Here's a central irony of sales coaching: Most of the time, your reps already know what they need to do to succeed. It's rare that they are completely oblivious on what path to take or what decisions to make. But they aren’t actually doing what they know they should be doing. And that’s because they have an area (or areas) of weakness that keep them from moving forward. This isn't a sales challenge, this is a human challenge. Everyone has specific areas where they struggle that become their Achilles heel. Your job as a coach is to put a laser focus on that area over and over to help them move forward and grow. Don't … [Read more...]
How to Coach Salespeople to Succeed in the World of Social Selling
How do you coach a salesperson to improve their sales results using digital tools like LinkedIn? It seems like an easy question. All you need to do is present it at a sales meeting, maybe send a few articles you found, and that should be it. Right? Unfortunately, lurking underneath the seeming simplicity of digital selling are a number of complications that differentiate these new sales activities from business as usual. If you try the training and coaching approaches that worked in the past, you'll soon find yourself stuck in the mud. So let's look at some ways you can leverage sales coaching to drive online selling skills in … [Read more...]
How to Get Better at Being Coached (Every Salesperson Should Read This)
Sales coaching is a hot topic lately. There are articles, webinars, and podcasts all over the place that talk about how to be a better coach. But it seems that we've forgotten the other half of the equation: the person being coached! Sure, there are a lot of sales coaches out there, but there are a lot more salespeople and team members being coached. Let's talk about how you can be a better coachee. What Does It Mean to be Coachable? Leaders and managers often talk about the value of a coachable salesperson. From their perspective, there are a few reasons why they are looking for coachable people: Sales leaders are … [Read more...]
3 Questions That Will Make You a Better Sales Coach
These days you can find a coach to help you with everything from your golf swing to your marriage to your life. That's because we've realized that we get better faster when there is a detached and knowledgeable observer helping us along. That certainly applies to sales skills. If you are a sales manager, director, or VP, it's important to realize that sales coaching is key to getting better results. This is especially crucial if you are tasked with getting bigger numbers from a sales team that's not going to get any bigger, Unfortunately, though, many sales leaders are horrible at coaching. But with just a simple shift in approach, … [Read more...]
5 Rules from Zombie Survivors for Business Development
An undead zombie is shambling towards the lone survivor, arms outstretched, low moan coming from its chest. The plucky hero raises a machine gun in an attempt to ward of the attack and fills the zombie full of lead...but the zombie keeps coming! Because the hero didn't shoot it in the head! And everyone who's seen a zombie movie knows that the brain is a zombie's weak point! ...It's frustrating to watch the characters in a zombie movie make the same fundamental mistakes over and over again. It's just as frustrating to watch sales people and business development reps fail to take care of the basics when they meet with prospective … [Read more...]
How to Stop Fearing Sales Objections with this Magic Phrase
One of the reasons people don't like to sell is that we don't like rejection. As young children we develop a deep-seated fear of being abandoned by those that we love, and it follows us into adulthood. So there's this subconscious connection that's created between this fear and a prospect saying no. But we also avoid asking for business because we don't know what to say if the other person doesn't say yes or no. That's why most of us will only "ask for the order" when we already know the answer. It could be a formal sales situation where you are asking a prospect for a business deal. But it could also be an internal meeting where … [Read more...]