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    The Progress Coaching Blog

    The Research Behind Sales Coaching

    July 31, 2013 Posted by : Tim Hagen
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    Sales Coaching

    Sales Coaching


    Driving the use of the sales process can lead to greater productivity, selling consistency, and ultimately bottom line results. But, often sales people do not follow the process and are more prone to "shoot from the hip" when doing things. Continually demanding this can exhaust both the sales manager and sales people so what are we to do? If sales managers schedule and integrate coaching, it will yield a non-threatening approach to gain greater traction when coaching your sales people.

     

    Sales Coaching is about asking questions at key moments. A typical example is when a sales person asks their manager what to do when a customer asks if they can get a lower price for their customer or prospect. The manager MUST realize this is a key moment. If they start dealing with the price objection by asking "How much do they want off the price" a key issues has been created. Actually two key issues have been created. One, the rep and manager are now dealing with only price and have conditioned the rep to lower price again and again when similar requests are made. Second, the manager cut themselves off from even knowing if their rep knew what to do or better yet what their thoughts were on how to handle the situation. A coaching approach would have the manager asking the rep "what do you feel we should do" or "what are the top 2 reasons they like our product void of price"? These questions really teach us a lot about what the rep knew or what they asked the prospect or client.

     

    Coaching is about defining moments and having questions ready to ascertain what the rep would do on their own, gaining greater perspective of what they know or can do! This is huge in developing sales people!

    I recently read a great piece by Maritz Research and it blew me away. We really need to coach our employees for a variety of reasons and this research really tells us why.

    A new Maritz® Poll conducted by Maritz Research, a leader in employee satisfaction research, found that despite a slight improvement in business conditions, the American workforce remains less engaged with their employers than they did one year ago. Poor communication, lack of perceived caring, inconsistent behavior, and perceptions of favoritism were cited by respondents as the largest contributors to their lack of trust in senior leaders.

    “A strong indicator of management mistrust is a lack of shared values. Companies must align their overall values as an organization with those individual values of their people. Knowing that you work for a company whose values are similar to yours drives loyalty and strengthens trust.”

    According to the poll, approximately, one-quarter (25 percent) of employees report having less trust in management than they did last year. Only 10 percent of employees trust management to make the right decision in times of uncertainty. The percentage increases to 16 percent among employees 18-24 years of age who only recently entered the workforce and didn’t directly experience many of the management scandals of the past 10 years.

    Slightly more than one in 10 Americans (14 percent) believes their company’s leaders are ethical and honest. In addition, the poll found that only 12 percent of employees believe their employer genuinely listens to and cares about its employees, and only seven percent of employees believe senior management’s actions are completely consistent with their words.

    “Employee trust is such a critical factor for success, especially given what the American workforce has faced the past several years. This data paints such a dire picture of employee trust levels, management must ask themselves how they can better engage with their people,” said Rick Garlick, Ph.D., senior director of strategic consulting and implementation, Maritz Hospitality Research Group. “A strong indicator of management mistrust is lack of shared values. Companies must align their overall values as an organization with those individual values of their people. Knowing that you work for a company whose values are similar to yours drives loyalty and strengthens trust.”

    In situations where management trust is stronger than last year, nearly one-third (31 percent) of respondents said their personal values were completely consistent with their company’s values. When trust in management remained the same, only 13 percent of respondents said their personal values were completely consistent with their company’s values. When trust in management weakened this year, only two percent of respondents said their personal values were aligned with their company’s values.

    I also want to share 2 great successes that support this research by Maritz, two clients of ours who really coach their employees and engage daily had employees stay at their firm due to coaching and not take other jobs. Both employees told me due to the support and coaching by their manager it made it tough to leave and go to another organization that could not represent the same employee dedication to performance improvement! Coaching pays huge dividends in many ways!

     

    Here are two presentation that will hopefully fuel your desire to start sales coaching:

    1) Coaching in the funnel:

     Watch the Presentation:  Coaching Inside the  Sales Funnel

    2) Coaching in the sales process:

     Watch the Presentation:  Coaching in the Sales Process

    Free Whitepaper: Why Sales Managers Fail :

     Download Our White Paper:  Why Sales Managers Fail

     

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    About Author

    Tim Hagen
    Tim Hagen

    Tim Hagen founded Progress Coaching, a Training Reinforcement Partner Company, in 1997. His entrepreneurial career began in college leading to positions in sales, sales management, and sales training for small and large corporations, and eventually ownership of several training companies. Tim is often a keynote speaker at companies teaching the value of coaching and conversations in the workplace. He possesses a unique combination of hands-on experience, academics, and innovative insight to solve the industry’s most common challenges specific to workplace performance. Tim holds a bachelor’s degree in Adult Education and Training from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

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