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6: The Science of Sales Coaching

Assessment seeks to evaluate existing skills. Training seeks to improve skills at a specific point in time. Coaching seeks to improve the skills on an ongoing basis. The three work in tandem.

In sales, and likely in any pursuit, the group measurements are mere aggregates - the group does not improve as a whole - the aggregate "score" only increases when each individual improves. Coaching has a distinct advantage in addressing performance on an individual level.

The goal of coaching is not motivational: teaching behavior and encouraging behavior also work in tandem - but a coach who merely insists that his student perform better, without developing the skills to improve performance, accomplishes nothing except to undermine morale.

As to the potential of science to improve coaching, the author identifies two general areas: (1) Assessment tools provide objective insight into the personality of the trainee, enabling the manager to choose the most effective method of communicating with members of his staff (rather than going with his own default preferences). (2) Skills assessment enables the manager to understand exactly what skill areas need improvement and coach to improve skills that will have a measurable impact on performance.

Coaching Problems

Helping employees to improve performance is one of the most difficult and one of the most important tasks of a manager. In theory, it seems as simple as encouraging people to follow behaviors that will lead to success - but in practice it is a haphazard and ineffective practice, primarily because it lacks any sort of objective basis.

For many managers, the only tool they have by which to coach is the performance on an employee. The recognize a performance deficiency and insist that the employee must do something (no indication of what) to improve - or else.

Those managers who recognize the need to provide more specific guidance are still poorly equipped - they do not know the reason for any performance deficiency, and must guess what it might be, and they often guess wrong. Very often, the focus is on what was done in the past, with a focus on what was done wrong, rather than focusing on what might be done better in future.

Of course, this is assuming the manager coaches his people at all. Many people shrink from the task, choosing to bury themselves in other duties that are easier (monitoring operations, making reports to management, stepping in to resolve problems, and the like) and neglecting the development of their people. Coaching is a distraction from these duties, to be done when and if time permits. Others avoid it because they simply do not like interacting with people, especially when they perceive the interaction to be difficult and negative.

Another problem is that a management position is often a reward for positive results achieved as a seals rep - and the skills and qualities that make a person an excellent salesmen are different to those that would make him a good manager. Especially when an employee is high-performing, he may feel the job at which he excels is intuitive - he knows how to do it well, and can't see why others can't figure it out.

Yet another issue is egocentricity: the manager has an idea of how all people learn based on the way that he learns - that he should seek to educate and encourage others using the very same tactics that are successful (or that he thinks would be successful) if another person used them on himself.

All of these behaviors and attitudes are common among front-line mangers, and they all undermine their ability to effectively coach and develop their staff.

In order for coaching to be effective, a manager must understand the present skills of the employee and the degree to which they match or fail to match the skills necessary for success. With this knowledge, the task of coaching is a matter of bridging the gap - which is much clearer, much easier to do, and much less unpleasant for manager and employee alike.

Sales Coaching and Behavioral Assessment

Behavior assessment considers the actions of an employee, which are in turn predicated upon his motivations, which in turn must speak to motivational needs. It is not knowing what to do (these are skills, to be discussed later), but the level of interest in doing it.

Naturally, the word "coaching" leads to sports metaphors and an extended narrative about a speed skater. It is self-evident that in order to win competitions, a speed skater must skate faster. Telling him this contributes nothing, and nagging him to go faster merely saps his morale.

A lot of scientific study gas been done in recent years to analyze athletic performance: motion studies, which explore biology and physics through sophisticated mathematical models and computer simulations, can determine what precise actions boost athletic performance.

Even so, successful coaches generally agree that competition at the highest levels is "90 percent mental" - every athlete has honed his performance skills to the highest possible level. That is, highly trained athletes know what to do and are capable of doing it - but they often choose not to do so: their emotional state may lead them to be too passive or too aggressive, a distraction that leads them to do the wrong things at the wrong times. At the highest level of competition, where victory is won by a fraction of a second, small mistakes can prevent a strong competitor from winning.

The narrative concludes with the concession that the skater in question never did make a successful Olympic bid, but resulted in significant performance improvements, and contributed to his post-sports career.

The authors intent on providing this example is that the same is true in many situations: skills training is not sufficient, and is often undone in the heat of competition. People forget what they ought to do, or choose to deviate from plan, reacting to their environment.

With that in mind, the focus on skills training should not be exclusive: it is not guaranteed that a person who knows what they ought to do will actually put it into practice. Under pressure to make quota, salesmen will quickly abandon the training they have received and fall into more familiar and comfortable patterns of behavior, in spite of the fact that they are less likely to help them achieve success.

Sales Coaching and Skills Assessment

It's been established that attitudes and behaviors can facilitate or prevent skills from being applied in action and that skills training without behavioral coaching has limited effectiveness. At the same time, attitude alone will not result in success - the skills must be taught in order to be applied.

Unfortunately, skills are often neglected - hiring managers seem to believe that a qualified candidate comes loaded with skills and personnel managers believe that skills develop on their own through work experience. Neither seems to consider that skills are learned and in order to be learned, they must be taught.

This is especially pronounced in the sales profession - a good salesman "knows how to sell" they day he is hired, and figures out how to be better through experience. This can happen, but experience is trial and error, and the errors can be costly in terms of lost sales and damaged relationships.

(EN: An analogy comes to mind: what if the medical profession worked in the same way? In theory, it is possible for a person to learn to perform surgery by trial-and-error - though they will do considerable damage until they figure it out on their own. Instead, they undergo extensive skills training to ensure that they will get it right, because getting it right is important.)

Most managers assume that their top performers will ace a skills assessment, but hard data proves otherwise: it is entirely possible for a salesman to close a lot of deals in spite of their utter lack of skills - whether it is by pure luck, an uneven playing field (good salesmen are given good leads), or inappropriate and unethical conduct.

Moreover, most managers do not even know what skills are needed to be successful, nor do most have any preview into the way that salesmen are actually behaving in the field.

The author describes "the muscle scenario in which a salesman with poor skills achieves high results - which is actually typical of veteran salesmen who have poor skills in many areas, but leverage the few areas in which they are skilled to compensate for their weaknesses. For example, a strong "closer" may achieve high results by visiting a lot of prospects - he fails with most, but sheer volume means the small percentage with which he succeeds adds up to impressive numbers. The problem is compounded by sales managers who fear that training them would "mess with success." However, this seldom plays out: a top producer who strengthens other skills will most often increase his sales and spend his time more effectively on finessing a smaller number of leads rather than muscling a larger number.

Another scenario involves an individual who scores very high on assessment tests but still has lackluster sales results. Such an individual suffers from a "knowing-doing gap" in which they know what to do but does not execute on that knowledge. This may come from a lack of confidence, inexperience, or bad habits - or they may be following coaching that leads them in the wrong direction. "Sadly, there are many bright people in this world who understand sales but do not have the fortitude to put the skills into action."

Another example is one in which an individuals scores and performance are both low. This clearly points to a situation in which training and coaching can teach them the skills and behaviors to get better sales results. Provided that their morale has not been devastated, this scenario is the easies to solve, as it's a simple matter of providing them the knowledge and skills.

The last scenario is an individual who scores well and performs well - which is inherently good, but leaves a manager at a loss for what to do if they need to improve sales results. However, there remains a problem: people in this category have reached a plateau and do not know how to improve - or they may be resistant to trying new things because it may harm their already-stellar performance. Applying themselves in earnest will achieve only marginal results. As a result, they get bored, and they look for other opportunities.

Cross-Cultural Aspects of Sales Coaching

The author indicates that selling and sales coaching differ among industries and locations. He offers a number of insights about India, which focuses more on long-term customer relationships than most US firms, and which focuses heavily on coaching and developing their sales reps. It's vaguely suggested that the kind of tools their firm offers give companies a "significant advantage."

Case Studies

First Nonprofit Insurance Company, based in Chicago, began to notice excessive turnover in their sales department, as well as low employee morale and decreasing customer service ratings. Since adopting the author's system, morale has improved. Hard measurements include a reduction in absenteeism (average sick days decreased from 6.5 to 3.8) and employee turnover fell from 30% to 6%.

Another case study involves LexisNexis, a research firm best known for its legal research services. In this case, the firm grew by acquiring other research firms, and used the authors' product to help identify and address cultural differences between the organizations - chiefly, by identifying the differences between the culture of acquired companies and their own and encourage the acquired employees to adopt their culture.