Mindy Murphy, on January 30, 2023
Do you ever wonder if you could be getting more out of your sales team? What if you could better understand their strengths and weaknesses and coach them to reach their full potential?
Understanding the talents of each person on your team and coaching to these talents allows you to grow the individual and the organization.
But how can you tell how a person is wired and what their natural talents are?
Trey Morris, on November 29, 2022
Parenting small children is not easy. I recall when my daughters were toddlers and how exhausted my wife and I were at the end of the day. We fantasized about when they would be older and more independent. We imagined parenting would be a lot easier.
Well, as I prepare for my oldest daughter's wedding in two weeks, I can tell you parenting older children is different, but it's not necessarily easy. The challenges change, the decisions become more important, and our role as parents evolves.
Stephanie Stoll, on November 23, 2022
There is a lot of talk about the multi-generational workforce, and as history would have it, each generation will lament about “young people these days.”
They don’t want to work!
They lack discipline!
The attitudes!
The workplace demands!
Each generation rolls in with its own unique defining qualities, yearning to be different than those before them. Couple that with younger generations classified as digital natives who entered the workforce during a global pandemic, and you may be shaking your head on how best to coach them.
Mindy Murphy, on July 25, 2022
Hiring and coaching salespeople would be a lot easier if people had their own manuals or care instructions that listed their top strengths and included advice for helping them reach their full potential.
Wouldn’t that help you select and retain more top performers?
Trey Morris, on November 23, 2021
You're not an Avenger.
I know that is disappointing. Trust me, I'm disappointed, too. Who doesn't want to be a superhero? We all want to be the man or woman who swoops in to save the day, but that only gets to happen in a Marvel or DC movie.
In the real world, we don't have these types of superheroes.
But as much as I would like this blog to be about my favorite Marvel characters, that would not be the best use of your time or mine.
The Center for Sales Strategy, on May 3, 2021
To achieve your sales targets, it's imperative to effectively train the sales reps so they become more productive. Sales coaching can highly improve their skills as they become better salespeople. They can help generate more revenue for the company and help achieve business objectives.
While sales experience is essential, it's equally important to train the sales managers to maximize sales productivity. Effective sales coaching coupled with good training and management can help skyrocket sales and build a stronger sales team.
Kurt Sima, on January 12, 2021
"I see the value in spending time with my sellers in the field coaching them, but I just don't have the time."
We’ve heard this a lot from sales managers over the years, pre-COVID and during COVID. Finding time to watch sellers in the field is a challenge to time-starved managers. The average time to coach a seller on a typical 30-minute, face-to-face appointment is actually around two hours when you factor in things like travel time to and from an appointment.
One of the positive outcomes of COVID is the ability for managers to sit in on appointments with sellers when they conduct virtual meetings with customers. These virtual coaching opportunities—also known as Zoomalongs—provide an extremely efficient method of coaching at a fraction of the time of a face-to-face coaching call (30 to 45 minutes versus two hours).
Here are some thoughts and tips on how to get the best ROI on virtual coaching opportunities.
Trey Morris, on September 30, 2020
What is mankind’s biggest phobia? Hint: It isn’t spiders, heights, or even dying. It’s glossophobia, the fear of public speaking.
Also, on the list of soft skills that people fear most are acting and the public test of career competence. In sales, there’s one awkward activity that happens to combine all three — role playing.
As a sales manager, we often use sales role play exercises as a form of punishment. When salespeople fail to make the progress we expect, we summon a team meeting where we role play. Now, as everyone is working from home, the idea of practicing our craft with role plays seems even more difficult.
How can you improve something that was dreaded even before the pandemic?
Mindy Murphy, on September 22, 2020
Sales coaching isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. Each salesperson on your team offers a special blend of talent. As a leader, your responsibility is to coach based on a clear understanding of all their strengths and weaknesses.
You know that coaching your team as individuals is essential to their growth and success. But for a remote sales team, coaching takes on a higher level of importance.
While the environment has changed, your rep’s talents have remained the same. Since moving to remote work, we’ve noticed a few talent combinations that are hindering salespeople from performing their best. Have you?
Matt Sunshine, on September 3, 2020
Sales managers often ask us how to make Individual Focus Meetings (IFM) with their salespeople more productive. What's interesting about this, is that salespeople also ask us (on a weekly, if not bi-weekly basis) why they even need an Individual Focus Meeting with their sales manager.
As you can already tell, there seems to be an issue with this weekly meeting — neither side is getting what they want out of it. And we understand why this is happening.
