Turning Your Sales Manager into a Great Sales Coach
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Now follow the same process regarding your weakness. A weakness
does not have to be a glaring fault. It is simply any skill or area
of responsibility that prevents you from achieving your Vision. A
weakness represents an opportunity for growth and development. With
your coach, create a simple plan to improve upon your weakness.
Here is an example of a simple development plan for a sales
professional's strength and weakness:
Strength: Creating new relationships. "My prospects really like
me."
Plan to leverage strength: Take extra time to prospect this month.
Contact as many people as you can and develop trust and rapport
with them. This will fill your backlog and give you more closing
opportunities next month.
Weakness: Closing sales. "I don't like asking for the money."
Plan to improve weakness: Try to close your business a meeting or
two earlier than usual. If the thought of whether or not you should
go for it crosses your mind, just do it. If you truly have a strong
foundation of trust and rapport, you will never lose a sale by
asking too early but you may gain several. As you leverage your
strength for creating relationships, closing will become easier and
less stressful.
This simple change in behavior will begin to produce increased
results within 30 days. Create benchmarks with your coach to
monitor progress and hold yourself accountable to executing the
plan. Review the plan once a month and make any necessary
adjustments. Each quarter identify a new strength and weakness and
begin a new development plan. This process keeps you and your sales
coach constantly evolving and improving.
Rules of Engagement
As simple as this process seems, you cannot do it alone. As I
mentioned earlier, your coach can see things about your behavior
that you can't. Challenge your coach to do so. This cannot happen
without clear and honest communication within an environment of "no
fear." One cannot occur without the other.
Check your ego at the door. Demonstrate to your sales coach that
you can take the truth quickly and objectively. Tell your coach
that when they feel you are off track, can do a better job or need
more training, they have the green light to say so.
When your coach addresses an issue, remember that they are speaking
to your behavior and not attacking you as a person. Some coaches
may be more tactful than others, but the bottom line is that they
are trying to help you do your job better. Listen actively to what
they say and learn from their experience. The job of a coach is to
help you reach your goals. If you want to have a willing coach, you
must in turn be a willing student.
Follow these guidelines and you will get the most out of your
student-coach relationship. You and your sales coach will develop a
long-term partnership built on trust, respect, mutual growth and
development, and will achieve increased results. |
