Every professional athlete that makes millions of dollars every year has at least one coach that works with them every day.

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Each pro athlete wants to be the best they can be and they rely on their coaches for guidance on a daily basis. These athletes love having a coach because they want advice on how they can improve and they are open minded to making positive changes. Pro athletes know that spending money on a coach is a great investment for them. For the very same reasons professional salespeople need a sales coach. Having a coach is a very positive thing and most people that are very successful in their profession do have a coach.

Most salespeople learn about their product or service but do not learn how to go about the daily business of being a great salesperson. I coach salespeople on the art of being a great salesperson. Pro athletes and salespeople can’t see what they are doing wrong. A coach can help the pro athlete or the salesperson spot the things that need to be worked on and assist the person in improving.

“My passion is making your sales system fun and profitable.” This is the quote I use often. I have great passion in my sales coaching work because I really enjoy being helpful to salespeople. I want my coaching clients to have passion and enthusiasm for the products or services they sell and to have systems to be extremely organized and systems to always know when to follow up with each client. I want my clients a) to embrace their own systems, as they will be using these systems on a daily basis, and b) to have fun with their sales systems. This will then lead to profit for each of my clients, passion-fun-profit!

I tell my coaching clients about the systems that have made me successful over my more than 35-year career. I explain my systems of organization and my systems to always know what and when to follow up on with each client. I then work with each client to come up with a system that works for them. In no way do I try to make any of my clients follow the exact same system I follow. We each have our own brains and each person must find a system that works well with how their brain works.

It is great to have a coach that is an “outsider.” I have found it is much easier for salespeople to have honest talks about how they can improve when they work with a sales coach that is an “outsider,” rather than someone in their own organization. Salespeople usually don’t open up and share as much information with someone in their own organization as they do with a sales coach not in their organization. My sole purpose in working with my clients is to help them with all aspects of their selling career. As an outsider, I do not judge or criticize anyone.

Sales can be a lonely profession even if you are one of several salespeople at a company. This is because each salesperson is basically on their own to interact with their customers and to run their business. Often salespeople are by themselves all day working with their clients and have no interaction with others at their company. Because of this, many salespeople don’t really have anyone to talk to about their concerns. An effective sales coach is a person that a salesperson can have honest talks with. An effective sales coach has faced almost all of the same issues the salesperson that they are coaching is facing. There is confidentiality when working with a sales coach and this is comforting to salespeople. They can discuss anything with their sales coach and know that all the information is between the salesperson and the coach. If a salesperson works at a rep organization that has several salespeople, most of the salespeople will not discuss the critical issues they face with their peers. They will discuss these critical issues with an external sales coach.

All salespeople get “stuck” at some points in their career and they need assistance to get “unstuck.”

Remember that all professional athletes have coaches that they work with on a very regular basis.

Salespeople also need a coach they can work with on a regular basis. Each salesperson, after a while, starts to get in very specific patterns of behavior and specific patterns of running their business. Often salespeople can’t figure out what to change to improve and have a more meaningful sales career. I listen very carefully to what each salesperson’s concerns are and then I work with the salesperson starting with the things they express concern with.

An effective sales coach works with clients on these topics and many more:

• Demonstrations — Great salespeople always use demonstrations and get the client involved.
• Organization — Sales systems should be proposed and suggestions made that work best for the salesperson. The best salespeople are highly organized and highly efficient in their daily schedules.
• Follow-Up — Follow-up is probably the most important thing that great salespeople do. There is always something to follow up on for every client.
• Psychology of Selling — Psychology is a huge part of being a great salesperson.
• Cold Calling — This is a critical part of sales.
• Retail sales — It’s critical to get the client to talk. I will explain how a retail salesperson can make a lot of money by “owning their business.”
• Passion — It is critical for salespeople to really get excited about what they sell. Passion is contagious and your clients will like that you are enthusiastic about what you sell.

It is very comforting for salespeople to have a sales coach that they can bounce ideas off of and have honest talks about how they can improve as a professional salesperson. I encourage all salespeople to have a sales coach.

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