Make a smart managerial move

Call in a coach

What’s on your to-do list today? If your schedule plays out like that of most sales managers, your plate is full from the time the Bose wakes you up with the morning traffic report until way past a business-slash-dinner meeting at 7 p.m. When are you supposed to fit in staff development? How can you effectively deliver training on sales practices to your team of 10 – today?

Maybe it’s time to call in a coach.

Personal and professional coaching has emerged in recent years as a popular business practice. Once considered a perk for an organization’s most promising stars or a career-saving intervention for troubled staffers, coaching is now considered a vital component of professional development inside companies large and small. And although there’s a great deal of academic research and anecdotal experience pointing to the bottom-line value a quality coach brings to the sales environment, many sales managers shy away from making the investment.

“I think it may be because sales managers know their role is to develop and manage a team of talent,” says Charlotte Landram, a professional sales coach, consultant and trainer, and founder of High Impact Systems. “At first pass, ‘coaching’ would seem to be a core competency of a successful sales manager – and it might be, if there were many more hours in the day.” Too often, Landram says, all the other demands of managing a high-performing team or organization interrupt the best plans of a sales manager.

“They have the best of intentions, and understand one-on-one coaching can help their sales people reach higher and higher levels of success, but business happens. They’re pulled away on other priorities. They really have too many responsibilities on their plate. Coaching gets pushed to the side; sessions are postponed until next week or next month, and results begin to unravel,” Landram says.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

An experienced coach can help sales managers become even better at their jobs – and enable sales teams to develop their talents in a very personalized, customized way. A coach can help a successful sales manager increase productivity among team members, leverage business growth opportunities and retain top talent. The return on investment can be significant. Recent studies peg comprehensive coaching programs to a six-fold financial return. Research also says coached individuals quickly improve performance and productivity, find greater satisfaction in their sales roles, and discover a number of intangible benefits arising from a dedicated coaching relationship.

“The greatest results come from working a systematic, purposeful and focused coaching plan,” says Landram. A coach delivers the best results when she has a sales manager’s full commitment to realizing the highest potential of his team – and the individualized time to coax this potential out of people.

A professional coach will fill two very specific roles on your team: helping talent become fully aware of their strengths – and how best to use these strengths to become results-driven performers; and enabling you, as sales manager, to fully leverage the abilities of your team, grow business and achieve results.

Think of the responsibilities a chief of staff assumes – and how she turns to her hospital’s top cardiac surgeon to care for patients in need of advanced care. Or, a successful gm’s role in managing the business affairs of a pro team – and his reliance on a top-notch coaching staff to make the right calls on the field or from the dugout.

The bottom line that will enable your sales team to reach the best results: Turn over coaching duties to the best coach you can find – today!

Coaching takes a very specific set of skills, including:

An unbiased, non-judgmental approach. A good coach has to withhold judgments when helping clients, establish a high degree of trust and respect, and encourage their clients to open up completely about their fears, expectations and challenges.

Active listening skills. A good coach knows the relationship they build with clients is not about them – it isn’t based on delivering a particular message or selling a specific solution. Rather, a good coach asks a wide range of questions, tailors coaching sessions to individuals’ needs, and knows when to be a sounding board.

Complete focus on the individual. A good coach knows there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to professional development. Quality coaching requires an investment of time to discover how clients learn best, and how individual performers can most effectively draw on personal strengths to achieve the results they desire.

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