As a child, I had one really big decision every morning. It was to decide what filling to place in between my two slices of Farmers Wife white bread for my lunch. The dilemma was spam meat from the tin or sandwich spread from the jar? Invariable the verdict was Spam. Easy to slice, would last for ever and oddly enough, rather tasty.
SPAM is a way of structuring your feedback with your team members when you're carrying out on the job coaching. As an energetic and active coach, you wander your workplace, listen to calls, observe customer engagement and help your team to sell more and give superior customer service.
Customer engagement coaching doesn't happen behind closed doors, believe me it doesn't.
Here's how SPAM works. You happen to sit down on the counter and observe one of your teams advising on a product with a customer, maybe a credit card or bespoke insurance package.
You observe them and in your mind, you're comparing them with some best practice techniques. As the sales manager, you know what good looks like. If you don't refer to your team's best practice playbook. You don't have a best practice playbook? It's all in your head?
That's dangerous if you ever leave.
So the engagement has ended, in order to give them the benefit of your wisdom and best practice you want to give them feedback. Now slice up your SPAM.
S stands for self discovery. Classic. Ask them how they did, what went well in their opinion, if they could do it again, how might they tweak it. Now we know the outcome, i.e. the customer's reaction, what might you change.
P is for a positive piece of feedback. Let them know specifically and in detail what you particularly admired about the observation. Make it real, not that your shoes were shiny or the colour of your tie was stunning. Find something that was the best aspect of the engagement, the one of many.
A is alternative. Next, launch straight into a suggestion from you on how you can do it differently, an idea on some aspect of the engagement, something very specific that will make the meeting even better. Don't debate, just move onto the...
M, which stands for a meaningful overall impression. Remember primacy and recency, people remember the beginning and end of any conversation, so end on a high, an overall good first impression. "Fabulous meeting with Mrs Brown, that lady has an excellent impression now of our company, thanks to you Mary, well done"
As Dale Carnegie said, "Salespeople bristle with emotions". I say don't ruffle them, make them feel good but help them to get even better.
And then leave, as I had to do since my long winded decision as to sandwich spread or spam usually meant I was late for school. Oh and does anyone else pine over Unigate's Farmer's Wife sliced white bread adorned with sandwich spread. Totally lush.
Paul is an international speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. His expertise and experience is in selling and sales coaching, his books and articles focus on rapport selling which puts the customer at the heart of the sale. Visit his website http://www.archertraining.co.uk/Sales_tips.htm to sign up for his Weekly Sales and Coaching Tips or visit his blog at http://www.paularcher.com/ where you'll find his unique style of weekly blog posts for you to enjoy. paul@paularcher.com
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