Like most people, most managers I meet simply do not like confrontation. As such, they have tendency to avoid it at all costs. Now, I’m a huge advocate of motivating people by uncovering what drives them personally by tapping into their individuality, and then motivating them by pleasure, their goals, their dreams and their personal vision. While this is my preferred way of coaching and management, the unfortunate truth is, sometimes this isn’t enough for some people, especially those who simply aren’t getting the message that their behavior is going to bring them to a place where they don’t want to be.
The following questions hit on the cost of negative thinking or behavior. And the fact is, pain is always a greater motivator than pleasure. The benefit of using some of these questions is this. Instead of you having to deliver the cost incurred as a result of the individual perpetuating toxic thinking or behavior, you can get off your soap box and stop preaching by asking these types of questions in order for the person to realize the costs or consequences on their own.
Sometimes, when people uncover the cost on their own, and they finally hear it in their own words and voice, it leads to the momentum needed to create something new that would put them on a more productive path. And in many cases they aren’t even aware of their behavior or the repercussions they would realize as a result. Therefore, make sure you’re patient with them and give them the space to do some self reflection until they can come up with the solution on their own.
Remember, when asking the tougher coaching questions, it doesn’t serve you if you’re answering your own questions. So, if you’re asking the question, and then answering your own questions, then what do you need the other person in the conversation for!
Here are the questions to get people to recognize what they may not be seeing on their own:
1.What is this costing you (to continue doing things the way you’re doing them)?
2.How is that strategy working for you?
3.Do you feel that continuing this way is costing you something?
4.When you keep engaging in that behavior, what are the repercussions you may experience? How does your behavior affect you and those around you?
5.If you continue doing what you are currently doing, where do you think you will end up?
6.How does that affect you? (Your team, your legacy, your career here?)
7.How much longer are you going to put up with that?
8.What, if any benefit, are you realizing from continually doing things this way? (Yes, people still tap into any available energy source they can, even if it sometimes causes suffering or difficulties. This is a deeper conversation which requires the skills of a good coach as it’s often something they are not aware of.)
Recently, I shared with you fourteen questions, observations and potential pitfalls that every company needs to address in order to ensure the long term success of any coaching initiative.
In this final part of a three part series, I answer the question, “Where should coaching fall as a priority for a sales manager and why?”
I will tell you with great certainty; there is no single activity that will drive more sales and produce better results that would be considered more important than effective coaching. As such, it is the most important priority for every manager and the greatest gift they can give to their team and quite frankly, to themselves.
So, why should coaching be a priority? In the spirit of efficiency, here are just a few reasons why. If you are coaching your people correctly, the majority of the problems that most managers experience go away or dramatically decrease. When managers coach effectively:
*Your sales increase and your people are selling more
*Performance and productivity improve
*Underperformers get turned around or handled quickly and appropriately
*A deeper sense of loyalty, trust and commitment is established between management and salespeople
*Performance issues decrease
*Communication breakdowns are practically eliminated
*The overall culture of the company is dramatically improved
*There’s greater alignment around goals with less pushback
*You attract better talent to your organization
*Top performers are happier
*You retain your best people
*Your team becomes more accountable and self reliant
*You find your job more fulfilling and satisfying
These are just a few of the top benefits you can realize when a manager is authentically coaching their sales team.
Moreover, I haven’t even mentioned how managers can then coach up to their manager and how it affects interactions amongst the leadership team which ultimately affects the sales team. Avalanches, of course, roll down hill.
Alternatively, there are still those managers who think they are coaching but are still experiencing problems and are not realizing these measurable benefits. If that’s the case, then simply put, these managers are not coaching, not coaching consistently or there are some gaps in their thinking, approach or skill set as a coach which they are not aware of or simply don’t want to change which is diluting the effectiveness of their coaching. For some managers, while contrary to their belief, coaching is more about changing your title and then continuing to manage your people the way you did yesterday.
For those coaches or managers out there who are coaching effectively, even those managers who are running into some challenges, I’d love to hear from you, feel free to send in your comments as well as your challenges so that I can address them here for you.
Yesterday, I started answering the question, “I’ve heard various opinions about the importance of coaching. I’ve even heard some philosophies that argue sales managers shouldn’t be coaches at all? Where should “coaching” fall as a priority for a sales manager and why?”
As I’ve mentioned, failed coaching initiatives certainly do happen frequently in many organizations for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that, quite frankly, coaching is more difficult than most managers realize. Granted, there are a many moving parts and variables which come into play that would determine how effective the coach is, how valuable the coaching is, and whether or not all sales managers or even a specific sales manager needs to, or for that matter, has the opportunity to transform into more of a coach.
In this post, I’ve listed fourteen questions that every company needs to address in order to ensure the long term success of any coaching initiative.
1.How is coaching introduced and rolled out within the organization? Is coaching being positioned correctly? (Is coaching positioned as a perk to better support each person at every level or is it viewed as more remedial for the underperformer and “broken wing?” (I.e. “You’re broken and you need some fixing!”)
2.What type of coach training will the managers receive? This is another topic altogether, that is, how to choose the right management coach training program that will produce a measurable return on your time and monetary investment.
3.What is the company’s definition of coaching? What is the universal definition of coaching that each manager will be embracing? Ultimately, coaching is a language, a new way of communicating and engaging at a deeper, more meaningful level. This is why managers always have an opportunity to coach in every interaction.
4.What is the level of buy in and commitment from the top? Are senior leaders fully onboard and supportive of this initiative? Will they be coaching as well? In some companies, I’ve seen senior leaders actually pull their people out of a management coach training program! (Hmm, now what message is being sent here?)
5.Building off the commitment of senior leadership, has coaching been made a priority as reflected in the manager’s new daily responsibilities? Has more room been made in the manager’s schedule, have certain activities or tasks been removed or their workload decreased to make room for coaching, has more support been given to management so they can offload some of these activities that have now been marked as less of a priority in relation to coaching?
6.What is the commitment each manager has to their team around how each person wants and needs to be supported based on their individuality?
7.Does the manager have the right team to be coaching?
8.How willing is the manager to develop this new skill of coaching in order to make their people more valuable? (This is management’s primary objective.)
9.How effective is the manager in enrolling their salespeople around being coached? Did they uncover and shatter negative assumptions, faulty thinking and costly perceptions around coaching?
10.What is the level of trust between the salesperson and manager? Was it established, confirmed, assumed or re-created?
11.Is the manager also a producer? Coaching is challenging enough for managers. Does this create an even more challenging dynamic if there’s a sense of competition between manager and salesperson? (Is the manager’s personal agenda aligned or conflicting with coaching?)
12.What is the level of consistency and follow through in the coaching? Does the manager only coach in ‘good’ or in ‘bad’ times?
13.Is there a dedicated coaching team? If the manager doesn’t deliver formal coaching (as in scheduled weekly or biweekly coaching sessions, for example), then someone needs to do so. In some organizations, it’s worked to have a separate sales skills coaching team that fills some of this void, whether it’s outsourced or done internally. Keep in mind, this doesn’t dismiss the need for managers to learn how to coach. What it does is help leverage the manager’s time and complements the coaching they are doing with their team. After all, the manager will still need to support the work that the external coach is doing with their team.
14.Who will be coaching the coach? Is this coaching initiative reactionary and event based or built to sustain itself over the long term? Training your managers in effective coaching skills and providing them with a framework they can use to coach is only one part of the equation. After the training is over, what is being done to reinforce the coaching and what was learned during the coach training program? What level of continued support is being provided for management to ensure that the managers themselves have a coach to lean on for support and accountability throughout the process? Who can the manager go to for situational coaching where they can share what they’ve experienced while coaching their salespeople as well as discuss their challenges and goals in a safe and confidential setting? Offering ongoing coaching for your managers will further embed their newly learned skills and the approach they need in order to lead and develop their people. Having a coach for the managers also sends the right message to your salespeople regarding the stand that management is taking around coaching by demonstrating the importance of coaching – at every level.
These are just a handful of questions, observations and potential pitfalls that every company needs to be mindful of and address to ensure the success of any long term coaching initiative, as well as the level of success that the manager will be able to realize when coaching.
On LinkedIn the other day, I was directed to a question about coaching. That questions was, “I’ve heard various opinions about the importance of coaching. I’ve even heard some philosophies that argue sales managers shouldn’t be coaches at all? Where should “coaching” fall as a priority for a sales manager and why?”
Over my next three blog posts, I will be providing some deeper insight and more clarity around these pressing questions.
Whether or not all sales managers should be coaches is a big topic of discussion. Conversely, it’s difficult to determine the priority level of coaching for the sales manager if this question isn’t addressed as well, if not first, as it speaks to the foundation that each organization needs to build upon if they truly want to transform their company and their culture into a true, sustainable coaching culture. Ultimately, it’s the environment in which coaching is being cultivated that will determine success or failure. Coaching needs to become the priority of the organization to ensure the deepest impact.
So, let me qualify my response to the initial part of this question by saying, in the right environment and based on my definition of coaching, every manager needs to expand their role as a manager and develop the essential skills needed to become an effective coach. Coaching is now part of every manager’s job description and is a non negotiable core competency they need to develop. Coaching is not just an event, nor is it something that happens only during regularly scheduled coaching sessions. Coaching is a language and a more powerful way of communicating. It is something that can be leveraged during every conversation. In short, my definition of coaching is the art of creating a new possibility. Now, whether or not the manager “should” coach, wants to coach or can coach, both in ability and in execution, and do so effectively and consistently is dependent upon a variety of factors, which I’ll address shortly.
Coaching is the missing discipline of leadership; a learned and developed skill for every manager – and given the measurable results that effective coaching drives (measured through objective company /industry surveys as well as what I’ve experienced coaching thousands of managers and salespeople), coaching isn’t going to become the next great fad that fizzles out or the flavor of the month. Masterfully delivered coaching is here to stay. Whether or not a company weaves coaching into their culture isn’t a question of “if” but a question of “when,” as those companies that have done so successfully will report that coaching has provided them with a competitive edge, which has allowed them to respond better and faster in the new marketplace.
Conversely, failed coaching initiatives certainly do happen frequently in many organizations for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that, quite frankly, coaching is more difficult than most managers realize. Granted, there are a many moving parts and variables which come into play that would determine how effective the coach is, how valuable the coaching is, and whether or not all sales managers or even a specific sales manager needs to, or for that matter, has the opportunity to transform into more of a coach.
I will be listing a handful of these determining factors in tomorrow’s blog.
It’s the third week in January. Do you know where your goals are? At this point, a good number of managers have already set their 2010 sales goals for themselves and for their sales team. Whether these goals were sanctioned from the top, developed through a mutual collaboration between the salesperson and the sales manager, have been calculated by a formulaic process based on the salesperson, the marketplace and their territory or were developed and disseminated to their salespeople with a more reactive ambiguity, (“Just get out there and sell more this year!”) the majority of managers are thinking about making 2010 a better year than its predecessor.
While some level of goal setting activity has taken place or a declaration has been made by the manager how important it is to “do better this year,” it’s the deeper conversation that follows the goal decree which I often find missing within sales organizations that needs to be facilitated by management.
Sure, you may have set the sales goals with your sales team, and you may have even discussed strategy with them; that is, how they are going achieve their goals. You may have gone as far as having your salespeople submit a business plan to support this. While these are healthy practices for management and for their salespeople, these sparkles of management brilliance do not encapsulate the full composition needed to ensure success throughout the year.
For example, when discussing your sales goals with your salespeople, did you address the following topics?
Exactly how they are going to attain their goals; that is, the strategy that needs to be executed.
*Their level of buy in around their goal.
*Their level of confidence around attaining their goal.
*The potential roadblocks that can sabotage their efforts and prevent them from reaching their goals.
*The role they want you, as their manager, to play in supporting them.
*How they want to be managed around their goals.
*How they want to be held accountable around reaching their goals and how they want you to approach them if they drop the ball.
*The structure they need to put in place regarding how they will manage their daily activity that will move them towards attaining their goals.
What follows is a brief outline for any manger to use when conducting that coaching conversation with their salespeople around their yearly sales goals, while ensuring your salespeople are bought into being coached and supported by you. You will notice that these questions will address the gaps I mentioned that often go overlooked until it’s too late. At this point, managers now find themselves in the reactionary position of spending their time managing problems and fires rather than managing goals and coaching their salespeople on achieving them.
Please note that the following outline and questions have been developed with a few assumptions in mind. First, you are already coaching your salespeople. Second, your sales team is bought into being coached by you. Third, you are truly coaching them using a proven coaching framework (rather than relabeling how you managed them yesterday as coaching). Finally, their sales goals have already been established. (We’re not talking about their personal goals at this time.)
Keep in mind, this is just an outline. While it’s critical to appreciate the importance of having this conversation with each of your salespeople, you may want to fine tune it to best fit your situation.
Step One: Schedule at least a one hour meeting. (This is a conversation too important for anyone to rush through. After all, planning for the race always takes longer than the race itself.)
Step Two: Set the expectations of your meeting and what the objective of the meeting is with them. For example, “I want to use our time today to discuss your goals, how I can support you around achieving them and how together, we can develop the best strategy for you that’s going to drive the results you want.”
Step Three: Discuss the goals that have been set. Ask questions such as:
1.“So, how do you feel about your goals?”
2. “How did you come up with that goal?”
3. “How confident are you about achieving this goal?”
4. “Why?” “What’s making you feel that way?”
5. “What would it mean to you if you achieved these goals? (Personally/professionally)”
6. “What’s the cost you would incur if you don’t achieve them? What would it mean to you if you don’t achieve these goals? What would happen then?” (This isn’t old school motivation by fear or consequence. Rather, for those underperformers who need to understand that there may be a consequence incurred if they fail to reach their goals, this helps them articulate it in their words, instead of the manager standing on their pedestal preaching the consequences to them and sounding like the bad guy. Remember, people listen better and believe what they say more than what they’re told.)
Step Four: Enroll them in coaching (if need be). The timing to do so is perfect, as coaching is the means for them to achieve their goal and how management needs to support their people in doing so.
Step Five: Facilitate this conversation using the following questions:
1.What are the parts of your job that you’re exited about and motivate you?
2. What do you want to/need to achieve in the short term/long-term that will support your goals? (If you’ve already established this, i.e. in their business plan, you can skip this.)
3. What’s your action plan and strategy to achieve your goals? (If they don’t have one, make sure they have a top level view of what this could look like and make this one of their action steps that they need to complete for your next coaching session with them. You can start this process by asking them, “So if you were going to put together an action plan and a strategy to achieve your goals, what would that look like? What would some of the necessary components of your strategy be? Think about the last goals that you’ve achieved. What has made you successful before?”
4. How can I best manage and support you to achieve these goals?
5. How do you like to be rewarded/acknowledged for a job well done?
6. How will we measure your success and progress along the way? (30, 60 and 90 day milestones and mini-goals are critical to maintain your sales team’s focus and motivation throughout the entire year. A year end goal is a long way off. So, celebrate wins along the way and use these milestones as an opportunity to adjust or modify their strategy if necessary.)
7. What might sabotage your efforts to achieve these goals? What do we need to look out for that would get in the way of achieving your goals? What safeguards can we put into place to ensure that doesn’t happen?
8. What structure do you need to put into place in order to make sure you’re engaging in the right activities each day that support your goals while keeping the distractions at bay? (Hint: A structured routine!)
9. How can I hold you accountable around your goals in a way that will sound supportive rather than negative?
10. How do you want me to approach you if you don’t follow through with the commitments you make? What would be a good way to bring this up? How do you want me to handle it?
Step Six – Debrief:
1.So, how are you feeling about our conversation (and first coaching session)?
2. Do you have any concerns moving forward?
3. Great, and to reconfirm next steps, what are you going to be working on next? (What are the action steps you’ll be taking based on our conversation today?)
4. Lets go ahead and schedule our next meeting. What are you willing to commit to having completed by then?
5. I’m looking forward to working with you so that you can achieve your goals this year!
TIP:
Give your salespeople the space to answer these questions. Remember, some of these questions are not only questions you may have never asked your salespeople, but questions they, themselves have never been asked before. So, don’t rush them through this important process of self discovery and do make sure they answer your questions completely.
Additional Questions to Use:
• What do you want in your career that you don’t currently have?
• What do you want to be doing that you aren’t currently doing?
• What are you doing now that you don’t want to be doing?
A few months ago, I was interviewed by Geoffrey James who writes the Sales Machine column for BNET. (Geoffrey is also the author of seven books and the columnist for Business 2.0, CIO, The New York Times as well as many other publications.)
Today, he wrote about something we discussed during our conversation, which is one of the most important characteristics that successful people possess, especially top sales champions. And that is, the importance of being process driven rather than being so result driven.
No, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t focus on the results, or set goals. After all, we need to have something to measure our success, especially in sales, and we need those goals to help determine an endpoint to strive for, something that we’re focused on attaining and the gauge that lets us know when we’ve ‘arrived’ at our destination.
What I am suggesting is to also adopt a mindset that may seem, on the surface, to be in conflict with the belief that you should stay focused on your goals. So, if you suffer from absolute or ‘either or’ thinking, this concept may be a real challenge to wrap your head around. Since we’re on the subject of healthy thinking, absolute thinking is something worth abandoning as well. It’s not one way or the other way; instead, it’s both. (“Either-or” vs. “And.”)
Those people today who challenge status quo and traditional ways of doing things are realizing the benefits of embracing not just one but two truths; two conflicting truths that can, in fact, live together in harmony. Yes, I know this sounds counterintuitive but that’s the paradox and the source of power for those who adopt this mindset.
That is: be mindful of the future, while engaged in and living in the present. To get a bit more cerebral, your process lives in the present where your results or your goals are all living in the future. And if you’re always focused on the result or outcome you seek, it’s going to affect what you need to be doing in the present moment. That includes the quality of your activities, the way you communicate, how well you listen, your level of creativity and ultimately how connected, present and engaged you are with people, especially your customers.
The point is, once your goal is set, continually thinking about or obsessing over your goal or the results you need to achieve doesn’t make that goal manifest itself any faster or easier. Instead, it actually winds up becoming a diversion, keeping your stuck in the future. The real cost is, you’re not being fully present and focused on today and more important, the actual process that’s going to take you to your desired destination.
Think if it this way. If I wanted to move a concrete wall, does the act of pushing on that wall all day make the wall move? Not even a little. It’s the same as spending all of your time thinking about the goal or the result. Doing so doesn’t move you any closer to your goal.
Once your goals are set, they’re not going anywhere! Now it’s time to shift your focus on developing and fine tuning your process which is what will ultimately be the vehicle that will take you to your goal.
Below is an excerpt from Geoffrey’s post based on our interview. You can read the full post here.
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Sales pros always have goals, and most enjoy the process of achieving them. But did you know that goals can be a major impediment to your success?
Take cold-calling, for instance. Most sales pros see cold calling as a goal-oriented activity — fill the pipeline with “X” number of prospects, in the hopes of creating as many customers as possible.
That makes sense, but it also encourages sales pros to see each conversion that results in a prospect as a “win” and each cold call that ends in some other way as a “loss.”
And that’s setting yourself up for failure, because the nature of cold calling is that only a small percentage of the people you contact will be potential customers. The majority will be people who simply aren’t interested or are not a fit for a variety of reasons.
However, if you’re caught up in the “win/loss” way of thinking, you may feel like a “loser” even if the person you called had absolutely no use whatsoever for your product!
Not surprisingly, sales pros begin dreading it, avoiding it, and become increasingly less effective when they actually get around to doing it.
The root cause of this deeply flawed “win/loss” thinking is focusing on the goal rather than the process. If you’re focused on the result, you are visualizing the future (i.e. “will I make my goal???”) rather than experiencing the present moment.
As a result, there’s no way that you can really listen to the prospect, because your attention is on a possible event in a future-yet-to-be. Because your focus is elsewhere (on your goal, that is) you’ll find it difficult to be creative and flexible in responding to what the potential prospect actually says.
Here’s how you fix this. Define cold-calling as a process rather than goal-oriented activity. Stop focusing on the result and start focusing on the potential prospect and the process of communicating with that prospect to determine if in fact, there’s truly a fit.
Changing your way of thinking is that you’ll immediately become more effective because it removes the “sting” of contacting a lead that turns out, for whatever reason, not to be a real prospect.
Rather than a “loss,” the event simply becomes something that you happened to discover during the process of cold-calling.
More importantly, treating cold-calling as a process keeps you focused on finding ways to help potential prospects and customers – and on not wasting the time of those who don’t need the help.
Your true goal shouldn’t be to make your sales goal, but to emulate an Olympic athlete. Top athletes visualize “winning” (the goal) before competing, but when they’re actually performing they focus on what’s happening right then and there.
Here’s the cool part… the real reason for this entire post. Focusing on process rather than your goals increases the chances that you’ll fulfill your goals.
In other words, know your goals, then forget them, and put your mind into the process. If you do this right, your goals will take care of themselves, because your process will make them happen without you wasting time obsessing on them.
With the timely pressure that we place upon ourselves in the New Year when declaring our resolutions and charting our goals, many people often fall short of attaining their goals or honoring these resolutions. Sure, there are many reasons why we may not reach our goals but before we point our finger at things like lack of execution, resources, skills or effective time management, we need to first look at the source of the problem; that is, the goal itself. In other words, are you sure you’re setting the right goals for yourself?
Sure, our goals are supposed to resemble and support that which we want to bring into in our life or career, yet many times, people set goals around what they think they want, what they think they need or what they think they should be doing.
Several years ago, I introduced the difference between priorities and goals and the importance of aligning the two when setting the right goals. Here is the full definition and an example to make sure that you’re setting the best goals for you.
Priorities vs. Goals- What’s the Difference?
Definition:
Priorities: What is most important and meaningful in your life today (activities, values, beliefs, lifestyle, principles, standards, hobbies, integrity, etc.) that you are not willing to compromise or sacrifice in pursuit of something else (such as a goal).
Goals: A future based anticipated expectation, possibility, measurable end result or experience that you are working towards creating, achieving or bringing to fruition that has not yet been realized in the present.
Comparisons:
*Present Focused vs. Future Focused
*What Is Happening vs. What Will/May Be
*In The Present vs. In The Future
Here’s an Example:
John had a goal of being a top producer in his company. As such, he looked at the other top producers and the activities they engage in which make them successful. The top salespeople are working twelve hour days, sometimes even seven days a week. Thinking, “It worked for them, so I guess I should do that too,” he decided to give up a chunk of his family/personal time and other enjoyable activities/hobbies in his quest to become financially successful.
Although John’s priority was spending time with his family, he didn’t understand why he felt miserable and encountered resistance while attempting to achieve this goal.
Once he created a personal strategy and a routine for achieving his own bigger goals that supported his lifestyle and priorities without having to sacrifice what matters most to him, he was able to reach his goals with less effort and enjoyed the process even more.
Here’s The Key Point:
If you are encountering resistance while attempting to reach certain goals or performing certain tasks, chances are it’s either something you really don’t want to be doing, an old goal that may not serve you anymore (a “should“) or you are operating from someone else’s agenda (also a should)! The bottom line is, these goals don’t support your priorities and you’ll continue to feel “off” or out of your integrity throughout your pursuit of these misaligned goals.
Take the time to align your goals with your priorities. Otherwise, you’ll feel confined or powerless to make changes, allowing situations, circumstances or other people to influence or control you. Discover what YOU truly want by aligning your goals with the priorities in your life rather than the “shoulds.”
The fact is, “Should-based goals” do not support your priorities or personal vision. So, if you are unsure whether the goal, activity or task classifies as a should, take a look at your lifestyle, values and priorities and see if they are all in alignment. If the goal doesn’t support them, it’s a “should.” So, don’t “Should” on yourself!
Benefit of Getting This Distinction:
At the end of the day, your goals need to be aligned with your priorities. Honor the priorities in your life by making them non-negotiable.
Before you map out your goals, determine the priorities in your life that you’re not willing to sacrifice. This way, you can identify the activities you need to engage in and what you are willing to give up today (maybe even a conscious, short – term sacrifice of certain priorities) in pursuit of a bigger dream tomorrow.
When your goals are aligned and balanced with your priorities, natural strengths and talents, you’ll maintain your integrity, feel calmer and will experience greater peace of mind while traveling on your path to achieving bigger goals and meaningful, long lasting results. You’ll find the process of working towards these goals more enjoyable and fulfilling, without feeling as if you’re continually pushing for something to happen. Instead, you’ll be pulled towards your goal with less of an effort.
Once you can orient your life around your priorities, you’ll find that you will actually have fewer goals that you’ll feel compelled to attain or be driven and consumed by. If you design your life and career around what is most important to you on a daily basis, you’ll avoid becoming hooked or attached to creating something ‘better’ at a future point in time, which can rob you of the quality of your life today.
Selling Power magazine just released their list of The 10 Best Books to Read in 2010. You can find the full list of these top ten books on Selling Power’s blog here.
My book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions is listed #1. I’m deeply appreciative of this recognition. You can find the full review below. Most important, I hope this book continues to make the impact it has on managers world wide, regardless of industry or profession, providing the guidance and strategies that are desperately needed to succeed as a leader and as a coach in this new marketplace in order to end the timeless struggles that managers are faced with, get your people hyper-productive and ultimately have them perform like true champions today. (You can find more information about this book here.
Review below by Gerhard Gschwandtner, founder and publisher of Selling Power Magazine:
The 10 Best Books to Read in 2010
Charles W. Eliot once said, “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” The profession of selling is fortunate to have a multitude of counselors who are willing to share their insights with their peers. Below is Selling Power’s selection of the best books to read for sales managers and salespeople to boost sales productivity, to improve sales and to increase customer value. These ten books contain hundreds of valuable ideas that – if applied correctly – could easily increase your sales by 10% – 30% in 2010.
1. Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions: A Tactical Playbook for Managers and Executives by Keith Rosen
How many salespeople on your team are not employing their full potential? 50%, or more? What stands in the way to greater performance isn’t something they don’t have, but something they don’t get: professional coaching. The sad truth is that most sales managers don’t have the skill set that it takes to make a positive difference in their salespeople’s performance.
Most managers act as “super closers” and at the same time they complain about their salespeople’s inability to improve. Their approach to coaching is “telling and yelling.” The good news is that Executive Sales Coaching shares a proven process where sales managers and salespeople can co-create new skills in a fail-safe environment. The outcome: salespeople will create their own solutions.
This book will show you how you can:
*Help salespeople use their hidden capacities to solve their own problems
*Create a culture of accountability where salespeople strive to live up to their commitments
*Establish a climate of constructive collaboration that allows people to grow
What do I think? There are only a handful of great sales coaches. Keith Rosen is one of the top three in my mind. His book shares all the essentials you need to achieve a positive transformation of your sales team in 2010.
The downside: Once you’ve opened your eyes to the amazing possibilities of coaching salespeople, you’ll become hyper-critical of other sales managers who are stuck in the old ways of managing by “telling and yelling.”
You can read the full review and find the other top ten books on Gerhard’s blog here.
If you go to the gym on a frequent basis, you’ll get in better shape. A sound and fairly obvious principle. The same principle holds true with coaching the people in your company.
The measurable return you receive from investing your time coaching your people is similar to the payback you get when working out or engaging in some type of physical exercise on a consistent basis. That is, if you coach your people more frequently and consistently, your career and the career of those people on your team becomes much healthier.
Moreover, you have your finger more readily positioned on the pulse of what’s going on around you and within your organization so that you have the ability to handle what would initially be perceived as a small challenge or inconvenience before it blows up into a grand scale problem or costly catastrophe.
After all, problems are what happen when you fail to recognize the clues around you.
Below is a 45 second video I did that discusses this.
The coaching relationship is a choice, not an obligation. The relationship between the coach and the people who are coached is a designed alliance, a collaborative partnership, and more. As such, remedial or sanctioned coaching is often met with resistance rather than with open arms.
How is coaching being offered to your team or to your employees? A perk, an incentive, an option, an obligation, or a remedial response to underperformance? Are you offering it to your entire team, to a select few, or to just one person?
It’s the manager’s responsibility to enroll each person on their team on the benefits of coaching and being coached, rather than forcing coaching upon them. Here’s a video I did that supports this.
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