Jul 16 2008
Sales Team Development - There Are Alternatives To Training
Continuing the debate regarding sales team development, we have to be aware that there are alternatives to formalised classroom training: For example at JFC, we strongly recommend and indeed provide,formal and informal mentoring. We also coach managers to become coaches themselves.
Mentoring:
In mentoring, salespeople choose a mentor (usually a high-performer or more experienced person within the organisation who can serve as a model and/or guide) and consult that person periodically for advice on a range of issues from strategy for handling a particular sales situation to advice on long-term career development. Since the best way to learn something well is to teach it to others, mentoring programmes offer organisations a win-win proposition: in addition to enhancing the skills and performance of the salespeople, they help mentors develop their sales skills while improving their coaching and management skills as well.
Coaching:
More and more organisations are waking up to the value of building a strong coaching culture. Analogies to athletic coaching are common but especially apt. Training alone does not guarantee that a great athlete will deliver a gold medal-winning performance. This can only come from continuous daily support and guidance from an expert coach. Equally, top sales professionals need expert coaching support from their managers to stay at the top of their game. Whether coaching is delivered face-to-face, on the telephone, or via e-mail, those organisations that have a strong coaching culture attract and retain the best salespeople.
The challenge for Sales Directors is to provide the support that sales managers – all of whom are hard-pressed for time – need in order to provide the kind of support their salespeople must have. Successful Sales Directors have found a range of supporting tools, resources and kits that save managers’ time and enhance the impact of their coaching time.
Whatever coaching framework is chosen by an organisation, it must be easy to use, flexible so that the coaching sessions are tailored to the needs of their team, participative, so that all of the salespeople are engaged and, above all, fun. The fun factor encourages salespeople to become “hooked” on their own continued development.
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Today’s News: The countdown to Sales SheBang has begun - check out the latest news here
A couple of great blog posts for you: Paul McCord reviews “The Profit Maximization Paradox” by Glen S Petersen - interesting!
And Jerry Bowles - co- CEO over at The Customer Collective, posted this
Tomorrow: My guest is best-selling author and referral selling expert Joanne Black - be sure to join me.
Jonathan,
Excellent points. One of the biggest challenges companies have is getting quality coaching for their sales team members. They rely on sales management who often don’t have the time–or the skills–to be effective coaches. Finding a professional sales coach for team members, or at a minimum acquiring a coach that can teach coaching (and time management) to sales managers, should be a priority for any company seeking to grow and thrive. Unfortunately, too many managers see coaching as an expense instead of an investment that will help grow the business and pay for itself many times over.