7 practical tips for: Successful Sales Managers

Successful sales managers understand that they can positively impact their sales team by effectively coaching and developing them. If you need to know how to effectively coach your sales team, here are 7 tips to effectively coach your sales team

1. Building Trust

For sales coaching to work, the sales manager must earn trust. Sales managers must learn to remove their management helmets and put on their coaching hats. The coaching hat is all about being non-judgmental and allowing the individual to be open in the discussion of behaviors and/or performance challenges. Trust is the foundation for coaching. Rarely do employees admit to managers that they don't trust them. Yet lack of trust is a pervasive ailment undermining employee engagement and productivity. Often, corporate leaders don't discover the lack of trust until either a manager or an employee leaves.

`The words "I don't trust you" may not be said out loud, but you may be facing a lack of trust if employees are: Withholding information and using selective communication. Persistently questioning goals, strategies, actions and decisions. Protecting their self-interest at the expense of the team or organization. Acting inconsistently with the organization's values.

Exhibiting low or diminishing commitment and engagement. We evaluate ourselves by our intentions. Others—not knowing those intentions—evaluate us on their perceptions of our behavior and performance. While you may think you are a trustworthy manager, your actions may communicate otherwise to your employees. Trust lies at the heart of every strong relationship. Here are six actions you can take to demonstrate your good intentions: Follow through. Mistrust arises when managers don't do what they said they would do. Most employees understand that sometimes circumstances prevent you from keeping a commitment. They forgive an occasional lapse. But a habit of not following through tells people that you can't be trusted. This is an easy concept that requires a great deal of discipline to execute. If you can't meet a promised deadline, tell employees in advance. If you promise to run interference for your team, make sure your sense of urgency matches theirs and report the results. Calling others out on failed promises helps instill trust. For example, if you tell your team that being at work on time is important, address the chronically late team member. Communicate. Create opportunities to communicate expectations clearly, and build a shared understanding of priorities. Talk straight, and talk often. Your team knows that there is information you cannot share. They want to know what you can talk about, and they want to conclude that you are telling them the truth rather than spinning the message for your sole benefit or for that of the company. And, a reputation for listening and actually caring about what others are saying builds trust. Get better. Would you blindly follow someone out of a burning building if you were convinced that he had no idea where he was going? Why would you expect employees to trust a minimally competent manager to provide direction? Your team improves when you improve. They will trust your directions more and question you less in uncertain times when they conclude that you know what you are doing. Be consistent. People value and trust consistency in action and response. When consistency is absent, people are likely to protect their own interests at the expense of the team. When consistency is present—especially when combined with open communication—people tell you what you need to hear rather than what you want to hear. They are more confident, and they are not constantly looking to see how you are going to react to every incident or piece of bad news.

Be clear about your values. What principles are so important that you would never compromise them? The most difficult challenges we face rarely involve a choice between a clear right and wrong. More often, it is a choice between competing values that forces us into decisions between the better of two acceptable options or the lesser of two poor ones. The clearer you are on your values, the more trust you will build. Have their backs. There will come a time when you either stand up for your team or throw them under the bus. You can be an advocate for them or allow them to flounder on their own. The outcome of standing up for your team is less important than the action itself. Your team knows that you can't control every decision by corporate executives. But you will earn their respect and trust when they know that you will stand up for them even when doing so is inconvenient. Strong relationships grounded in trust are critical. Believing that—and acting on that belief—makes a notable difference.

2. Ask Effective Questions

Most people don’t like to be told what to do. Sales reps are no different. Successful sales coaches achieve agreement on the “what” and use effective questions on the “how.” Successful sales organizations allow their sales people to own the solution which leads to better execution and better people development. With effective sales coaching, the coach uses effective questions that stimulate thinking and illuminate solutions. First, we’ll be looking at framing questions during the ongoing interaction with a coachee, before turning to the most important questions we coaches need to ask ourselves. What’s so important about questioning? ‘Questioning’ can mean different things to different people. As I see it, as coaches we’re not talking about throwing questions around just for the sake of it. We’re considering the power of incisive, consciousness-raising questions. Questions which arise out of the moment in coaching as we respond to what we are learning and ‘feeling’ about coachees as they progress on their journey towards self-enlightenment, at least as far as unearthing all the varied aspects of their issues is concerned. If a question doesn’t seem to be arising, we need to be astute enough to allow for that reality. We don’t need to fish around to find one. Remember that listening and silence are powerful. Out of silence comes further reflection – on the part of the coach as well as the coachee. Only carefully considered, clear, concise relevant questions can encourage coachees to dig deep to find the answers that will help them move forward. And crafting those questions ‘in the moment’ is what sharpens their effectiveness, and makes them particular to the coachee at that particular juncture. Effective questioning allows the coach to get to grips with the issues, and the client to verbalise previously unconsidered thoughts or feelings, which promotes reflection. Effective questions help get to the heart of the issue and can help facilitate change. What makes an effective question? As far as possible we’re focusing on carefully targeted open, probing questions which seek clarification. On occasion we might also be asking hypothetical questions, which don’t necessarily demand actual answers but do provoke reflective thought. But not every question is a good question. Some types are best avoided as they’ll prompt neither elaboration nor a process of further thinking on the part of the coachee. Which are these? Closed questions (which have a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer), leading questions (which are anglng for a particular answer), or multiple questions (which have lots of distracting parts, none of which get properly answered). More often than not the subtext of all these types of questions is less to do with revealing the nuances of the coachee’s issue than validating the coach’s own ‘solutions’ or point of view. Effective probing questions can be at three different levels, which cumulatively help gain better understanding of the real concerns and issues of coachees, as well as their beliefs and values. As rapport with a coachee builds, we’re able to make that leap to get into the individual’s head to see the world from her or his perspective. What are these levels? -Level 1 Facts Simple data gathering questions, with the intention of teasing out necessary relevant information to contextualise the coachee and the issue (not just to satisfy personal curiosity). Initially these questions won’t require a great deal of rapport to be answered, but if a coach is sensitive, the process can lead to the building of trust in the relationship. -Level 2 Feelings Probing further into what the coachee thinks and feels. Answering requires more thought and a higher level of trust and rapport between coach and coachee. -Level 3 Values Probing even deeper into why the client values things and why they are important to him/her. Answering needs a lot of thought and a high level of trust and rapport. Clearly, the key skills here are sensitivity and deep listening. The coach needs to be fully ‘with’ the coachee and absorbed in her or his world. It’s from this level of engagement that the rapport is built which enables open, honest answers, and which reveals in the moment which level and which question should be raised. The most important questions to ask yourself So far we’ve looked at framing questions to ask coachees. But in some ways the most important questions are the ones we ask ourselves as coaches. Why? Because the answers determine the intention behind our interaction with a coachee as well as the spirit in which we coach. 1. Questions to set our frame of mind “Why am I a coach? What is the underlying intention behind my presence in this coaching relationship? Am I currently in a mental/emotional place whereby I can do justice to the responsibility of coaching the individual I’m about to meet?” These are just three of the unspoken questions it’s so important we consider every time we prepare for a coaching session. They can help us test and challenge our assumptions about our own motives As part of setting our focus, they’re crucial to our being able to dig deep to recognise the reality of why we are doing what we are doing. Just as there can be a myriad of intentions behind particular questions we ask our coachees, there can be a myriad of intentions behind why we have the urge to be a coach – and they can change over time and under different circumstances. There are no ‘right’ answers here. There is only honesty about how we’re really thinking in the moment. We need to be honest in holding up a mirror to our intentions so that we can articulate and acknowledge their reality. Without this honesty, we may be entering coaching relationships without the self-insight necessary to being able to act with authenticity and wisdom. Without acknowledging the reality of our intentions, we can’t realign them (if that’s what we find is necessary), and we can’t work with ourselves to develop into the coaches we wish we could ultimately be. Resetting our commitment and our focus before each session can go some way to preparing the seedbed of non-judgementalism, compassion and empathy without which transformative interactions cannot take place. 2. Questions to ask ourselves in the moment Coaches need to be sensitive to their own reactions to what’s going on in coaching sessions in the moment. Partly this is to pick up on where internal ‘interference’ is getting in the way of listening to and perceiving what’s actually going on, and partly it’s to identify ‘messages’ that are being delivered to the coach through bodily reaction and ‘feeling’ about what the coachee is manifesting from moment to moment. This requires a high level of self-awareness, which can be accessed through a mindful approach to the task. Questions to ask oneself could include: - What am I feeling, and where is it in my body? - What words does this feeling evoke? - Have I felt like this before? In what circumstances? - Why has my mood changed? What is the change related to? It’s important to try to pinpoint why we are reacting in a particular way. Sometimes this can be significant information to reflect back to the coachee. At the very least it encourages the necessary agility on the part of coaches to deal with their own contribution to what’s happening in the coaching relationship alongside what’s happening simultaneously for the coachee. So, questioning in coaching is of great significance – questioning of oneself, and questioning of the coachee. Taken hand in hand with listening, it provides the context in which transformative interactions can take place.

3. Self Evaluation

When doing post call debriefs or skill assessments, it is critical to have the sales person guide the process and self-evaluate. As a sales manager, you may only be in the field with the rep one or two days a month. The goal is to encourage the sales rep to evaluate how they did on each call even when you are not in the field with them.

Many managers are quick to offer feedback. Relax and take a step back and let the sales rep self-evaluate. Being able to assess what they did well and what they can improve upon leads to greater self-awareness. Self-awareness is the gateway to self-confidence. Give your sales people the gift of self-confidence by withholding your feedback and allowing them to self-assess.

When doing post-call debriefs or skill assessments – or just coaching during one-on-ones – it’s critical to have the salesperson self-evaluate. As a sales manager, you may only be with the rep one or two days a month. Given this disconnect, the goal is to encourage the sales rep to evaluate their own performance and build self-improvement goals around these observations.

There are two critical components to this. First, avoid jumping directly into feedback during your interactions. Relax and take a step back; let the sales rep self-evaluate. Second, be ready to prompt your reps with open-ended questions to help guide their self-evaluation. Consider questions like:

- What were your big wins over the last week/quarter?

- What were your biggest challenges and where did they come from?

- How did you address obstacles to sales closings?

- What have you learned about both your wins and losses? Reps who can assess what they do well and where they can improve ultimately become more self-aware. Self-awareness is the gateway to self-confidence, which can help lead to more consistent sales.

4. Focus

For coaching to be effective, you need to work with the rep on improving one area at a time versus working on multiple areas. Sales managers who try and work on improving many areas end up seeing no change. My focused coaching methodology is based on the premise that as a coach, if you can help each of your reps improve in one area during a year, you have been effective.

5. The Rep Guides the Discussion

How does the effective coach determine the area of focus? I say, if there is a benefit to the area that the rep decides to focus on, then go with their suggestion. This creates a stronger desire to improve as the rep is making the commitment. Less effective managers will pick the area and then wonder why they don’t get buy in from their rep to change.

6. Plan of Action

To create momentum for change, effective coaches use the power

of questioning. Open questioning creates an environment where the sales rep thinks through areas of focus and change, offering proactive methods to achieve targets. This takes time, but if t

he coach tells the sales rep what they should do, the buy-in is lost. Best practice is having the sales rep physically write out a plan of action and send it to the manager. The power of putting pen to paper is twofold. Firstly, the sales rep needs to think through what they are committed to doing and secondly by putting their commitment to paper it crystallizes their thinking.

7. Holding Your Rep Accountable

"People respect what you inspect.” The effective coach understands that once the plan of action is in place, their role as coach is to hold the sales rep accountable for following through on their commitment. To accelerate the development process and/or completion of the sales rep’s plan of action, the coach asks the sales rep open-ended follow up questions such as: What success have you had with your plan? What challenges did you face? How did you overcome those challenges? By taking a few minutes on every interaction (via phone calls or on the next field visit) effective coaches are stressing the importance of their coaching. Sales reps begin to understand that they are going to be routinely asked how the focused plan of action is proceeding and they then understand that the manager is holding them accountable for progress and improvement. Successful sales coaching is a process that has many nuances. By following best practices, such as effective questioning, focus and holding your sales people accountable, you stand the best chance as a coach to improve your sales reps performance. The power of effective coaching is based on the belief that the sales rep has the answers and the coach’s role is one of facilitation and holding the rep accountable. Remember coaching is the key to driving sales performance. To effectively coach a team it is important to develop both yourself and your team