They will become leaders when there is open dialogue at your company about what it means to be a professional seller.
If this doesn’t sound like your sales organization, don’t despair. The good news is that if you recognize the issue and know what to do about it, you can get training for your sales managers to teach, coach, and lead others to success.
According to the Harvard Business Review, over the last five years, companies have invested more time in improving managers’ coaching skills than the previous 50 years total. Sales managers need to have the knowledge and skills in place to ensure that their coaching techniques are effective and ongoing.
Sales Manager Coaching
Coaching is one of the most important contributions to a successful sales organization.
Time spent improving skills, implementing best practices, and focusing on the overall development of a sales team pays off tremendously in the long run.
However, coaching practices are only as successful as the coaches themselves. The average tenure for a front-line sales manager is 18 to 24 months. They are too often not trained for their important roles.
While they were promoted to management because they were excellent at sales, they are often unproven and underdeveloped as sales team managers.
They are not necessarily natural-born leaders. They become leaders. Your sales managers will become leaders when they are trained to rise to the occasion.
What Are The Benefits Of Investing In Coaching Your Sales Managers?
Increase Accountability
With sales management skills and sales coaching disciplines, your managers will ensure their sales team is aligned on expectations and establish a foundation that holds people accountable.
Drive Behavior Change
In today’s sales world, salespeople need to understand and support their customer’s needs. Your managers will learn to enable their team to adopt a customer-first mentality.
Manage for Results
It can be easy for sales managers to take on too many tasks. They have been a salesperson before and they know what to do. Instead, your sales managers will learn to lead and manage effectively.
Build Competence
Coaching to development opportunities helps improve skill, while celebrating wins helps build confidence. Your sales managers will learn how to support the growth of their salespeople.
Retention of Sales Training Skills
Without on-the-job reinforcement via coaching, sellers lose 87% of training just one month later
Coaching Needs To Identify And Develop Key Behaviors
The four keys to effective coaching programs include:
- Ongoing: Provides continuous coaching support for sellers learning new skills.
- Job-Embedded: Observes sellers delivering sales interactions in their current role.
- Specific: Coaching should be tailored to the unique needs of the individual.
- Root-Cause Oriented: Identifies and corrects or reinforces underlying causes of behavior
