With a strong emphasis on the need to coach salespeople to realise their full potential, I can’t help but draw strong comparisons to coaching sportspeople to improve their performance. So, the following is a Performance Coaching Example that may help explain this philosophy.
Sales Managers, like sports coaches, can easily be distracted by new toys and techniques, but when it comes to Performance Coaching, it will always drill down to the small things that can be improved.
I know that focusing on improving the Microselling Skills of any salesperson will return a threefold improvement in winning business, and I have proved this simple point time and time again.
Screen Time or Real-Time. It’s your choice.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not denying the importance of Screen Time with products like CRM and BI; I am a strong advocate for these products. To prove this, let me offer the following facts for your consideration.
CRM is the fastest-growing software used by Sales and Marketing departments globally, and here are some quick facts to support that statement:
- 2010, it was a $14 billion industry
- Forecast for 2025: $80 billion
- That’s nearly a 600% increase
- Provides sales enablement tools
- Process automation
- Workflow enabled
- Built-in project management capabilities.
The businesses that leverage CRM software have seen there –
- Sales increase by 29%
- Sales productivity increased by 34%
- Sales forecast accuracy increased by 42%
While CRM has very few downsides, it does have the unfortunate ability to entice Sales managers to spend more time accessing reports and reviewing KPI performance measurements rather than working with their salespeople to help them improve their selling skills.
CRM does not offer the ability to measure the effectiveness of what happens in a face-to-face sales call. It cannot up-skill the salesperson’s sales skills to enable them to win more business.
Performance Coaching Example
I was watching the Broncos vs. Souths on 07/08/2020 and listening to the reviews given by Gus Gould and Brad Fittler, which discussed a defensive error by one of the Broncos players.
Both Gould and Fittler commented on the need for a player to set themselves to perform either a left or right shoulder tackle and how this player had planted both feet and was waiting for the attacking player to move forward and be tackled.
One side step and a try later, it was obvious that Tevita Pangai Junior needed to change his defensive skills if he truly wanted to become the player he had the potential to become.
So here is my point—if two of Australia’s top coaches can see basic errors in a player’s defensive skills, what should their coach do with this player if they are effective coaches?
In the last four games, the Broncos have scored 44 points and had 158 scored against them.
Rugby League measures a team’s wins, losses, points for and against, and individual player statistics. It provides a game review tape to allow the coach to identify each player’s skills that need improvement.
An effective coach would work with Tevita Pangai Junior to ensure he decides to tackle with either their left or right shoulder and position his feet accordingly.
Sales Managers do not have access to game review tapes that will help them identify the skills each salesperson needs to improve their performance.
However, they do have the opportunity to spend time with their salespeople in actual selling situations, observing skills that need to be improved and developing a skills coaching plan to address these opportunities.
Screen Time or Real-Time. It’s your choice.
