When to Coach and When to Manage (And How To Tell the Difference)

Are you engaging in sales coaching as much as you think you are? Sometimes, salespeople feel like they’re being coached much less than their managers think they are coaching. This happens because most sales managers are never taught the difference between coaching and managing, and when each one is appropriate.

Here’s what you need to know about coaching versus managing, when to do what, and how to make sure that your salespeople are receiving both coaching and management appropriately.

What is the Difference Between Coaching and Managing?

Coaching is the act of helping people accomplish more of what they want to accomplish by becoming better at their jobs, aligning their work with their values, developing skills and mindsets, and tapping into intrinsic motivation.

Coaching is open-ended and focuses on the individual’s own motivations, goals, and abilities. It asks questions and provides opportunities for learning, rather than dictating decisions. It involves asking open-ended questions, and is directed toward helping the individual to develop their life and career in a way that is fulfilling and practical for them.

In sales coaching, this includes helping salespeople to identify what they want to accomplish in their life and career, what’s in their way, and develop the plans and skills to accomplish these things.

Sales coaching can address big-picture questions, such as setting personal and professional goals. And it can be detailed, such as identifying and coaching the skills necessary to move a sale to the next stage of a process. It can also cover a lot of ground in between. In all cases, coaching encourages the individual to tap into their own intrinsic motivation to achieve a goal that is meaningful to them personally.

Salespeople often feel like they’re being coached much less than their managers think they are coaching.

Management refers to the process of ensuring that the individuals on a team align with the company’s goals for them and produce the results they are being paid to produce. Management involves telling people what to do, rather than leading them to decide what to do.

Management and coaching can overlap. For instance, helping a salesperson to learn a new skill because they want to meet a personal goal can also be part of a management tactic to ensure that they meet the quota the company has set out for them.

But they can also be at odds. If a salesperson wants to take time off, but the company needs them to be present for a major initiative, a manager may need to simply set the rule for everyone to be on board, and this may run counter to what the salesperson wants. In another example, a coach might uncover an individual’s deep desire to pursue a different career, which may be at odds with the management goal of retaining employees.

Why You Shouldn’t Coach When You Need to Manage (and Vice Versa)

I see it among even professional coaches, that they sometimes slip into managing, and managers can slip into coaching during management time. It’s an easy mistake to make.

When a manager slips into management during coaching time, this has the effect of the manager feeling like they’re coaching all the time, but the salesperson feeling like they don’t get enough coaching.

It can look like this: A salesperson is struggling with bringing an opportunity to the next stage of the sales process. They go to their coach. The coach, being an experienced salesperson themselves, sees what the problem is and immediately tells the salesperson what they need to do.

This is management, rather than coaching. Management dictates, while coaching helps the individual to discover their answers on their own. The salesperson in this scenario ends up feeling like they’ve been managed, rather than coached.

Coaching, in this instance, would involve asking the individual open-ended questions that help them discover for themselves what they need to do and the internal motivation to do it. If additional skills are required, it helps the individual discover what those skills are and identify opportunities to develop them.

On the other hand, some managers are outstanding coaches but don’t know when to manage. An example here is when you have someone who consistently chooses to break company policies. A great coach may be tempted to address this with open-ended questions, in an attempt to help the individual discover their own motivation to follow the rules. This may be effective if the salesperson responds well to it and decides to start following rules. But if an individual refuses to follow rules, then it’s time to manage rather than coach–in other words, provide external actions in the form of discipline, termination, or other penalties.

Membrain’s upcoming coaching cockpit will be the premium tool to do both: Manage and coach. It provides at-a-glance and deep insights into how each salesperson is performing, where their strong and weak points are, and where they need help. It gives managers and sales coaches the tools to help their people discover intrinsic motivation  (coaching) and ensure their people are doing what needs to be done (managing). Let us know if you want to be among the first to get a preview before it is officially launched.