Sales Management Success

4Counseling Strategy for Attitude and Performance Problems

MOST SALES MANAGERS DON'T understand the difference between sales counseling and sales coaching, and admittedly, they do overlap. Yet there is a huge dichotomy in terms of need, execution, frequency, and impact of these strategies.

Let me underline the difference and overlap with a real-life example. Back in my frontline sales manager days, I had a salesperson, named Chuck, who had most of the skills to become an effective salesman. He had performed reasonably well initially, but his sales numbers flattened out after six months. With coaching, it was easy to determine the cause. Chuck could not follow a game plan and often talked too much about non-business topics, taking him further away from the sales track. As a result, his personality and charm stood out, but his selling skills were in a parking position, forgotten most of the time during presentations.

After three separate coaching days with Chuck, including informal role practice with me, there was little change in how he organized or delivered a presentation and he was defensive and resistant. Coaching had failed to upgrade his performance or results, so I decided to schedule a counseling session with him.

During the one-hour counseling session, Chuck admitted he was stubborn, and had always sold his way—with personality and a loose organization; he firmly believed that you could not structure a sales presentation. However, now recognizing this as a serious problem, ...