Tag Archives: Sales

Sales Coaching

Cohesion and Its Importance: Four Strategies for Coaching Sales Teams

The Consistency to maintain cohesion amid sales team requires well define leadership style in terms of transmitting own culture to the team and values. Therefore, the coach’s personal confidence regulates the authoritative tone for a prosperous sales team fate.

How do you foster cohesion into new sales team?

Values

The hierarchy of values is an entire set of principles and attitude intentionally designed to accomplish a sales coaching purpose. Successful leaders always possess own values written down to use as references in their path to success. Values are very important for a leader to depend upon, because they serve as aides-mémoires during the coaching journey. Furthermore, it is important to extend values to the sales team knowledge so that the vision can be coheres.

Leadership

Every qualified sales coach comes from a specific sales experience upbringing, thus this background based skill has left a particular identity on him. So, associating individual rules for good harmony and connection with the sales team is unique to his coaching style. Consequently the team’s performance is a reflection of the coach’s personality. Moreover, social bond improvement with each salesperson should be the first thing to build before moving onto emotional connection. Thus, in order to implement decent supervision on sales team in general, good interpersonal skills are required.

Emotional implication

Astute sales coach avoids closing eyes like a watchman, as distraction can result in surprises. The need of differentiating positive and negative emotional behaviors amongst sales individuals is therefore vital at this level. Similarly skills like developing abilities to read attitudes, moods, and constant sensibility to connect with each one emotionally.

This is actually the most difficult part of coaching when it comes to influence a specific culture into a team. Sales coaches’ personalities vary since the aptitude to tell people’s emotions are determined by natural factors. One may be good at it while others may be average or worse, but the good news is there are so many ways to learn from and improve skills.

Cohesion and Culture

The coach’s obligation is to facilitate atmosphere that promotes cohesion, such that team members understand the significance of pursuing common-goal. The diversity of expertise and past experience in a team can either attract or isolate people from working together. Subsequently, cohesion becomes a culture within sales-crew when salespeople share same beliefs, and easily accept to work with one another. So cohesion and culture are coherent when the tone of authority is set from the beginning and along the process.

In conclusion, successful sales coach always has own culture and values in provision to nurture cohesion in his team. And also any sales personality can coach and influence cohesion to build sales team, provided there is a clear vision supported by the right skills.

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Sales Coaching

5 Ways to Prevent Sales Reps From Saying I Quit!

There is nothing more frustrating for a sales manager than to have a senior-tenured sales rep resign.

Many companies are coming to realize that the #1 reason why productive salespeople leave is because of their relationship with their sales manager. The decision a sales rep makes to quit your company doesn’t occur in an instant. When there is too little coaching from the sales manager and very little feedback (other than negative), a salesperson becomes gradually disengaged with what is going on. He or she perceives they are not growing and they begin to wonder if the grass might be greener somewhere else.

Here are five things sales managers can do to prevent sales rep attrition.

1. Adopt a teaching mindset

How do you do that? Simple: you just do it. Decide that, going forward, you will coach at least one rep every day before lunchtime. Make it a priority and do it now! To make time for more coaching, limit the amount of time you spend on your email. Or, better yet, delay looking at your email until after you have coached somebody.

2. Provide more accurate feedback

Nothing can be more destructive to a relationship than to make vague generalizations or judgments during a one-on-one. Be specific in your comments. If a salesperson is not updating CRM on a daily basis then that is what you need to say to him or her-not something like, “You are not supportive of company management.” Stick to the facts and you will be a better sales coach.

An effective coaching conversation is based on what you actually observed, not on generalizations. If you make general statements, you sound judgmental, which will tend to make people defensive.

3. Instruct your new hires to ask you for coaching when they need it

Since your goal is to speed up the development of each salesperson, you want more coaching moments. That means don’t limit coaching to only when you want to provide it. Teach your salespeople, and especially new hires, that they should be comfortable asking for coaching whenever they are unsure or simply want help thinking through their strategies.

4. Support your “B” players

Think about a salesperson you would consider a solid “B” player on your team. Can you remember the most recent occasion in which you provided this rep with one-on-one developmental coaching?

Your B players have the energy and skill-set to be selling enough so many sales managers don’t consider them performance problems, so it’s likely you don’t work with them as much as the poorest performers (who need the most help) or perhaps even the best performers (who are working the biggest sales opportunities). But B players are the hungriest for coaching and development, and can become disengaged if they don’t get it. Not good.

5. Teach your admin people to be very careful about the information they share with callers

Here is how a headhunter/recruiter once obtained the names of the top salespeople in my sales office:

He called my receptionist and said to her, “I’m a lawyer downtown and one of your salespeople was out here a few months ago to demonstrate your copier to me. Now, I think we’re finally ready to do something. Trouble is, I misplaced your salesperson’s card and can’t remember his name. But I do recall that he told me he was the #1 producing rep in your office. Do you know who that is?”

Receptionist: “Does the name Ed Jones ring a bell?”

Recruiter: “No, it doesn’t. Perhaps the person I met with was your #2 rep. Any suggestions?”

Thereafter, every time a new receptionist started for us (which for many businesses is quite often) we made sure to share the above story, and emphasize the importance of keeping information regarding the sales team secret.

Losing good performers is bad for any business. Use these five strategies to help prevent it in your company. And think like a leader: As Jack Welch (former CEO of GE) described in Jack: Straight From the Gut, “In GE every day, there’s an informal, unspoken personnel review – in the lunchroom, the hallway, and in every business meeting.” That’s because GE wants to make sure that their employees have the feedback they need in time to use it for the customers’ benefit.

Contact us about our sales coaching and leadership courses and training: http://www.toplineleadership.com/our-team/contact-us/

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Sales Coaching

The Myth of ‘See More People = Increased Sales’

Given the choice between buying activity management systems and implementing a true performance coaching system to bring out the best in salespeople, my unfortunate experience is that many senior sales management teams will inevitably choose activity management. The reason? It’s easy. Granted it works in the short term, and there’s even a place for it during field induction and as a mechanism for performers to appraise themselves, but as a sales coaching tool it is a non-starter.

You teach salespeople about activity, not force it on them. The danger with the latter is that you will have your salespeople deliver the activity without a corresponding increase in business. I have seen numerous examples of salespeople forging activity levels simply to keep the manager happy. In the meantime, the manager sinks into a quicksand of statistics trying to work out where it is going wrong.

I recently visited an area sales manager who was having problems with a non-performing salesperson. The manager showed me the charts he had put together showing the pattern of calls and results. It must have taken him quite some time. The problem was that the salesperson had falsified 80% of their activity. It wasn’t his fault. He was responsible, but it wasn’t entirely his fault.

You may produce a ratio which show that from a particular level of activity that a particular financial outcome is being achieved within the sales force. You may choose to ignore the fact that top salespeople see fewer customers than their lower performing colleagues. But you need to ask yourself the question – what is it you want from the salesperson? Activity or results? Forget the relationship between activity and performance – what is you want – activity or results? If it’s results then forget activity. If it’s activity, then perhaps you have lost the plot.

You teach people about working hard by going out on calls with them. It is the only way to find out what’s going on – with them and with customers. There isn’t a professional coach alive that doesn’t sit on the touchline; stand in the wings; sit in the auditorium; watch the actual performance as part of their coaching responsibilities.

You should accompany new salespeople for five days after foundation training. You will come up with all sorts of excuses why this can’t happen but these excuses will compromise the successful outcome of both training and coaching. Unless you meet people on day one in the field; unless you test that they have acquired the levels of knowledge, skills, and attitudes required; unless you accompany them immediately on live sales calls; unless you stay with them for their first five days in the field; you’ll have to rely on luck as to whether new salespeople make it or not. It’s during these first five days in the field that you teach new starters the activity game. Ideally you will have already arranged a number of sales appointments to go on in the first week.

In the first five days you will learn more about the new starter and they will learn more about you and your company then any other mechanism I know. You must know within those first five days whether the new starter will make it or not. If after five days you still don’t know, then chances are they won’t make it – and you need to think long and hard about your recruitment and selection processes. Or perhaps set them an activity target – that will sort it!

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Sales Coaching

When to Hire a Sales Coach

When would be a better time to visit a doctor: after you are sick or before you get sick? Though many choose to see their doctor only after symptoms create enough of a demand for them to seek help, a more logical approach is to see your doctor for preventive care to ward off illness.

The same is true for your career. Why wait until your career is in jeopardy, your income falling and your stress level climbing before hiring a tenured, skilled and professional sales coach?

Day One or Day 1,000

While some coaches, eager to build their business will suggest that everyone in sales should hire them on the first day of their career, it may make more sense to delay even beginning to select a coach.

Why wait?

Actually, there are a couple of reasons why a rookie sales professional should consider waiting a while before hiring a coach. The first is the fact that many are in a sales position only because they are unable to find a job in a career or industry that really interests them. Sales has been called the “default occupation” for this very reason.

Hiring a sales coach on day 1 of your sales career may be money ill spent. A good coach will be focused on helping your increase your sales and may not be driven to help you decide if sales is really right for you.

Another reason to hold off hiring a professional coach is that your company will (should) have plenty of sales training for you to go through and master. Adding sales models and techniques on top of the training you are already receiving may be overwhelming. Beyond being potentially overwhelmed, you may not devote the time and attention to fully learning the training your company is giving you which probably wouldn’t impress your sales manager.

When the Student is Ready…

There’s an old expression that says when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. As long as your search for a coach begins before “crisis mode,” the time you begin searching for a coach is the right time for you.

Very few sales professionals who hire a sales coach would say that they were 100% certain of their decision to hire a coach. In fact, if you wait until you are absolutely certain that hiring a sales coach is the perfect way to advance your career, you’ll probably not hire a coach until it’s either too late or when your sales are so bad that you feel you have to do something.

T Patrick Phelps is the President of T Patrick Phelps Writing Services, Inc. He has worked with across many different vertical markets and specializes in writing for the sales, IT and personal development industries. Phelps is a Certified Life and Sales Coach and the founder of the Essential Needs Sales Paradigm. Visit [http://www.tpatrickphelps.com] for contact information

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Sales Coaching

The Secret Behind Swedish Sales Success

In a recent article, Annika Wihlborg interviewed sales consultant Björn Strid about his book: Let Your Heart Beat Your Sales Record (Låt ditt hjärta slå ditt säljrekord).

According to Mr. Strid, the Swedish way of selling is highly respected by clients worldwide. Several factors contribute to the excellent reputation that many Swedes have earned in international business.

Based on his many years of selling a range of products (from ice cream to complex logistical solutions), Mr. Strid concludes that the typical Swedish way of selling has five guiding principles: creating trust, showing empathy, being well-prepared, taking action and knowing the relevant profit-loss figures for a company.

These principles can be seen to have grown out of the Swedish business environment. In Sweden, flat organizations are common and this enables people to take initiative and maintain a high level of sales-driven activity.

Also, successful Swedish sales people have an exceptionally high level of competence in the services and products they sell. They keep up with the latest developments in their field, and often have a strong professional background in their area of expertise. Swedes value competence and the ability to explain a product or service, as well as its full value to a buyer.

Empathy – A Very Valuable Sales Tool

But Mr. Strid believes that the most important success factor is the Swedish capacity for empathy. He says, “We Swedes also see and encourage colleagues of the person we are meeting with. That makes us different from many other international sales people who for the most part, focus only on the person with the highest formal title.”

Keep Track of the Numbers!

Another very strong success factor is, according to Mr. Strid, the tendency that Swedes have to keep track of their own sales numbers. This makes them especially good at asking relevant questions of their prospects in international sales meetings.

Taking Action to Make Sales Happen

The consistently high level of activity that many Swedish sales people are known for is another success factor. This is largely due to the relatively flat and non-prestigious organizational structures typical of Swedish companies.

The traits that Swedes bring to the negotiating table are highly appreciated by company leaders throughout the world. Swedish sales people are good at asking questions, leading meetings and – not least of all – taking the time to really see and encourage others.

They have learned that empathy is a very valuable characteristic when it comes to sales, no matter which product or service you are selling. “Swedish sales people have demonstrated consistently that our capacity for empathy, combined with our knowledge of English and our way of taking action, is a very dependable recipe for success,” according to Mr. Strid.

Mr. Strid’s five tips for sales people who want to improve their capacity for empathizing with others:

1/ Meet with people on all levels of an organization – from decision-makers and others who may be influential in the company, down to the user-level.

2/ Don’t be so eager to talk about and share what you think. Focus on asking questions instead.

3/ Follow up with the contacts you have already made. Take the time to do this instead of always looking to find more business contacts.

4/ Get in touch with your clients, even when you are not planning to sell anything. Just let them know that you care about them and that they are important. This will often lead to more business, even if that was not the original intention.

5/ Practice building empathy by asking questions about people’s personal lives as well as their business. Allow the other person to finish what they start to tell you. Avoid jumping into the discussion and talking about yourself. It’s better to ask more questions, than to move the focus onto your own experiences.

Mr. Strid is a sales coach and popular speaker who helps companies develop their sales and marketing initiatives. He is the owner of Strid & Co in Stockholm, Sweden.

About the Author: Janet Boynton Runeson is a freelance web copywriter and director of Entrepreneurial Copy. With several advanced degrees in the Humanities, Fine Arts and Economics, she has extensive experience in international marketing and specializes in cultural awareness.

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