Sales Performance Coaching for People Development

Critical Skills for Leaders

Sales Performance Coaching is a function of 4 core practices of people development

1. Tuition This involves providing the salesperson with the direction, instruction and the knowledge they require in an effort to help them understand what they need to know in order to change their current approach.

2. Consultation involves identifying and analysing the specific issue or situation at hand and assist the sales person to clearly define the goal and map out a plan for their accomplishment

3. Coaching involves helping the salesperson to effect a change by self discovering the answers and thereby make adjustments to their current behaviour or approach. The Sales Performance Coach does this by providing them with regular guidance, feedback, insight and direction to ensure successful execution

4. Performance Management This involves ensuring the salesperson stays on track and holding them accountable to the measurable performance activities required to achieve the goal.

In addition to applying the above 4 core practices of people development there are 8 steps you as the sales leader need to take to implement and become an effective Sales Performance Coach: 

The 8 Step Sales Performance Coaching Process

1. An execution focused plan. Ensure you have a clear and well laid out tactical sales plan to achieve the required sales goals. The plan needs to specifically detail: who is doing what, by when, how, and with what resources.
 
2. Set clear performance expectations. Before you as a sales leader can expect your salespeople to deliver what you expect of them, your first step is to be absolutely sure that, in your own mind and on paper, that you have clearly established what it is specifically that you expect of them. Once you have determined what you expect, now you need to have the expectation discussion with each of your salespeople.
 
3. Identify core behaviors for development. Identify the key behaviors you and your individual salesperson have determined to be lacking in order for them to meet your expectations and execute their sales plan. These will provide you with the basis for and focus of your one on one coaching.
There are 5 Mission Critical Skills of Outstanding Salespeople. If you want your sales team to produce 20% more, the question you have to ask yourself is…are they 20% better?
 
Extensive research has identified the five Mission Critical Selling Skills that a sales professional must master to effectively move beyond their current limitations and to achieve your sales goals. When understood and mastered, these five skills will dramatically help you to increase your sales productivity and sell more, more often.

The 5 Mission Critical Skills of Outstanding Salespeople are:
1. Time and Self Management
2. Business Development
3. Diagnostic Acuity
4. Engage All Parties
5. Wrap Up
 
4. Set aside quality time weekly to debrief the week that was and the week that’s coming up. The fact is, that if you will invest the time to conduct a weekly debrief the week that was and the week that’s coming up, over the next ninety days, you will completely turn your sales around.
 
5. Set specific behavioral goals, measure progress regularly Change is a process, not an event and therefore you cannot expect to send your salespeople on a training course and have them instantly change behavior. Once you have determined the specific dysfunctional behaviors and strategies that are road-blocking an individual salesperson, set joint goals to improve and change the areas of greatest impact.

6. Collect Sales person behavioral data by engaging in joint sales calls and provide honest and data specific feedback. 70% of learning happens on the job. The most effective method for you to observe behavioral change is to witness the individual salesperson perform in their role. By careful observation you can gather specific data to provide them with accurate feedback. Now you can effectively challenge and guide them to improve their sales performance and behavior.
 
7. Offer training where applicable - Demonstrate the ‘ideal” way. Provide the salesperson with resources, books, CD’s, online tools, seminars and workshops to accelerate their learning and reinforce your message.
 
8. Follow up; follow up; follow up. There is one skill that as a sales leader you absolutely have to develop. If you haven’t done so already, this skill will greatly determine your success or failure as a manager of others. This incredibly simple and yet powerful skill is the ability to effectively follow up. When your sales team knows what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by and when they can ABSOLUTELY count on you to follow up on their commitments to you….then you will achieve results that up and until now you have only dreamed of!

So how can you improve your own sales leadership and Sales Performance Coaching skills? Click here to to go to our Performance Coaching page and find out more.