© BillionPhotos.com | stock.adobe.com

I have written on the topic of coaching salespeople more than 400 times or 25 percent of my articles.

Why?

Because sales managers are not coaching — still — at least not consistently or effectively. As a reminder, consistent daily coaching increases revenue by 28 percent and when it is paired with effective coaching, revenue increases by 43 percent. It’s simply incomprehensible that sales managers aren’t picking up the clue phone. But it’s not really their fault. The people they report to, senior sales leadership, either sales VPs, CROs or CSOs, aren’t providing the time, framework, incentive, motivation, guidelines, expectations or requirements for sales managers to coach. And their bosses, CEOs, aren’t doing much better on this topic.

It’s low-hanging fruit. Both parties are already in place. You need to develop a culture of coaching and that begins with requiring it, and having an expert, like me, train and coach sales managers to do it effectively and get an instant revenue bump. Easy? Well, not really. Sales managers don’t want to coach because it takes away from personal sales. Salespeople don’t want to be coached because most don’t believe they need any help.

And based upon what I read this week, I learned there is a third contributing factor.

Professionals like me, sales experts, don’t think it’s that important either.

Badger Maps posted “25 Sales Growth Strategies from Top Sales Leaders” on their blog. The top sales leaders quoted in the article are sales experts — like me — and I couldn’t believe what I read. Their advice wasn’t bad. It was good advice. The problem is that I was the only expert that said coaching is the most important thing that sales leaders must do. Most of the advice given fell into the category of sales tips. Again, not bad advice, but not the right advice.

Let’s do the math.

1/25 = 4 percent

If this group of 25 are representative of all sales experts, and there is no reason to think they aren’t, only 4 percent of the sales experts rank coaching salespeople as the most important thing that sales leadership should be doing to improve sales effectiveness and sales efficiency, build the pipeline, shorten the sales cycle, improve margins and increase revenue. Isn’t that a sad statement of the times?

The other possibility is that I’m the outlier where coaching only makes a difference for our clients, and if my team isn’t training and coaching sales managers to coach, it won’t work.

Sounds way too arrogant and promotional, and I don’t even believe it.

Are the salespeople in your company getting coached every day?

When they are coached, is it to make them more effective (coach them up) or help them with an opportunity (strategic coaching)? Is it to challenge them? Is it to debrief a call or meeting from earlier in the day (post-call debriefing)? Is it to prepare them for an upcoming call (pre-call strategy)? Is it something powerful and insightful, with lessons learned and next steps? Is the coaching in the context of your sales process and methodology?

There is no excuse for any company with salespeople to not have a culture of coaching. What’s your excuse?

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].