The truth is most sales managers are poor coaches, often it’s just because they never received appropriate training in this key area.
Frequently, after being promoted to sales management for their good sales performance they found their own personal development was not on the company’s agenda.
What’s the impact of this on their sales teams?
A very common outcome is that their ‘coaching’ consists of telling you what you are doing wrong and what you should be doing. Unfortunately, this approach can be very frustrating for everyone involved.
But a significant shift happens when a manager adopts a coaching mentality. They begin to understand the true value of using good questions effectively.
By asking the salesperson questions you can help them to reflect on what is working well and help them determine what they need to do to change their approach.
This gives people ownership of their own development and allows you to help them to raise performance collaboratively.
This takes practice and you may find yourself slipping back into ‘Tell Mode’ so be prepared to refocus and start back using some quality questions again. Keep doing this until it becomes your habitual way of working.
Ultimately, by focusing on Asking VS Telling you enable the salesperson to set their own development and performance goals. And those are the ones they will be motivated to achieve.
