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Posts Tagged ‘management coach training’

Remote Coaching or Face to Face Coaching – What’s More Effective? Shattering The Myth of Remote Coaching

Aug 24, 2010 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Coaching, career coaching, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople


With more business conducted across online communication platforms and more sales teams operating in a virtual environment, many sales managers question how proficient they can be at coaching their team at a distance—especially if they have never been shown how to do so effectively.

While you may not always be in the same room as the person you are coaching, you can schedule regular coaching sessions over the telephone, or using an online application such as Skype, Live Meeting or GoToMeeting.

Now, I’m certainly not disputing the value of coaching someone face to face and the additional things that can be observed when doing so. However, a large majority of managers do not often have the luxury of calling a face-to-face meeting and instead find themselves supporting, coaching, and managing their people over the telephone. As such, developing and strengthening your telephone coaching skills becomes essential to leveraging every coaching opportunity you have with your team.

More and more, remote coaching is quickly becoming the norm and not the exception. In my twenty-plus years of coaching thousands of managers and salespeople, at least 95% of all the coaching I have done has been over the telephone. Not only has remote coaching been proven to be incredibly effective but it is also highly efficient. If delivered effectively, coaching at a distance can save you a considerable amount of time as it relates to scheduling limitations as well as travel time. Managers also have the opportunity to do more impromptu coaching and have check in calls with their team, whether it’s to build accountability, reinforce a message, handle a timely challenge or even to celebrate a win. This ‘just in time’ coaching can now be delivered when your people need it most.

Some managers may think they are at a disadvantage coaching remotely, and as a result, don’t put forth the effort and attempt to coach at a distance. These managers mistakenly believe they cannot effectively coach their people if they are not in front of them. They feel they are unable to ‘observe’ their team in the field if they are not physically present with them.

However, there are just as many managers who feel remote coaching works better for a variety of reasons. After all, the focus needs to be on the message and many managers feel that when coaching remotely, they don’t have any other visual distractions that can take away from listening purely to the spoken word.

In addition, you actually do have the opportunity to observe your team ‘in the field.’ Granted, your direct report may not be next to you when they’re delivering a presentation or a pitch but you can schedule a conference call with the salesperson and listen in while that person makes follow up calls to prospects or customers or when they’re cold calling, should cold calling be part of that person’s responsibility.

And even though you’re not physically present, you can observe other things as well that go beyond simply what you’re hearing. For example, whether you’ve scheduled a time for a coaching session or a time to observe them over the telephone, are they prepared for their meeting with you? Are they efficient and organized? Do they have their notes, call list, objectives and expectations clearly mapped out? Are they focused or distracted?

In many cases, if the telephone is the main communication tool for your salespeople, whether they are presenting, following up, handling a customer issue or prospecting, it only makes sense to observe and coach them using the same communication platform. This will give you more of a realistic sense of what they are doing, what they are saying and how they come across. After all, if the telephone is predominantly what your salespeople are using when communicating with your prospects and customers, it only makes sense for you to listen to them and what they sound like over the same medium. In this case, conducting skill practice scenarios and role plays face to face rather than on the phone is actually more of a simulated environment than a realistic one!

So, what else can you observe at a distance? If you’re on the phone listening to one of your salespeople make cold calls or follow up calls to your prospects or customers, are you observing not only what they’re saying but what they are not saying? Are you being mindful of their tone, pacing, resonance and the confidence they exude through the phone? By knowing what to listen for during a remote coaching session or observation session, you’ll find that you will be able to uncover many valuable coaching opportunities, without having to be physically present with your team.

Of course, when coaching remotely, that does not mean you now have the license to check your emails, instant messages or text messages on your phone while doing so, just because your direct report can’t see you through a phone line! I guarantee, they can still tell when you are distracted by something else and as such, are not listening or fully engaged in the conversation.

When coaching remotely, you must fine tune your listening and focus purely on the message, what is being said as well as what is not being said. Otherwise, you’re sure to miss out on subtleties in the conversation which can result in a missed coaching opportunity that is sure to dilute the impact of your coaching.

Realize that whether you are coaching face to face or remotely, the same tools, strategy and coaching framework still work, are applicable and are just as effective, regardless of the environment in which you are coaching.

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How Great Managers Recognize The Right Opportunities for Coaching

Aug 11, 2010 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, management tips


Where do you look for and uncover that ‘perfect’ coaching moment? How do you recognize where your direct reports need coaching and could benefit from the coaching most?

Actually, uncovering what you can coach someone on, from a tactical perspective, is actually the easy part. Managers are pretty good at recognizing problems, needed strategies and desired outcomes. However, it’s uncovering the why (the real source of the issue) and the who or the often very elusive and limiting thinking, assumptions or outlook people have which is ultimately preceding and driving their actions and behavior that is the tricky part and why many of the strategies and answers managers share either do not work or work well enough to become the long term solution. (If you’ve ever found yourself delivering ‘repetitive coaching’ or having the same conversation with your direct reports, that’s a sign that you haven’t gotten to the actual source of the issue or you’re spending your time on the wrong issue, digging in the wrong hole with no treasure to be found.)

Demonstrating this ability to get to the core of the right issue that leads to measurable and positive change is a true testament of an exceptional coach. The good news is, you can learn how to more precisely uncover those exceptional opportunities to deliver timely, relevant and powerful coaching. Here are some ideas that will guide you on the path to do so.

Regardless of the topic, skill, problem or mindset you’ve identified as a possible focal point in your coaching, there is one factor that’s always applicable in every coaching scenario. It also happens to be the very thing each coaching opportunity has in common. That is – The Gap.

The Gap is the space that exists between where the person is today and where they want or need to be or what is possible for them to achieve. It’s the void that exists between the person and their goal or solution; and where the coaching opportunity will evolve from that they often cannot see on their own. As a coach, it’s your responsibility to identify and fill in this Gap. The question is, how, exactly, do you accurately uncover this Gap?

There are three primary ways you can identify the Gap.

1. Through Observation. It’s essential that every manager takes the time to observe their direct reports in the field or on the phone, presenting or interacting with their customers and prospects. This is one of the most essential activities any manager can engage in. Otherwise, you run the risk of relying solely on what you hear from your salespeople and while it may be a truth, it’s only a subjective or partial truth or piece of the puzzle based what they see solely through their eyes. Like a great sport coach on the sidelines, observation will help identify the ‘blind spots’ that every salesperson has in order to get a full panoramic view of the most objective truth and what is really going on. After all, it’s very difficult to self diagnose when you’re in the middle of the game.

2. Through Conversation. Whether on the telephone or face to face, regardless if this happens during normal conversation or a scheduled coaching session, the Gap can also be identified in every interaction you have. Creating the safe space that allows people the time to process their thoughts, challenges and feelings on their own encourages a deeper level of self awareness which fosters more accurate self diagnosis and strengthens their problem solving skills. While certain strategic opportunities, skill gaps, assumptions or misconceptions can be identified, keep in mind; any great coaching must be complemented with observation so that you have the first hand evidence of what is really going on without relying solely on one source – the person you are coaching.

3. Through Evaluation and Inspection. While many managers hide behind and rely too heavily on diagnosing problems through inspection and the analysis of reports, spreadsheets and data, it is ironically often the least effective of these three strategies managers count on to uncover the Gap. Even conducting peer to peer or customer interviews to gain further insight about your direct report, while immensely valuable, still only provide you with a portion of the story. However, when used in conjunction with the other two strategies, this becomes another useful complimentary component to identify where certain activities, results and skills may be lacking. Keep in mind, data only shows you what is going on and can also be subjective. It doesn’t tell you why it’s happening. As such, observation and coaching conversations must also be leveraged to get the full story, rather than a small portion of the story to uncover the specific areas you can coach someone on. Remember, you are, first and foremost a people manager, not a data manager.

Instead of sharing what you perceive to be the solution to a problem before understanding the person’s specific needs, challenge or root cause of an issue, rely on deeper questions to assist in recognizing the Gap in every coaching conversation or situation with your staff. Whether the Gap is identified by you or the person you’re coaching, this will elevate your awareness so that you can pinpoint what is really going on with laser-like accuracy.

Any great coach realizes there’s not just one ‘right answer’ when coaching or only one way to uncover a powerful coaching moment. Leveraging these three distinct approaches will ensure that you are precisely coaching to the relevant Gap. Moreover, it will demonstrate the importance of investing the proper time to uncover a meaningful coaching opportunity rather than one that is hollow, inaccurate and ineffective. Improving your accuracy in uncovering the proper Gap to coach on will facilitate the changes in behavior that will lead to improved performance – and masterful coaching.

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How Much Coaching Is Enough? Determining the Proper Length and Frequency When Coaching Your Team to Drive Measurable Results

Aug 5, 2010 How to Manage Your Team, Sales Management, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, training for managers


A.B.C. – Always Be Coaching. For managers, this is the expectation and the new standard in how you communicate with your people if you’re looking to drive the long term positive changes you need within your team. Coaching is actually something you will be doing in every conversation and interaction you have; whether via email, during a telephone conversation, a water cooler discussion, impromptu coaching when dealing with a timely question or pressing challenge, during a deal or forecasting review, even during a team meeting.

However, when it comes to determining the frequency of your scheduled one-to-one coaching sessions with each person on your team, there are several factors to consider, including the size of your team as well as the performance level of each person.

There are several factors that could determine the frequency of your meetings and one-to-one coaching sessions with each person on your team. First, how many people do you have on your team? If you have a team of five or ten people, it’s much easier to manage your time and your schedule to accommodate weekly one-to-one hour long meetings.

A larger team is more of a challenge due to time constraints as well as your additional responsibilities. While group or team coaching is also an option to fill in some gaps, there is still no substitute for providing individualized attention. For larger teams, I suggest a minimum of two individualized hour long scheduled coaching sessions per month for each member of your team, even though weekly one-to-one hour long coaching sessions would be ideal. Keep in mind, there’s also the additional coaching you will provide each week via every interaction you have with each person on your team. As a benchmark, the top coaches (managers) in global sales organizations are coaching each person on their team about 7 hours per month in total.

I know, you’re doing the math now, trying to figure out how you’re going to find another 70 hours a month for coaching your team of ten people. You may be thinking, “Keith I don’t have the time for this? How am I supposed to fit coaching around all of my other responsibilities?” The real question you need to ask yourself and the shift each manager needs to make to truly make coaching the priority is this. “How can I fit all of my other responsibilities around my coaching?”

Frequency and consistency are key, just like when you exercise. The more time you spend exercising and the better you eat, the healthier you become. And that process becomes a lifestyle not a destination. Sure, you may have some goals you want to achieve along the way but you don’t get to a point and then say, “Okay, I’m done; I don’t need to eat healthy or exercise anymore!” The same rule applies to building and maintaining the health of your career and your team.

Ultimately, you’ll find part of the solution to uncovering how much coaching each person needs or wants by asking your staff how much additional support they need to reach their goals faster and how frequently they would like to meet with you. Other than a turnaround situation or an issue that needs immediate resolution, it’s up to you and each person on your team to find the balance and determine the frequency of ongoing coaching. This also includes scheduling coaching sessions with your top performers so that everyone on your team is getting coached.

Coaching sessions don’t have to be long to be effective, especially if you consider every conversation a coaching moment. Some coaching moments will be very short and some may take an hour or longer. Keep in mind, the length of the conversation is important to ensure that the person you are coaching gets the value they want and need from each coaching experience.

Regardless of the length of any coaching conversation, be mindful of this toxic trap that managers fall into. You don’t get points for ‘speed coaching.’ Rushing through a coaching conversation will do more damage than good and will lead to greater inefficiency, especially if you don’t take the time, have the patience and create the space for the person to be coached so that they can process the conversation at their pace and arrive at a solution on their own. The result? You’ll become frustrated, they’ll become discouraged and you will both be disenchanted about coaching. Consequently, this can lead to a further strain on the relationships you have with your direct reports and erode the trust you have with them which you may have worked very hard to build.

As you start coaching, you will be able to determine how long each scheduled session needs to be for each one of your people. You may even find that after coaching your team for a time, you may no longer need one full hour for each person and there’s the possibility that thirty minutes or so may be perfectly adequate. Furthermore, depending upon the productivity level of your team, I know some managers with high performing teams who have scheduled fifteen minute one to one coaching huddles (some daily and some weekly) as a way to maintain their team’s momentum and focus throughout each week.

However, what is just as important is the ongoing nature of the coaching process. Effective coaching must be regular and consistent. Coaching that starts and stops in fits of activity, need or urgency is not effective and leads to dips in performance. Coaching is a work-focused lifestyle choice that individuals and organizations make, rather than conditional or event based. And once made, the decision to coach has to be ongoing.

Managers must realize that every conversation is a coaching conversation, even when you have to address issues, handle problems, deal with reviews and so on, so informal coaching happens all the time. If there is an ongoing, balanced blend of informal coaching happening, formal coaching can easily be weekly and in some cases, biweekly and still be effective.

Regardless, one thing is for certain. Coaching never ever stops! After all, once you have the evidence and start experiencing the return on investment that you and your direct reports can realize through ongoing, effective coaching (healthier work culture, greater personal accountability, increased sales and productivity, improved retention of top performers, more career satisfaction, and so on) coaching will become like candy – you and your team will just keep wanting it more!

So, remember the A.B.C.’s of coaching and Always Be Coaching.

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Defusing Resistance To Coaching: How to Enroll The Resistant Top Performer In Coaching

Jul 21, 2010 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, career coaching, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople


When I ask managers how coaching has been received amongst their team and whether or not everyone on their team is being coached by them consistently, here’s one response that I have heard countless times from managers in practically every industry and profession.

“My top performers tell me they don’t want to be coached.”

These managers tell me how they continually run into a certain degree of resistance from some of their top producers around being coached. As a result, many managers make the costly decision to simply not coach their top people.

Conversely, other managers attempt to force or sanction coaching upon them. I can guarantee you, both of these solutions will wind up doing more damage than good. Instead, start by getting to the source of where their resistance is coming from.

When enrolling a resistant top performer in coaching, it may sound a little different than when you’re enrolling a mid performer or underperformer, especially if the manager has positioned coaching as “Remedial Only.” That is, those who are not performing get coached and as such, they make coaching conditional (when there’s a problem) rather than positioning coaching as a positive benefit, such as “Everyone always gets coached, consistently because it’s a way to deliver more value to you – and you are the priority here.”

Instead, take the following approach to identify where their reluctance to being coached is coming from. Once you uncover the source, you can then address the cause of their resistance to coaching. Here are five ways to do so:

1.Find out What Coaching Means to Them: Three of the leading causes of coaching reluctance on the side of your direct reports are:

a. their misconceptions of what coaching is,
b. how coaching has been positioned within your organization or
c. a possible negative past experience they had when they were being coached.

As a manager, it’s your responsibility to get to the source of their resistance to coaching so that you can then defuse it. Have an exploratory conversation with them one to one. Here’s an example of what that could sound like.

“John, I want to ensure that I’m being the best manager for you and that I’m providing you with the right support and resources you need to achieve your goals. To do this, that means becoming the best coach I can be for you. So, I’d like to talk to you about engaging in one to one coaching.”

Then, follow up with questions like these:

a. What does coaching mean to you?
b. What’s your perception of coaching?” (These questions align your definitions of coaching and eliminate any negative perceptions of coaching.)
c. What concerns if any, do you have around having me coach you? Let’s address them now so we can get through them together.

Here’s a tip from your coach: Don’t put them on the defensive by saying something like, “Why don’t you want to schedule our coaching sessions? Everyone else on the team has scheduled their coaching calls and are engaged in the coaching.”

When asking these questions, give the person time and the space to respond fully. Be silent after asking the questions. Make sure you get their full perspective on it, as well as their experience of coaching, whether from an external coach or their experience with a prior manager. Once you get their concerns out, then you have an opportunity to create a new possibility by setting up the rules of coaching, expectations of the coaching relationship and what that safe zone in coaching looks like.

2.Appeal to their Ego: Begin a conversation by saying, “I can really use your help.” Ask them for their help and support around this coaching initiative, since the other team members look up to them as a role model and their buy in is essential for the coaching to stick within the team.

3.Uncover The Blind Spots: Enroll them in the importance of observation, and how all great athletes have a coach on the sidelines, since it’s very difficult to self diagnose when you’re in the middle of the game. Here’s an example of some dialogue you can use. “By finding one or two things that I can see which you can’t when you’re in the middle of a presentation or when you’re focused on selling, we can then tweak or refine those areas that you may not even be aware of, which will make you an overall better player and performer and keep you on top of your game.”

4.Celebrate Them! Position coaching as an opportunity for the manager and top performer to get together and celebrate them and their successes and wins. Top performers love to celebrate their success! This is a chance to recognize the value they deliver, provide desired and needed acknowledgement, reinforce their best practices that you want them to continually engage in, while also preventing the chance of alienating your top players by not giving them the attention and recognition they need and deserve, which can leave your top performers feeling as if they are not being appreciated and as a result, erode the commitment they have towards the company as they start seeking out employment opportunities elsewhere.

5.Advance their Career: Coaching your superstars can help further their career trajectory by having them learn how to coach, (coach the coach) as well as by being coached themselves, if they want to move into management or even take on more of a senior sales position and a bigger role in supporting and coaching the other salespeople on the team.

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Assumptions that Managers Make Which Fuel Mediocrity and Conceal Powerful Coaching Opportunities

Jul 15, 2010 Career Advice, Executive Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, training for managers


If you’ve been following my blog and read my book on coaching, you may be asking yourself, “Okay, I get what coaching is, I realize that I need to upgrade not only what I do and how I coach but also how I need to think but wait; what, exactly, is actually coachable? Is everything coachable? Are some things ‘not coachable’?”

The short answer is, everything is coachable. Well, if that’s the case, then you may be wondering how you can recognize those powerful coaching moments and opportunities during a conversation. Here’s an experience I had that will begin to answer this question.

Monique, a director of sales for a large corporation came to me frustrated about the lack of execution and level of success around the new sales model she developed for her inside salespeople. During our coaching session, I asked Monique to share with me the steps she’s outlined in the new sales process that she wants her salespeople to follow. She did so, with great clarity, until I probed further around what she meant by her step three, the qualification process.

Monique responded by saying, “I want them to do a better job at qualifying every opportunity. I’m tired of my telesales reps filling their pipeline with customers and prospects who will never buy from us or are simply not a good fit.”

Of course, that made perfect sense to me. I then asked her what types of questions she wants her salespeople to ask when qualifying their customers and prospects. Being a top producer herself before moving into management, Monique took this opportunity to demonstrate her well developed skill at qualification.

After she did so, it was the next set of questions I asked that created the valuable coaching moment for her.

“Monique, those questions sound perfect, however, I’m curious. How much training did you provide your salespeople around asking these questions? Have you documented these questions so they can use them consistently when making their sales calls?”

Together, Monique and I identified the Gap, which is the space in every coaching conversation when you and the person you are coaching uncover with pinpoint accuracy the most relevant solution or exactly where you can deliver the most value that will foster breakthrough results. (You can read more about The Gap in one of my prior posts here. Coaching The Gap.)

For Monique, she made some costly assumptions about her salespeople’s level of comfort, skill, awareness and understanding when it came to asking the right qualifying questions. Monique took this a step further and created an additional coaching opportunity with her sales team during a team meeting by having them come up with the list of the top qualifying questions. This way, her team felt a deeper sense of ownership, since they were the ones developing these questions.

Not only will you get better at uncovering those coaching opportunities in the gap, but you may have already discovered that there is a big difference between training and coaching, and managers don’t often have a clear distinction between the two. As a result, when managers finally do uncover The Gap, they have a tendency to blend these two distinct solutions together, causing confusion in the minds of both the direct report, as well as the manager.

Managers must learn how to recognize when the right solution is training, coaching or a blended approach that may require both training as well as coaching. (You can read more about this distinction between coaching and training in some my prior posts here. Do I Coach Them Or Train Them, Part One, Part Two and Part Three.)

Whether you’re a manager, business owner or executive, I hope that you are beginning to realize the incredible power you can unleash through coaching– the power to transform the way you do business, develop your people and your career, as well as how you choose to live your life so that you can leave a lasting legacy that you’re proud of.

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Management Behavior and Activities That Compromise Trust and Coaching – Part Two

Jul 6, 2010 How to Manage Your Team, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, training for managers


In my last blog post, I shared a story about a management team that reinforced the fact that trust is the backbone of coaching.

Remember, trust and loyalty are earned, not inherited, so become mindful of those things that you need to stay away from that will erode the trust you need for your coaching to succeed and to foster a healthy, open coaching relationship from the start.

Here’s a short list of activities and behaviors that will erode the trust managers desperately need that will drive improved performance, loyalty, commitment and more sales.

What jumps out for you?

1.Not being present
2.Multitasking during conversation (You think you’re being efficient? That perceived efficiency comes at a major cost. Think of the message you’re sending to your people. “I guess I’m not that important.”
3.Not following through on commitments
4.Canceling (coaching) appointments
5.Violating/breaking your word. Not keeping your promise
6.Breaking confidence
7.Double talk
8.Threats and consequential negativity
9.Disposition. Tone. Being curt. Egocentric not showing your people are a priority (but an interruption or a bother.)
10.Being confrontational
11.Not showing patience (in a conversation or when coaching them)
12.Reacting negatively to something a person did wrong
13.The style of your management (pitchfork passive, pontificator, presumptuous, perfect, problem solving, proactive – See Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions for the 7 Types of Managers)
14.Not owning your own mistakes or your humanity (Your ego gets in the way)
15.Competition from manager
16.Not making the conversation/coaching safe
17.Not setting expectations in the coaching relationship
18.Not drawing a clear line between performance management/reviews and coaching

Tip from the Coach: What your people see and feel based on your actions always takes precedent over your intentions and what you say.

Tips and Questions For Managers When Setting Confidentiality in the Coaching Relationship

*What does confidentiality look like?

*What can you honor?

*Code of ethics – What nullifies confidentiality? (lie, cheat, steal, violate protocol and procedures, etc.)

*Establish how big, wide and deep the safe zone is up front

*You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game

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Do Your Employees Trust You? How to Build Trust – and Destroy It in an Instant

Jul 2, 2010 Career Advice, Executive Coaching, HR issues, How to Manage Your Team, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management, career coaching, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople


You Gotta’ Have Trust.

At the conclusion of a training event that I delivered for a team of about 20 managers, one of their action steps at the end of the training was to introduce coaching to their team and enroll their salespeople in being coached on a consistent basis. About a week or so after the training was over, each manager emailed me to report on how their conversations went. 18 managers told me that their team was not only bought into being coached but were generally excited about the opportunity to get more personal time with their manager!

However, the emails that I received from the other two remaining managers did not sound as promising. These two managers felt that their team was not on board with the idea of being coached and experienced a general sense of resistance from them.

The question is, why? Was it that these two managers had a team of salespeople who just weren’t coachable?

I don’t think so.

After further due diligence and speaking in confidence with those two sales teams who were pushing back on being coached, it turned out that the real source of the issue came down to one thing; trust. For you to shine as a masterful coach, it cannot be overshadowed or clouded by doubt, fear or uncertainty that may exist in the hearts and minds of your people.

That’s why trust is the backbone of coaching. Without it, you’ll experience the same resistance from your team that these two managers did.

1.So the question is, do your people trust you?
2.How do you know? What is the evidence you see to support this? Are you the first person to know about a concern someone on your team has that’s inhibiting their performance or level of commitment to their job – or are you the last to find out?
3.Have you always been clear about your intentions when coaching or supporting them, or making changes, or did you leave it up to them to decipher?

Remember, listening to you and trusting you are two different things. Coaching by definition fosters a deeper connection, level of openness and transparency with your team. However, if there’s a lack of trust, if trust has been compromised in any way, if the ground rules for coaching were not clearly established up front, the coaching will not be as effective.

The real danger here is, now the manager runs the risk of assuming that it’s the coaching that does not work, rather than the fact that it is really is a trust issue.

What many managers fail to realize is, that there is strength in vulnerability, not weakness, as many would assume. It is an important component to building trust and strengthening the relationships you have with your team.

Coaches and managers, unlike superheroes, are humans, too, and making sure your humanity and authenticity is clear to your team is an important part of building a deeper level of trust. After all, you can’t fake authenticity.

The good news is, you have the power to rebuild and regain trust in practically every relationship and it all starts with having an open, honest conversation, while setting up the expectations of coaching and the rules of engagement right from the start. You can’t change the rules in the middle or at the end of the game, as that is a sure fire way to instantly erode trust.

Remember, trust and loyalty are earned, not inherited, so become mindful of those things that you need to stay away from that will erode the trust you need for your coaching to succeed and to foster a healthy, open coaching relationship from the start.

Stay tuned for my next post, when I list about twenty different activities and behaviors that managers engage in which compromise trust and your ability to deliver effective coaching that results in improved performance.

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Is My Team Uncoachable? The Top Ten Reasons Why Coaching Fails When Managers Attempt to Coach Their Team

Jun 2, 2010 Executive Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, training for managers


“I’ve tried coaching my team. It didn’t work.” Really? Was it the coaching that didn’t work, the manager’s coaching that didn’t work or was it more about how the coaching was delivered that didn’t work? As a manager, there are many things to consider when rolling out a coaching program for your team that will lead to a successful initiative, a mediocre one or a coaching program that will go down in flames.

Since my last book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions, I’ve been spending the majority of my time (every week!) delivering my management coach training programs for both domestic and global organizations. And the more I deliver my program, whether it’s to a team of sales managers who want to learn how to facilitate more effective sales coaching interactions with their salespeople that drives more sales or to a team of executives, VP’s and senior leaders who are in the position where they can provide a deeper layer of support by authentically coaching their management team, the more I find consistencies as to why coaching doesn’t work.

For any company wide coaching initiative to be effective and long-lasting within your organization, there are important obstacles that a manager or internal sales coach needs to address. Rather than do a deep dive into each of these 10 points, leverage this as more of a checklist for you to use before rolling out your coaching program.

If you’ve already attempted to coach your people and have experienced varying degrees of success, do not give up! This checklist can be used for you to diagnose where the breakdown is so that you can recalibrate your coaching efforts and overcome some of the obstacles that may have been outside of your line of vision.

The Top Ten Reasons Why Coaching Fails When Managers Attempt to Coach Their Team

1. Coaching In Your Own Image. “I’ve been doing this for 10 years. I already know the ‘right’ way to sell which has always worked for me. So if I were you, I would do it this way.” Note: Your building robots using this approach, not tapping into people’s individuality.

2. Poor Positioning. How did you set the expectations of coaching? “All the underperformers, please stand up! Here’s your chance to redeem yourself!” Ouch. This “Broken Wing Mentality” (Remedial Coaching) doesn’t create an atmosphere where everyone would want to be coached.

3. Past Experiences. “I’ve already tried to coach my people. It didn’t work.” Well, maybe it’s more about how you tried to enroll them in coaching that didn’t work. Every day, more and more statistics and surveys are showing the R.O.I. that good coaching generates. It’s time to do some self analysis and ask yourself what role you’re playing in this.

4. Inconsistent Coaching and Support. Sure, you may have been excited to coach your team but what message are you sending them when you cancel that coaching session you scheduled with them, regardless of how good a reason you had, your employee is thinking is “I guess I’m/the coaching isn’t a priority/important enough.”

5. No Training. The manager is not trained in coaching. It’s tougher than you think, especially around observation techniques and delivering actionable feedback that drives positive change and measurable results. This leads to two other challenges.

• Hollow Coaching. Focusing on the ‘what’ rather than going deeper to uncover the ‘why.’ Managers are good at uncovering what’s going on; you can see that by looking at a monthly activity report. Where managers drop the ball is uncovering why the behavior is going on or the actual reason behind the lack of activity. This often leads to something that many managers experience, which is:
• Repetitive Coaching. “Now we’ve already had this conversation five times over the last month. Looking at your activity the problem is you need to make more calls. So, make more calls! Call reluctance you say? Well, you just have to be more resilient.” Can you envision the salesperson walking out of that conversation with a powerful epiphany?

6. Event Based. The coaching is event based rather than culturally based to ensure long-term consistency. No coaching plan – no long term success.

7. The Manager Assumes They Have the Trust of Their Staff. This is a common challenge amongst many teams which breeds the resistance to coaching at the very core. Your experience as a manager is one thing that can inhibit your coaching effectiveness but what about your employee’s experience either with you or their prior manager? What if they had a prior experience that was less than favorable? Has this been addressed? Do your people really and truly trust you? How do you really know? Conversely, maybe the manager doesn’t really want to coach or doesn’t believe in coaching or maybe the manager doesn’t have the full authentic commitment to want to make their people more valuable and truly put them first. This is also felt by your team and will affect the level of trust you can foster.

8. The Manager is Coaching the Wrong People. “I only coach the underperformers and leave the top performers alone.” What a great strategy if you want to send the message that coaching is ONLY for the underperformers, while isolating your top performers. Then we wonder why we’re losing our good people. Everyone wants the attention of their manager but for different reasons and we need to align our coaching with where we can deliver the most value for them, individually.

9. Investing the Right Time With the Wrong Approach or Conversation. I can keep spending time pushing on a brick wall but that wall is never going to move. Just like I can say I’m investing the time coaching but am I truly coaching my people or am I simply doing what I did yesterday and relabeling it coaching? I can tell you that this is probably the biggest challenge I see amongst management teams today. That is, they think they’re coaching but they are not. The role plays and skill practice scenarios that I do during every training event continually support this to be true.

10. Toxic Management Style.
• Reactionary
• No patience. Here’s a tip – there’s no such thing as speed coaching. One of the most valuable parts of coaching is creating a safe place for your people to process and self reflect. You don’t always get that in a five minute interaction and if you rush the coaching process, you are only robbing you and your people of a powerful coaching experience. Remember, just because they don’t ‘get it’ as fast as you do or as fast as you think they should doesn’t make them wrong or less valuable. Honor and respect where each of your performers are regarding their own learning style and path of development.
• Misconceptions of what coaching is from both the manager and the salesperson. Time to even the playing field by uncovering each person’s perception of coaching, creating a universal definition of coaching and then setting the expectations on both sides.
• Managers not modeling it, walking their talk

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Profit Builders Named One of the Top Ten Best Sales Coaching and Training Companies

Mar 25, 2010 Sales Coaching, Sales Training, Surveys and Polls, coaching salespeople


Top Ten Sales Training and Sales Coaching Companies

Can I make a humble plug here? Okay, we’ve earned some bragging rights and I was just excited to share this news with you. My company just received a nice accolade and recognition for being named one of the Top Ten Best Sales Training and Coaching Companies by Selling Power magazine.

Here’s the announcement below from Selling Power:

“One of the few great generals in history who never lost a battle was the Russian general Alexander Suvorov, who explained the roots of his success with his memorable motto: “Train hard and fight easy.” The sales profession is fortunate to have effective thought leaders who have created powerful sales-training and development solutions that help sales managers and salespeople improve their skills. And better skills translate to more valuable customer relationships and increased value to the company’s bottom line. These 10 top sales training solutions can help you and your company create more sales than you ever thought possible.

Profit Builders
Keith Rosen is fanatical about increasing your sales. That’s why almost half of the Fortune 1000 companies and the top companies in six major industries chose his training and coaching solutions. Profit Builders addresses the specific challenges that are unique to your company and then moves beyond traditional training by coaching your salespeople around best practices and best thinking to develop true champions. While Keith’s programs and books have won numerous awards, his bragging rights are earned through more sales and long-lasting results. www.profitbuilders.com

You can see the entire article here, listed in alphabetical order.

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VIDEO: Fatal Coaching Mistake. Managers, Share Ideas, Not Expectations

Mar 12, 2010 Executive Coaching, Videos, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, training for managers


It is a fact that if you’re a boss, manager, or executive responsible for managing people, you are their superior. And, therefore, you have a certain degree of influence over how your staff feels about certain things.

Managers and executives have the power to shut down a conversation or open up a dialogue. Quite often, they don’t realize how much of an influence they have over their staff and how influential they can be without even trying. When a manager takes a strong stand or position and makes a statement like, “Here’s the solution” or “Here’s how it is,” it removes any opportunity for others to contribute a different and potentially better idea.

There’s a difference between sharing an opinion or idea and sharing an expectation. It’s one thing if the manager or boss shares an opinion that allows the dialogue and flow of the conversation to continue moving in a positive, collaborative direction. It’s entirely different when the manager shares an expectation with a strong agenda or ultimatum behind it.

An opinion or idea from the boss opens up further conversation. An expectation shuts it down.

In this video, I discuss this approach managers can take so that you will be more likely to get a response that encourages unfiltered collaboration and multiple contributions.

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