• Fourteen sales meeting formats to choose from
• Sales Meeting Sins: How to avoid typical sales meeting mistakes
• How to breathe new life into your meetings
• And much more . . .

In This Issue:

• What Coaching Is NOT By Jim Domanski
• Archived Articles

• Next Week - Are Your Sales Meetings Boring?
• In 2 Weeks - Negotiating Win/Win Business Deals

• How to develop your negotiating strategy.
• Your BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement).
• How to enlarge the deal.
• How to control the negotiation.
• How to make a concession.
• What mistakes to avoid.

"Manager's Minute" Tip

(Article Archive)

What Coaching Is NOT
By Jim Domanski

There are some very common misconceptions about sales coaching. To better understand what coaching really is, it is important to understand what coaching is not.

Coaching is NOT Personal Anecdotes

Perhaps the most common form of coaching is that of the personal anecdote. Many sales managers have difficulty with this concept when I review it with them. Anecdotal coaching is when the sales manager sits beside the sales reps and says, “Well, the way I handled objections is like this…” or “One of the ways I got the prospects interest was this…” or “Try using this approach when closing the sale…” or “…Here’s a tip…”

As mentioned, sales managers struggle with this one because on the surface, the manager is providing support in terms of tips and ideas. Arguably, the sales rep could benefit from the advice give. And quite frankly, they might find the information provided useful and relevant. But it is still not coaching. Personal tips and tactics are all fine and well but in the absence of any formal training or set standard, these ideas are random and out of context. They are personal tips that reflect the way you sold, not necessarily the way the sales rep sells. At the end of day, when you boil it down, personal anecdotes are entirely subjective and relevant only to you.

I usually try to explain this approach by using a hockey analogy. Suppose you were on the ice with Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky pulls you aside and says, “Okay, when I was behind the net, this is what I did with the puck to set up the play…” While Gretzky’s insights might be valuable, they do not take into account Gretzky’s past experience and knowledge, and above all, they do not take into account Gretzky’s God-given talent. So too with a sales manager who bestows his sales rep with his pearls of sales wisdom. The sales rep lacks a frame of reference that only the sales manager possesses. The sales rep does not have the years of experience and savvy whereby the tips is effective and germane.

Let’s be clear here. Your insights are not useless or invalid but they must be given in support of what has been taught.

Coaching is Motivating Hype

I know for a fact that there are some managers who feel that the role of the sales manager is that of a motivator. They feel uttering a few inspiring words a la Vince Lombardi is coaching. You know what I mean, phrases like “Winning is not everything, it’s the only thing,” or “When the going get tough, the tough get going,” or “The harder I work the luckier I get.” This is not coaching. This is histrionics.

Understand this: you cannot motivate your sales reps. The only person who can motivate a sales rep is the sales rep himself. Motivation is an internal driver which you as the sales manager, has no control. The very best you can do is create a motivating environment. In other words, you do your best to create an atmosphere where selling can flourish. It might be a good compensation program, attractive incentives, a nice work area, the proper tools, and yes, even words of encouragement or inspiration.

But the rah, rah is not coaching. The rah, rah creates a mood or an atmosphere and it might even encourage a rep to make a few more prospecting calls. But it will not help the rep get any better at the selling process. Rah, Rah does not teach skill or technique. It does not support or reinforce good sales behavior. It does not teach a rep to be smarter at the sales game.

By the way, Vince Lombardi would be the first to agree with this. Lombardi was a fine motivator and some of his lines and speeches have been created into posters designed to inspire. But Lombardi’s real success was on practice field with his team. The time and effort he and his fellow coaches put into the process of blocking, tackling, running plays and the like won the games. Vince’s speeches may have stirred the passions of his players but it was his relentless coaching process that won the Super Bowls.

Coaching Is Not Training

I addressed this early but it bares emphasis. Coaching is not training. Training is a formal process of imparting knowledge and skills. Training is where reps learn how to do something. They learn how to question, how to answer an objection, how to advance a sale, how to present a product or service. Training is about the specific skills and techniques necessary to sell.

Coaching, on the other hand, is dependent on training because training creates the specific standards of how to sell. As mentioned earlier, you can only coach a standard if you expect your coaching to be effective. So coaching supports the standard, it does not create the standard.

Coaching is not a Personnel Review

I worked with a company in Toronto not long ago and their coaching consisted of the sales manager meeting with each of her sales reps once per month and reviewing their sales results, account base, prospecting pipeline etc. and then providing direction, recommendations and suggestions. Sorry. This is not coaching. This is a job performance review. It looks activities and results, not the specifics of selling relative to skills and techniques.

I like personnel reviews. I support them. They are a good part of the development of a sales rep. I will even admit that during a personnel review, a sales manager might discuss specific skill sets and provide a tip or too. But meeting once a month for a half an hour or so is not the essence of coaching. The behavior has long since passed and the coaching tip is irrelevant at this stage. The personnel review is guidance. It keeps the rep focused and that’s a good thing. But it is certainly not working with the rep “in the trenches” y-jacked beside them on the telephone and providing feedback, good or not so good, on a particular call.

Coaching is Not a Group Meeting

There are several managers with whom I have worked whose definition of coaching was getting together with their sales team and exchanging ideas. The managers facilitated the meetings and had the reps share their “secrets of success.” In some cases, the reps would discuss a customer problem or an odd objection and a group discussion would occur on how to handle the issue. Hey, I am all for the sharing of ideas but sorry, this is not coaching. These are discussions and mini-training sessions. Some of the ideas might even work well with what has been taught. But it is not formal coaching and you cannot depend on the sales reps behavior to change simply because you have had a group forum.

Summary

• While personal anecdotes might be interesting, for the most part they are subjective tips and if they are out of context with what has been taught, they are not effective. Anecdotes are fine and well if they support the standards that have been set in training.
• Motivational speeches is not coaching. Inspiring words can sometimes help a sales rep work hard but they do not teach a rep how to works smarter; they do not improve a skill set. You cannot motivate your sales reps. They motivate themselves. The best you can do is create a motivating environment.
• Coaching is not training. Training is the formal process of learning new skills and techniques which in term create a standard for selling. Coaching supports the standard; coaching does not create the standard.
• Personnel reviews with sales reps can help steer and guide but they do not constitute coaching. Coaching is done with the sales rep as the selling occurs, not a week or two or month or quarter later.
• Group meetings are a great way to exchange ideas but do not confusion a group forum with coaching.
  

About Jim Domanski:
Cited by Canadian Business Magazine as "...Canada's reigning telemanagement guru..." Jim Domanski is regarded as one of North America's foremost experts on outbound business tele-sales and tele-support programs.

President of Teleconcepts Consulting, Jim helps businesses achieve their sales and marketing objectives by using the telephone to help generate leads and sell directly on both a strategic and tactical level.

A highly dynamic speaker and trainer with over 15 years of direct tele-sales experience, Jim has spoken to audiences around the world on telephone selling applications, skills and techniques. His "no bull" training style blends humor with "real life, real drama" situations which he has begged or borrowed from his clients.

Contact Information:
Jim Domanski
Teleconcepts Consulting
35 Vanstone Drive, Ste. 200
Kanata, Ontario K2L 1W4
1-888-353-0948
jdomanski@igs.net
www.teleconceptsconsulting.com

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• Building A Sales Plan
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