You have a lot to do as a sales manager. You’re bouncing from meeting to meeting with your cell phone ringing and your email inbox quickly filling up, and sometimes it feels like coaching is the last thing on your list. But if it gets neglected, you will see the results soon enough.
One way in which this can be manifested is when managers attempt to coach over email. When time is tight, it is very tempting to coach your people over email rather than making the time to meet in person. It’s fast, it can happen at 10 o’clock in the evening or 6 o’clock in the morning, and you have instant documentation of what was covered.
But do you want your people to sell over email? If you answered no to this question (and I sure hope you did), why would you coach over email? When a manager coaches over email all subtlety and tonality is lost, it can be easy for a rep to misinterpret what advice was provided, and worst of all, you are most likely not working on the real root cause of the problem. You must coach in person!
Another place where coaching can be neglected is the top of your sales team. If your company is similar to the average, 20% of your reps are “A” players. This group has the discipline to execute necessary behaviors, follows a consistent process, and manages pipelines well. This actually hurts their professional development because the manager is spending a majority of his or her time with the “B” and “C” players on the team. This happens because since they have the most questions and run into the most problems on sales calls, they are the ones not executing the company strategies.
When the manager does have quality time with the “A” player the conversation may be as simple as “keep it up,” and now that person is not being challenged. “A” players love to be challenged and stretched. If "A" players are ignored, they may quickly feel unappreciated and feel like they are responsible for carrying the team. Those are the two main reasons why strong salespeople leave. Prevent such catastrophes by spending real, quality time with everyone on your team – even the people who seem like they might not need it.
It may seem like you have too much to do to take time to coach effectively. It may seem like your other responsibilities should take priority over coaching. But in reality, coaching your salespeople is one of the more important jobs on the plate of any sales manager – and failing to take the time and make the effort to do it properly will surely lead to a decline in sales.
