“9 Reasons Why Sales Managers/ VP of Sales want a Sales Coach for their Sales Team”
By John Polumbo- President, Winning Edge Selling
Co-Founder Edge CEO Advisory
Champion athletes have coaches, of course Champion Sales Teams should too. Over the last 20+ years I have had the opportunity to coach countless Sales People, 100’s of Sales Manager’s and nearly 100 Sales Organziations to maximize professional and personal growth to accelerate development, sales goal achievement and results.
Knowing there is a segment of Sales Managers who are defensive and don’t accept the 9 Reasons a Sales Coach is critical to Sales Team success. For everyone else, this is the list:
- Bring outside perspective and expertise to their salespeople:
Salespeople are immersed in their industry, company and sales status quo. When they can learn cross industry best practices and success journeys it can be applied to their world in a whole new way to launch or re-launch their sales levels.
2. Sales Managers are Overcapacity:
Sales Managers often are doing 2 jobs or parts of 4+ roles. From Sales Operations, Product Development, Training, Marketing, Recruiting to Key Account Sales and more it is very common that most of them would Sales Coach significantly in their role but will never have the time due to large reaching role responsibility.
3. Sales Coaching is Not Sales Management: Sales Coaching includes a long and specific list of key factors for the development of higher performing people through Motivation, Personal and Professional Development, Communications and People Skills, Pre-briefing and De-briefing Sales Opportunities, Strategic and Tactical Deal Coaching, Sales Training and more.
4. Each team member needs what they need to grow: On boarding and fast tracking Emerging Salespeople, moving the Middle Performers up the sales ladder and assisting Top Players to strive higher is a science and an art. Working with these levels, templating and building a culture of Sales Success takes time, expertise and unique application to bring results.
5. Pipeline Review/ Sales Forecasting is Not Sales Coaching:
Often Sales Managers use the Pipeline meeting to coach quickly on the fly, mass communicate and hopefully motivate. Usually this expands the time required for the meeting exponentially and broad brush stroke coaching doesn’t really provide help or stick with Salespeople as learned improvement.
6. What got your Team here, will not get them to the Next Level:
Everything your salespeople are doing is the result of cumulative success, failure, training and experience from the world they sell in and belong too. Often a bigger, professional, across industry reaching training and coaching platform can Unlock tremendous growth when Salespeople can get out of the weeds of the Sales Status Quo and innovate to be focused with a Sales and Development plan built for them that has their success in mind.
7. A Sales Coach creates a Working Development space with separation so Salespeople can evolve without the pressure of Sales Management: A Sales Coach operates in an in-between space allowing for growth, change and accountability at a different level. It is a unique and rarer occasion when Salespeople are fortunate enough to have a Sales Manager who can be their Coach, mentor and fan to help them climb the sales results ladder. This role used to be a critical function of Sales Management and over time the urgency of Sales Operations, Marketing and other requirements have eroded the role of the Coach for Sales Managers. Most managers want their people to succeed and grow and just don’t have the time. Because the Coach relationship is weak for the Sales Manager often the development becomes critical and painful.
8. A Sales Coach works on 1 thing, the Development of Salespeople: 1 Core focus gives a unique advantage to the Sales Coach. Prospecting, Sales Process, Sales Strategy & Tactics combined with Professional and Personal growth equals unprecedented results for Sales Teams. Over time the continuous growth through learning builds a higher culture of mutual success for the Company and the individual sales people.
9. The ROI of Sales Coaching and Training is Exponential and Measurable by Sales Increases and Retention of Salespeople:
Everyone wants to be on a Winning Team or one that is on it’s way to the top. The first thing that happens when a Sales Coach is introduced is the Sales Organization gets a boost of energy and light bulbs go on that there is a serious initiative to go to the next level. Secondly the Mind set evolves to growth, identifying and implementing sales growth strategies and Sales Activity takes off. Then the measurable results increased KPI’s, Qualified Pipeline expansion and Sales increase. In phase 4 the mind sets, activity and strategy create a sales engine that performs at a high level with regulars rpm’s for the long term.
We have entered a new age where people value and measure their opportunity, work relationships and connection with their organization so how they feel determines their satisfaction level, performance level and loyalty to an organization. When they feel part of something, connected and valued they have engaged optimism, a strong growth track and continuous success.
If it’s Time to Build, Engage and Re-Activate Your Organization learn more and inquire about our services, contact John Polumbo [email protected] or 401-451-0553.