Are your managers being trained how to coach? Is your employee turnover increasing? Are your sales inconsistent? In this video, Andrea McOwen and Tim Deuitch shares three strategies to improve the sales coaching skills of your managers.
Andrea McOwen: 00:01 Hi, I'm Andrea McOwen, President of Strategic Enhancement Group and I'm joined today by, Tim Deuitch, our Senior Performance Consultant. Tim, thanks for being here.
Tim Deuitch: 00:19 Glad to be here.
Andrea McOwen: 00:20 Our topic today is coaching the coach. Every sales operation has middle managers that coach and lead well and some that don't. The problem is that most sales leaders don't succeed unless most of their managers succeed. But a majority of managers don't feel they've been given sufficient training. Tim, did you know that the Association of Talent Development says, "59% of managers have no management training."
Tim Deuitch: 00:47 Well, I have to say, I couldn't imagine it being that high, but this next stat kind of bears that out. 40% of employees say, their manager does not help them develop their skills. So imagine, when 59% of managers aren't trained and 40% of employees aren't developed well, well, that condition can't last if you want to succeed.
Andrea McOwen: 01:09 Right.
Tim Deuitch: 01:09 If you're in this condition, your business is vulnerable. You'll lose promising talent, mostly because you over rely on top performers, they may leave, and at the minimum, success is going to be inconsistent. You've got to do something.
Andrea McOwen: 01:26 That's a good point. So, what do you do? The first thing is commit. Openly offer and provide available assistance and resources, determine where people need development help, then write it down. Establish a plan and approach and a timeline to address the areas for improvement, and also the barriers that might get in their way. Make it bigger than you. Assign mentors or create peer forums. Everyone needs a sounding board to turn to when they're faced with a challenging situation. And we also know that peer learning can be very effective. Measure progress by activities taken versus just results, creating a culture that supports and fosters coaching can take time.
Tim Deuitch: 02:12 Well, it does take time, but my experience is that sales leaders know which sales managers aren't as strong as they need to be.
Andrea McOwen: 02:20 Right.
Tim Deuitch: 02:21 But they also know they have to do something. So, the key though is to decide to address it. The commitment takes two forms and they're entwined. First, is to establish a mindset across the sales force to be consistently getting better. Andrea, you've described some of the hows of doing this and there are a lot, but the second piece is the key. Begin assessing both good news and bad. It's not a gotcha process. Discuss why you earn business and lose business when it happens. This leads to the right type of day-to-day coaching. Imagine a sports team that trains only at the beginning of a season and not between games. You don't even talk about why you won and you don't celebrate it and so forth. Never mind the things you should work on. So working with a single manager is much easier when they have already participated in regular development activities and dialogue.
Andrea McOwen: 03:21 Tim, I love the sports analogy and I think it really applies well here.
Tim Deuitch: 03:25 Thanks, Andrea. It's an important topic. If you'd like to learn more, visit our website, at StrategicEnhancement.com.
