Sell More With Sales Coaching: Practical Solutions for Your Everyday Sales Challenges

INTRODUCTION

Sales coaching can be the lifeblood of an organization. When done effectively, sales coaching is the catalyst that improves sales results, team morale, and employee retention.

You might appreciate knowing my sales and sales coaching biases, as they color the approach and focus of this book.

I see sales activities as a series of individual, customized conversations where the salesperson’s responsibility is to help clients with their buying decisions. Salespeople start committing mistakes when they act inconsistently with this philosophy, and shift from focusing on the client experience to manipulating a sales transaction.

Use this book to more effectively coach your salespeople to help their clients with their buying decisions. As a by-product, your team members will sell more, better, sooner, and more often.

Sales coaching involves influencing your team members’ thinking, which, in turn, improves their sales behaviors and results in greater sales. It’s a cause–effect dynamic. If you try to take a shortcut, and only focus on coaching sales behaviors, you make your team members dependent on you for reinforcement. When you focus on shifting the thinking behind their sales behaviors, your sales coaching has lasting effects. Your team members are able to use the best of their thinking to solve their clients’ issues and feel more confident in their growing sales abilities. And you’ll feel more secure knowing how capable they are.

Coaching is both a right and a privilege ...