Does Coaching Salespeople Really Work?

Does coaching sales professionals in the workplace improve their sales performance?

I was interviewed recently by Ivana Williamson who is a coaching student at the International Coach Academy and is in the process of writing a research paper on ‘Does coaching sales professionals in the workplace improve their sales performance?’

When Ivana has completed her research I will let you know of her conclusions and recommendations.

In the meanwhile, when Ivana asked for my input, here’s a summary of what I said:

Coaching Salespeople Does Work If…..

My experience and results have proven that with the right support, with the right coach, with the right resources, with the right salesperson, with the right attitude, that coaching of salespeople in the workplace most definitely can improve sales performance, and I personally have hundreds of testimonials to validate this premise.

However, we also need to understand that when the above key elements are not in place, coaching and training salespeople in the workplace can have a much reduced impact and quite often fail.

Here are three reasons why coaching and training of salespeople can fail:

1. If the person who is being coached doesn’t have ongoing access to the resources they need to continue to build their skills and confidence in selling with success when the coaching ends.

2. If the level of intention of the person being coached is not sufficiently inspired, ie they don’t see the value of the coaching, or they don’t believe strongly in the value they create for buyers when they sell what they sell.

3. If the level of ability, knowledge and intent of the coach themselves is not sufficient. For example a sales manager who is also expected to be the coach may not be equipped to be a good coach. It’s not that they don’t know how to coach but they don’t have the resources to enable them to be able to coach, ie time, access to quick tips, sales and marketing tools, and other sales development/coaching resources like audios, videos, interviews with experts, webinars, and eCourses.

The Big Issue

The biggest issue that affects the success of coaching salespeople in the workplace is not do the coaches know how to coach.

It is do the coaches and the salespeople have access to the ongoing sales development resources to enable self-directed learning and coaching to continue. And even more importantly, given the access to the resources, do they have a big enough “WHY” to inspire and motivate them to use them to learn and succeed?

Learning is a process not a project. Process continues while projects end.

If you need to have unlimited access to learning and coaching resources to help you build your skills and confidence to win more new repeat and referral sales go to www.SalesCoachCentral.com