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HIGH-PERFORMING
SALES COACHES
by Mike Schultz & John Doerr
This white paper covers the five roles of a sales coach in depth, including how rhythm and conversation play an integral part in a
coachs ability to maximize performance improvement.
Key Takeaways
+ General business coaching is not sufficient for sales
situations, where opportunities are often immediate and
coaches lack sales experience.
+ To be successful, coaching must have a specific and regular
rhythm of conversation and a connection between coach
and seller.
+ Coaches help salespeople build their goals, take ownership,
and achieve results through motivation.
The 5 Roles of
High-Performing
Sales Coaches
by Mike Schultz & John Doerr
Introduction
Most leaders agree that the opportunity to
improve sales performance through coaching is
tremendous, including:
+ Maximizing sales wins for their most
important opportunities
+ Filling the pipeline with new,
strong opportunities
+ Maximizing sales to key accounts
+ Focusing sellers time on the most
important activities
+ Developing skills, knowledge, and attributes
to get to the next level of performance
+ Keeping sales activity and motivation at
the highest levels sustainable
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1. Define
Some sales leaders believe that a quota and a
compensation plan are enough to ignite the
hustle, passion, and intensity of a seller. It
makes sense they think this way given that
articles such as Motivating Sales People: What
Really Works focus 100% on compensation.5
4. Note that these roles are not mutually exclusive.
When a coach helps the coachee define his goals, its
motivating. It also drives execution because the coachee can
build action plans designed specifically to achieve the goals.
5. Michael Ahearne and Thomas Steenburgh,
Motivating Sales People: What Really Works, Harvard
Business Review, July-August 2012, http://hbr.org/2012/07/
motivating-salespeople-what-really-works/ar/1.
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The right coaching process, with the right goalplanning approach, and the right coach.
Takeaway: Great sales coaches help sellers
define their goals and purpose. Unleash
purpose, and your likelihood of unleashing sales
potential skyrockets.
2. Execute
Were all creatures of habit. Often, more so than
we realize. From when we wake up to when
we go to sleep, with everything that comes in
between, much of what we do is without what
psychologists call effortful processing. We
live by routines so ingrained they are almost
involuntary. In fact, a Duke University study
found that More than 40 percent of the actions
people performed each day werent actual
decisions, but habits.8
In sales, habits are prevalent, powerful
determinants of success.
Effective sales coaches are masters of habit.
They understand:
+ How habits work
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3. Advise
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In a word: no.
4. Develop
To our last point, sales coaches should help
sellers win specific opportunities. The industry
terms here are commonly deal, opportunity,
or account coaching. Sometimes this type of
coaching is the only type of coaching a sales
coach does. The coach only gives a man a fish.
Meanwhile, he misses opportunities to teach the
seller how to bring in his own haul.
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5. Motivate
A CEO was deciding between two candidates
for an important position. The first candidate
was described by his references as polished,
focused, and highly competent. However, no
one had anything particular to say about his
drive, energy, and need to achieve.
The second candidate was also described as
competent, but a little rough around the edges
and would need some coaching and direction.
However, all three references described her as
energetic, passionate, and focused, willing to do
whatever it takes to succeed.
The CEO chose the latter. When asked why,
he said, If you give me someone with the fire
in the belly who needs guidance and polish, I
can help. The more success you can help the
person achieve, the more the fire tends to grow.
However, give me someone without the fire in
the belly, and I cant light it.
Nowhere is this advice truer than in sales.
Great sales coaches find the fire and feed it.
They make it their business to understand
how to motivate people and apply motivation
principles with their teams.
As noted previously, compensation is just one
motivating factor for sales. Way back in 1980, the
Harvard Business Review published the results
of a sales motivation study in the article What
Counts Most in Motivating Your Sales Force?13
The authors studied a variety of factors,
including the design of the sales job (especially
how clear the tasks of the job were to the
salesperson), the strength of the salespersons
need to achieve, the design of the sales
compensation, and the quality of management.
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Motivating Factor
Description
Percent
variation
explained
by the factor
(average)
Task
33.6%
Personality
21.2%
Compensation
11.6%
Quality of management
Both Phases:
+ 6-Minute Ritual every day
+ Push yourself
+ Focus on action over outcomes
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Critical
Components of
Sales Coaching
Conclusion
Create Rhythm
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Find out more about how RAIN Group can help you unleash the sales potential of your team by visiting
RAINGroup.com or calling (508) 405-0438.
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