of performance failures and character flaws, George constantly reminds the team of his expectation that everyone – Sales Players, senior management, department heads, key personnel and, of course, the coach – will treat everyone else with complete dignity and respect.

George promotes this aspect of his Sales Coaching effort by taking the entire sales team out of the office once a month – every month – for a fun dignity and respect building group activity – go-karting, golfing, dinner, lunch, breakfast, something.

GEORGE’S 7TH Secret – Coach hard, play hard, and win: George believes that his job as Sales Coach is just as important as Joe Gibbs’ job was as Coach of the Washington Redskins. Like any winning NFL coach, George recognizes that he has to stay close to the action. To be an effective, credible coach, he has to be visible to Sales Players, customers, prospects, senior management, department heads, and key personnel in the company. So, like any good coach, George spends a great deal of time each week talking to people, on the phone, in meetings in his office, traveling with Sales Players, in front of prospects and customers, asking questions, and observing how sales plays are won and lost.

As a result, George has gained incredibly accurate and timely insights into his performance, into the performance of the Sales Team, and into the real needs of customers and prospects. These insights of course have helped George set realistic team goals, reward winning Sales Players, supply real customer needs, and thereby triple sales within 12 months.
You can do the same and more . . . if you really want to.
Right?

RATE YOURSELF AS A WINNING SALES COACH

Take time now to discover just how good you can be by taking time to understand how good you already are!

Respond to the following scenarios using five basic scales. A quick way to score this test is to simply use a highlighter to hit the number that most closely matches your response.
Your responses will not only help you determine where you stand on the following five critical elements of Sales Coaching, but will also help you prioritize those areas you may need to improve:

1. GOAL SETTING SKILLS: My goals are realistic, clear, compelling and support our company’s complete sales success in our territory. I discuss Sales Goals with Senior Management and with every Sales Player, individually and collectively, on my team. I supply lists of Sales Goals to Senior Management and Sales Players on a regular basis for their review, discussion, and final approval.