Sales coaching can be a tough task, particularly if the coach was a seasoned and skilled salesperson in the past. It can be easy to stumble into errors that make the conversation less about the salesperson or the problem at hand, and more about the coach and their past experiences.
One such error is telling, rather than coaching. Some managers believe they are coaching their people through the process of solving a problem, when in reality they are just telling them what to do. The challenge here is two-fold. First, your message is less likely to stick since it was something they were told versus something they figured out on their own. If you just hand the answer to your sales rep, it’s not really learning, it’s executing a command. The rep doesn’t know why your answer was the right one, how you arrived there, or how to do it on his or her own the next time the situation arises.
The bigger and more damaging challenge, though, is that you are most likely not working on the real root problem the rep is facing. You’re treating the symptoms, rather than the disease. Either way, don’t be surprised if you are asked how to handle the same scenario multiple times. They are asking because the root of the problem wasn’t fixed and it will still occur, or because they were never actually coached on how to fix it.
It can get even worse. Another common coaching error is building advice only on the coach’s own experience as a seller, and basically coaching by saying “this is how I did it.” Managers who were successful at selling in the trenches are more likely to fall into the trap of giving advice based only on how they did things as sales reps.
The problem here is you may have non-transferrable skills and the rep cannot do or say what you were able to do or say. Also, your reps may come across as inauthentic because they are trying to be someone they are not. When this happens, it is easy for a prospective client to get turned off and quickly tune them out. The key to avoid this common trap is to continually focus on the general process you followed while selling, not the specific words, phrases, or how you sold your product or service.
Coaching needs to be about the salesperson and the problem at hand, not the coach. If a coach makes sure to keep the focus there, and on coming up with a method of helping them find their own way through the problem that caters to the salesperson, a successful and repeatable solution is much more likely.
