Sales Coaching
1. the most important facts at a glance
For many sales managers, the sales process has become a black box. Lack of time, limits employee management to discussing results figures. The underlying sales actions are hardly analyzed any more. It’s a bit like a football coach only counting the points scored but no longer training with his players.
This may work in good times, but as soon as this changes and sales problems arise, the sales manager lacks his most important intervention tool, namely coaching the sales staff back to success.
Earnings figures (e.g. sales) are the result of various sales activities. The choice, quality and quantity of daily sales activities define the results and therefore the success.
A sales team that measures and discusses its sales activities on a daily basis is capable of great individual and overall performance.
The managers of 18 furniture stores receive a 6-month sales coach training course incl. Guiding tools. The direct implementation of the new skills takes place during training.
These were my goals:
- Make better use of sales potential.
- Utilize employee potential more effectively.
- Improve problem-solving skills in the area of self-organization.
- Install leading early indicators.
- Increase leadership resilience.
*Out of consideration for my former employer, I will refrain from giving figures.
To start with, the ambitious sales coaching project was a major challenge.
Today marks the beginning of a new era for Frank. His first working day as head of department. He is looking forward to the new challenge. The welcome meeting with his new boss is businesslike and cordial. Frank quickly gains confidence and his nervousness subsides. When asked what he has done particularly well in the past week, he is somewhat surprised. However, he is also pleased to be able to talk about successfully passing the professional examination to become a retail specialist.
After this warm welcome, the branch manager invites him to the daily check-in: “Now I’ll show you how we do our daily check-in and talk about our spotlight missions.” What awaits Frank is completely new to him. Each employee briefly talks about the previous day’s sales results and what they are particularly proud of. Frank is amazed at how openly everyone talks about their approaches, but also about the professionalism of the salespeople. “Anyone could be a sales trainer,” he says. “What a difference to my previous job, where everyone rushes in in the morning just before the store opens, says a quick hello and then does their sales thing.”
Frank doesn’t have much time to return to his old workplace, however, because after check-in he goes on a tour of the exhibition with his predecessor and gets to know all his sales staff personally. He is struck by the high regard with which his predecessor speaks about the employees. “You know Frank, an appreciative environment is the basis for any top performance. But the real secret of success lies in the fact that employees experience a direct connection between their work on the spotlight missions and the results achieved every day.”
In developing a particularly effective sales coaching program, we were inspired by the proven method “The 4 Disciplines of Implementation”.
What Six Sigma and Lean are for production, “The 4 Disciplines of Implementation” is for the implementation of strategies. A practical method that can solve every manager’s main challenge: Implementation:
Ram Charan, co-author of Managen heißt machen.
What does an
app
with a
sales seminar
have in common?
Both are without an operating
system
not worth much. THE SMALL HEAD START is an operating system that turns methods, techniques and ideas into brilliant successes.
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