Motivating Your Team Through Cost Effective Coaching

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Coaching A Sales Professional on Time Management

Sales isn't an easy line of work to master - it takes a resilient person, with a lot of patience, confidence and tenacity to make it in sales. So, if you're a coach, how would you coach someone who's hoping to become a sales guru?

This is where your capabilities as a coach are put to the test. How do you plan to pull every last bit of potential out of someone who's just starting in sales? Well, I am going to walk you through the first 7 steps to this process. These won't cover every detail, but they'll get you started. These steps will help you hone in on critical components to any salesperson's skill set. In this article, I will cover the first: TIME-MANAGEMENT ABILITIES.

Do your best to understand your client's time-management abilities. Most of a salesperson's schedule is managed personally, so if she isn't organized, disciplined and motivated internally - this is where you will need to begin. You will want to encourage her - these are skills she can learn, they do not have to be inherent. She just has to bedevoted to developing them.

To assess a client's time-management skills, consider asking these questions:

Are you a self-starter or do you appreciate when others tell you what to do?On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your level of self-discipline? (10 = incredible, 1 = poor)How do you organize your days when you don't have any pressing priorities?When do you find yourself feeling bored?How do you feel and spend your time when you don't know what to do?

Asking these questions will reveal where a client's at, in terms of motivation, organization and prioritization. In sales, these skills play a serious role in one's success. If you discover your client does this process well, great - move on. If she doesn't, it would be well worth your time to work on fostering her time-management abilities. A few simple things that will help:

1. USE A CALENDAR. Help your client determine what sort of schedule would work best for her. A visual schedule, on a phone, computer or planner will always work better than relying on one's memory.

2. CREATE REMINDERS. Work with her to setup a process, so that when important dates are around the corner, she's alerted, far in advance, so that she can take the right steps to prepare for whatever it might be. This way, she's aware and ready instead of sadly surprised when deadlines emerge and meetings pass.

3. TRY TO PRIORITIZE. Identifying what's most important to complete is critical. So, maybe helping her start with a simple to-do list, so that she outlines what needs to be done, stars what's business critical, and starts there. By doing this, she will ensure nothing falls through the cracks, and will always have something to work on, even when things are slow.

If you're a coach and you care about your client, helping them understand and manage their time efficiently will benefit them in the short term and the long term. This is a skill that pays it forward, personally and professionally.

Looking for more insights about coaching a sales professional? Download a complimentary coaching article at http://wcwpartners.com/free-coaching-for-excellence-article/.

Doug C. Watsabaugh, senior partner at WCW Partners, understands how to meet your unique performance challenges. You can reach Doug at: dwatsabaugh@wcwpartners.com or 1-888-313-0514.

Check out WCW's latest book, The SuperSTAR Leadership Model: Good Boss, Bad Boss - Which One Are You? http://wcwpartners.com/superstar-leadership-model/.

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Coaching a Sales Professional on Responsibility

Yes, maybe some sales skills come natural to some people, but for the most part, most of it can be learned. This is great news, and it's important to stress this with the sales professional you are managing or coaching because he may get frustrated as he works through the basics and becomes convinced he doesn't have what it takes. One of your main roles as a coach is to realistically motivate - sharing the hard truth and the hopeful truth, so that you paint a real, but positive perspective for them.

This leads me to suggest that after exploring a client's time-management abilities (which is the topic of another article), the next thing you should explore with your sales professional client is his/her perspectives on responsibility and accountability. Young or old, expert or amateur, there are a lot of individuals that blame their lack of success on something their leader is lacking.

I'll illustrate this point with a story. Let's say you're car shopping. You don't quite know what you want, but you venture into a dealership. In this example, the car dealer is your leader. You are the consumer. Despite not knowing what you want, you could still do some online research, ask a few friends, consult your spouse and family, and just take a look around to see what catches your eye. But instead, you don't do any of that. You go straight to the dealership, and buy the first thing the dealer recommends. A week later, you see a report on the news that puts this particular model at the bottom of the list; supposedly after one year, everything starts to go down the tubes. You discover that the car manufacturer is covered from any liability because your warranty covers things that apparently don't really matter. As your stomach drops, you think, "I should have read the fine print." So, just a few days after purchasing a new car, you are counting down the days until it breaks down. You are beyond livid with the car dealer, and you start to blame it all on her.

Back to the point... should she have recommended that car? Probably not. Did she make you buy the car? No. Were there other options that you could have explored to make a better decision? Absolutely. This is exactly how it works in the workplace. Leaders aren't perfect (FYI: neither are you), they are going to do things, suggest things, and say things that are sometimes, so wrong. That doesn't mean you can sign them up to be your easy out. It simply means you need to rely more on yourself for the success you want.

Ask yourself... does my client blame their lack of results on their leader's deficiencies? Do your best to find the answer to this question. Stress the importance of the value in taking responsibility for one's actions. Let your clients know that if they can't take responsibility for where they're missing the mark, they can't expect to claim the rights to anything that happens to go well. They can't claim their good work if they won't recognize their less-than-perfect performances.

Looking for more insights about coaching a sales professional? Download a complimentary coaching article at http://wcwpartners.com/free-coaching-for-excellence-article/.

Doug C. Watsabaugh, senior partner at WCW Partners, understands how to meet your unique performance challenges. You can reach Doug at: dwatsabaugh@wcwpartners.com or 1-888-313-0514.

Check out WCW's latest book, The SuperSTAR Leadership Model: Good Boss, Bad Boss - Which One Are You? http://wcwpartners.com/superstar-leadership-model/.

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Coaching For Better Performance - A Definition And Its Implications

Coaching has become the skill that is spoken about nowadays when the discussion turns to middle management effectiveness. There is nothing wrong with this; it is absolutely correct that the development of staff should sit primarily with their management and they need the tools to do the job.

But like any area of business improvement that comes under the spotlight around the world, it attracts an unreasonable amount of charlatans. There are those out there who would have you believe that attending a seminar, training course or online learning event will give you good coaches and a coaching culture in your business. Of course they are wrong - but pointing out shortcomings is easy. What is more valuable is knowing what is right.

This article looks at a considered definition of performance coaching and the principles under which it becomes a useful tool to change performance.

A definition: "performance coaching is a set of practices, tools and skills which, when used consistently and effectively in an environment that is both conducive and accountable, leads to improved business performance and competitive differentiation.'

Let's deconstruct this definition and look at the implications.

'A set of practices, tools and skills'- managers need to know what to coach as well as how. This means there must be practices that are documented and are observable and measurable. Otherwise we end up with one persons' opinion of how well someone else is doing the job. When was the last time you agreed with an unsubstantiated, subjective criticism of your work? And worse, how do you react when this happens? Tools are needed to ensure uniformity of process, irrespective of the areas being coached. And skilful coaches understand the huge difference between feedback and coaching - feedback tells someone where they went wrong. Coaching helps a person build a plan to maximise strengths and improve areas for development.

'Consistently and effectively' - this is probably the area where most managers need more discipline and companies need to support their management better. What must happen is regular and skilful coaching for everyone. (Recognising that some need more than others, but no one is omitted). Our observation is that managers tend to look upon coaching as a fire-fighting exercise. We coach when performance is an issue. Apart from the fact that this makes coaching stigmatised, resented and unpopular, it misses the point that coaching is a very important tool in the development and retention of talent, not just helping to deal with performance issues. We had one client who was stunned when a top performer left because they got no management time or input. The manager told us, 'she didn't need it.' He was wrong.

'An environment that is conducive and accountable' - a conducive environment means both the physical setting where coaching takes place, as well as the atmosphere and approach created by the coach. You will not get people to be honest and open about the areas they find difficult if they know it is going to be used in evidence against them.

Accountable means that the coach is accountable for making sure the coaching happens and has valid outcomes and that the person being coached is accountable for acting on the agreed areas to work on and develop. And both are accountable for making sure the process is leading to improved business performance. This implies measurement of coaching, changes in performance and changes in results.

What is evident from this deconstruction of the definition is that the management of coaching in the workplace has significantly more impact than the any training. In addition there are a few other principles of good business practice that are particularly applicable to good coaching.

It is said that what gets measured gets done and what gets rewarded gets done properly. We have a client that used a simple 360 degree feedback process to measure the effectiveness of coaching and set a company standard. They also stated that if any manager did not meet the standard, they could not get more than an average rating on their performance appraisal. The change was phenomenal, in both attitude and performance - managers coached well and insisted on being measured accurately. You must embed coaching into HR, induction and training and performance management systems.

We believe that senior management communicate what is important in the company by the questions they ask. All too often the questions are about figures. You can't manage a figure. What you can manage is the quality of the performance that produces the figure. Senior management should get religion about the techniques used to improve people effectiveness and relentlessly ask about how well this is happening.

I founded Prosell Sales Training because I saw the importance of people's potential contribution to a business and also saw how many companies missed the biggest opportunity they were presented with; the challenge to fully engage their people and to achieve high productivity and overall business performance.

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Coaching a Sales Professional: Information Accumulation

Coaching someone in sales isn't easy work. Not because the client is always difficult, but more so because the profession is complex, to say the least. This article is one of 7 that I have written to help coaches & managers coach sales professionals. Not that these 7 cover everything, but I think they are significant when hoping to set a solid foundation for a salesperson.

Ignorance isn't bliss in business. And it's definitely not praised in sales. That's why accumulating and applying KNOWLEDGE is critical. I don't mean knowledge in an educational sense. Yes, education is important, but I'm talking about the type of knowledge that's professionally relevant and progressively collected. Being informed is critical because it has the potential to powerfully transform a sales professional's credibility. If a sales professional doesn't accurately understand her product/service, client and context - well, she's in for a surprise. And it probably won't be a positive surprise.

When sales professionals are regularly uninformed, typically, they excuse their ignorance. Instead of taking responsibility, they blame it on something or someone else. They suggest they aren't selling because "it's a pricing issue!" Or, "It's a tough market!" Really, if a good sales professional isn't selling, their reasoning is going to be much more refined. Specific. To the point. Why? Because good sales professionals aren't satisfied until they get to the root of their selling problem.

Now, I'm not suggesting that as a coach, you force or expect your sales professional to knowitall. That's micro-managing, not coaching. Instead, I'm advising you to counsel your sales professionals to recognize the importance of information. They must not only appear to be experts to their clients, but they must actually be experts.

What does this look like? Well, it can vary. But, a few staples of staying informed, include:

Remaining updated on market trends, needs and prices.Thoroughly understanding clients' expectations and needs, especially as these develop & evolve.Maintaining relationships with key resources and partners.Constantly assessing the latest and greatest competitors on the scene.Staying educated on the product or service line that one sells.Reading the news and other relevant literature that shares timely information.Researching client-company information, so that one is fully prepared to make a personal sales pitch to every client.

Depending on the sales environment of the professional and the industry of the product/service that one sells, additional opportunities to stay informed may arise. After reviewing the above list with your client, another next step would be to brainstorm additional ways to expand the breadth and depth of one's information bank.

If your clients are hoping to become sales professionals that are set apart from the amateurs, they must appreciate, accumulate and apply the best information. It's pivotal to their professionalism. Critical to their credibility. And essential to their success.

Looking for more insights about coaching a sales professional? Download a complimentary coaching article at http://wcwpartners.com/free-coaching-for-excellence-article/.

Doug C. Watsabaugh, senior partner at WCW Partners, understands how to meet your unique performance challenges. You can reach Doug at: dwatsabaugh@wcwpartners.com or 1-888-313-0514.

Check out WCW's latest book, The SuperSTAR Leadership Model: Good Boss, Bad Boss - Which One Are You? http://wcwpartners.com/superstar-leadership-model/.

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