This type of session is typically designed for management and administrative skills, as opposed to the field ride-along, which coaches selling skills. In an office session you have more focused time to concentrate on behaviors necessary for overall success. As with the ride-along, make sure you don’t overwhelm the person by overloading activities into your session. Let’s look at a best practices model that will improve the success of your session and the competencies of the sales professional or sales support team member.
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Developing an Agenda. Always have a specific reason for a coaching session. Whatever that reason is, you should be able to connect it with your overall plan for the team that was designed to meet organizational goals and objectives. Focus on a specific competency or behavior, and try not to coach several areas at the same time. Know what you want to achieve from a coaching session and have a well-defined idea of what level of skills advancement you would like to see take place. Go easy though. A person doesn’t change from a weak performer to a star overnight.
You will probably find that to coach the salesperson (or sales support person) on the administrative or managerial skills necessary for a well-rounded professional, a quiet spot in the office is the best location. Some competency areas that work best in this environment might include the importance of completing accurate expense reports, cross-departmental cooperation, time management, etc. Don’t have a hidden agenda. It should be well thought out and well linked with the direction of the organization.
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Sharing the Agenda. Keep the salesperson fully engaged by sharing the agenda with her from the beginning. Also, be honest with her and tell her why you are having this session, what you would like to focus on, and what measurements you will apply to the session to determine its success. Tell her what you will be bringing to the session and what she might need to bring, and give her enough advanced lead time so she can prepare.
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Finding an Ideal Location. Pick a time and place that is nonstressful for you and the salesperson. Try to avoid holding the session at the end of the workday since the salesperson may feel pressure and fail to concentrate on the session because of personal commitments right after work. Also, eliminate distractions so you can give full attention to the individual. That means a private office or room with no telephone calls and no interruptions! Clear your mind and become an active listener.
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Restating the Agenda and Schedule. Tell the salesperson once again why you are having this coaching session and how it will link to her performance and the overall goals of the organization. Make her aware of how much time you have set aside and ask whether, in her opinion, that will meet her needs.
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Discovery. This critical stage is similar to a good sales discovery approach. If you start off by talking, you’re learning nothing new. It’s far better to begin by asking an open-ended question about the person’s feelings on the subject under discussion. For example, ask her how she would describe the call from beginning to end. Make sure it is an open-ended one so she will continue answering for a period of time. If you listen well, that answer will be where you will find out the most about your salesperson.
Listen for areas of emotion, called ‘‘needs statements,’’ to focus in on, since these will be the statements that express some personal value feeling toward the subject being discussed. For example, ‘‘I love our products,’’ ‘‘the customers are a pain,’’ or ‘‘this rollercoaster ride’’ are all personal value statements that deserve greater attention. Use all your active listening skills to keep the dialogue going on these expressions.
Next ask about some of the specific things the salesperson has said by asking closed-ended questions. Here you should concentrate on the needs statements in areas related to the subject you wish to coach on. Closed-ended questions allow you to narrow down the scope of the discussion to something that is manageable. An example here might be ‘‘You said your customers were a pain. Specifically, in what way are they a pain?’’
Finally, confirm the questions and answers so far by restating what the discussion has been up to now—from beginning to end and without judgment. This will often get the person to prioritize or add additional information.
If the discovery session is handled correctly, a sales manager can direct the questions and answers to a point where it segues into the balance of the coaching session quite nicely.
One thing to keep in mind is your design of the questioning process. Too many open-ended questions in a row make the person feel that he is wasting his time because you aren’t doing anything with the answers. On the other end, too many closed-ended questions make a person feel as if he is being interrogated by the authorities! For best results, use a 1:3 ratio. For every open-ended question, you can comfortably follow with three (maybe four) closed-ended questions in a row. When the cycle is completed, you can then ask another open-ended question and three or four more closed-ended questions. This cycle can be repeated three or four times.
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Action Plan. After you and the salesperson have determined the concerns about the competency or activity, ask him what he would like to do about it. In other words, have him develop an action plan to improve the situation. He usually knows the areas that need improvement and has given prior thought to ways to enhance his skills. This may or may not include you. You can’t force your way into a solution if the salesperson is not ready to accept you. He may want training or guidebooks or he may want to partner with another successful salesperson. That’s fine. Just make sure the details of the plan are specific. By the way, if the salesperson previously chose not to include you and if the turnaround didn’t happen, the next time you can insist on being involved.
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Resources Required. As the salesperson sets out his plan of action, help him determine all the resources he will need to succeed. People, time, tools, and money are often the generic resource categories.
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Timelines. This all-important step will separate success from failure. Make sure the salesperson sets a timeline to measure progress that is visible to both her and you. This needs to be done with surgical precision. Get her to ‘‘front load’’ the timeline and set up milestones at intelligent intervals. Front load means setting the majority of necessary activities early on in the timeline so that recovery time is built in if something goes awry (and boy, will something go awry!).
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Feedback Schedule. Although the salesperson created the action plan, you will need to know what is going on. Have her create a feedback model that will keep you informed of progress against milestones and an overall timeline. The milestones are of particular interest if you want to identify progress. Also, give her a schedule of when you want to give them feedback on their progress.
Sometimes the coaching session will not be as effective as you had hoped, but most of the time it will meet and exceed your expectations. If there is a problem or if you see no improvement, you will need to go through the coaching process again. But this time, you will probably need to insert yourself into the solution and become more actively involved with the milestones. Remember, the goal is to improve performance
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