Scientific Selling: Creating High-Performance Sales Teams Through Applied Psychology and Testing

Chapter 6

The Science of Sales Coaching

Managers have to be many things to their employees: coach, mentor, even friend. If you're going to be effective, you need to get into the world of the employee. If I stay in the world of “who I am” you can't really understand where other people are coming from. Assessments give you a better understanding of the individual traits and common traits that your employees bring to the table. That's a huge advantage for managers who want to be more effective.

—David Lahey, President, Predictive Success

As we saw in the previous chapter, scientific sales training increases the strengths and shores up the weaknesses of the sales group, based upon the skills required to address a target market. Scientific sales coaching does the same thing, but at the individual level. Building upon the more generic concepts and skills taught in the sales training program, coaching provides one-on-one reinforcement of the behaviors that are most likely to result in sales success for that individual.

Assessment tools offer a scientifically proven way to better match individuals to sales jobs and career paths, and to use sales training and coaching to improve overall sales performance. This, in turn, creates a sales environment where personnel are more satisfied, thereby reducing the turnover of valuable sales personnel.

There are two general areas where science plays a role in sales coaching. First, behavioral assessment provides insight into the personality of both ...