It’s no secret that I’ve been pushing the importance of coaching over the past several months. With the upcoming launch of our Coaching Cockpit this year, it’s definitely been top of mind for me.
Effective sales coaching is an indispensable part of an effective sales system, and it’s one we so very often get wrong. So, to help you get it right, here’s a round-up of my 9 most important sales coaching posts, a valuable coaching white paper, and 3 popular guest posts on coaching.
Great coaching doesn’t happen by accident. It has to be intentional. A solid coaching framework helps your managers become more systematic and deliberate in how they approach sales coaching. And that translates directly to happier, better, more productive salespeople.
This post walks you through not only why you need a sales coaching framework, but also:
Great coaching starts long before a manager sits down to help a salesperson. In fact, great coaching doesn’t start with the coach: It starts with the coach’s coach. Salespeople are made, not born, and the same is true for coaches.
Salespeople are made, not born, and the same is true for coaches.
If you’re responsible for managing sales managers, then you need to know how to coach managers to coach. This post provides the four top things you need to be focused on when you do.
One of the problems I recognized early in my sales career was that sales performance is often treated like a batch problem. Salespeople are hired in large groups, put through mass training programs, provided with precisely the same materials and software, and then set loose to sink or swim.
But the highest-performing sales organizations don’t behave this way at all. They treat each salesperson like the unique individual that they are. And when it comes to coaching, they get close to each individual salesperson to identify their needs, motivations, strengths, and skill gaps. This post explains why this works and how to do it.
Managing and coaching are not the same thing. Getting them confused leads to all kinds of problems, yet very few managers truly understand the difference. This post explains the difference, why it matters, and how to know when to do each one.
When we think of sales coaching, most often we think about a manager taking the time to help a salesperson do better. But there’s another type of coaching that can be just as important and lead to exceptional results: Collaborative coaching.
This post talks about how to develop a culture that nurtures collaborative coaching, how to encourage it directly, and how it can help you.
One of the most important skills a great sales coach must have is asking the right questions in the right way at the right time. Improving your questioning skills can dramatically improve your coaching success and therefore your sales team’s success.
This post suggests a set of question categories, then provides examples and explanations of each to help you up your questioning game.
Looking for a list of questions to get your coaching conversations started? This post has you covered. It’s exactly what it sounds like.
A list of articles about coaching would not be complete without an article about the technology you need to support effective coaching. I am proud to say that Membrain is actively in development on a coaching cockpit to be launched in 2024. This post will tell you all about it.
When you’re ready to get serious about your coaching game, you’re ready for this white paper. It shows you, step by step, how to build and customize a complete sales coaching system that will impact how you hire, train, support, and incentivize your sales managers to coach. It’s an excellent primer for sales coaching and will help you to get started.
Dave Brock is a regular contributor to the Art and Science of Coaching blog, a friend, and a Membrain ambassador. In this popular post, he addresses the common complaint of “not enough time to coach.” He talks about what stops us from coaching, the things we think are coaching but aren’t, and how to get past the “not enough time” block.
Keith Rosen is a globally recognized authority on the topic of sales and coaching. I love this post for its unflinching look at how most companies are messing up coaching and what they need to do differently.
Finally, I’m including this post by the late and great Jonathan Farrington, because it’s a terrific piece that really digs into what makes a great sales coach. The piece lays out, item by item, the characteristics that a manager needs in order to truly coach their team to excellence.
What do you think? Did I cover all the bases? What did I miss?
George is the founder & CEO of Membrain, the Sales Enablement CRM that makes it easy to execute your sales strategy. A life-long entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the software space and a passion for sales and marketing. With the life motto "Don't settle for mainstream", he is always looking for new ways to achieve improved business results using innovative software, skills, and processes. George is also the author of the book Stop Killing Deals and the host of the Stop Killing Deals webinar and podcast series.
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