Tougher times call for stronger personal/professional support systems.
Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach and mentor many talented sales professionals, sales leaders, and other executives around the general subject of effective selling within their organizations.
If you have ever considered having a sales coach or mentor here are some questions you should be asking:
1. Do I need a sales coach?
The answer is probably yes. If you want to move to the next level the answer is not working harder. That only produces incremental change and leads to burnout. If you are stuck, the answer is to engineer and effectively execute a dramatic breakthrough in what you do and how you do it. That cannot be done alone.
An effective sales coach can provide an honest assessment, insight, the objective perspective and the selling skills tools to do just that.
2. What qualities should a sales coach have?
For a sales coach to be effective they need to be a good communicator, have a good understanding of psychology, motivation and of course, sales. They must also be discreet, caring, and enthusiastic about helping people overcome challenges.
3. Where do you find a sales coach?
Due to political risks, I always recommend that you recruit a sales coach outside your company. It certainly shouldn’t be your current boss.
4. If you want to be coached, what are your responsibilities?
For a coaching/protégé relationship to work, you must be willing to work hard at improvement. That means defining and accepting your shortcomings and being open to changing or forming new habits through adopting new strategies and tactics. You must be willing to be responsible for executing what you and your sales coach decide is the best course of action. You have to be honest, objective, appreciative, motivated and have the courage to change.
5. What You Can Expect To Happen?
You and your sales coach will talk about your goal—what you want to achieve and by when. Your coach will assess your situation; the issues or problems that may be limiting your professional growth and advancement; what has worked for you in the past and what has not. Next Then you and your mentor can discuss various options or selling skills strategies and related tasks/tactics to achieve those goals and you will work together to devise a plan, and create a feedback system to monitor progress.
This is a lot of work and should not be taken lightly. If you are up to the task it can literally change your life.
If you are interested in having a complimentary 45 minute conversation with me about sales coaching and selling skills, email me at sclark@newschoolselling.com and my assistant Cindi will get in touch with you to set up a time.
Better hurry though – I can only take on two more new private sales coaching clients this quarter.