Sales Coaching Tip – It’s Often the Small Things

It’s often the small things that make a difference to clients.

I know I’m extremely loyal to the gal, Susie, who sells me clothes. And the main reason is because every time I go into her shop, at least once, I hear the words, “Take it off, honey! It’s not you.”

Her brutal honesty keeps me coming back. In a city as big as Toronto there are lots of places I can shop for clothes but because of Susie’s honesty she has me coming back. (By the way, “That’s a wow!” is also in her vocabulary. I can trust her opinion.)

How does this relate to your coaching of your team?

“What small things make a difference to clients” is an ideal topic for a team meeting or one-on-one coaching.

Consider gathering the ideas from your team members about what little things they do that develop the relationship with clients. Get someone on your team to record them and use them as a resource.

Often team members don’t look for the little things that can make a difference. Sometimes they even don’t think they have the flexibility in their role to even be able to offer the “little things.” By getting your team discussing what has worked for them, you’ll stimulate your other team members to come up with other “small” ways to better develop relationships with clients.

What small things have you observed your team members doing that make a difference to clients?

What can you do to help your team become more aware of the opportunities to do “small things” to further make a difference for clients?

How are you going to integrate discussing and recording the “small things” your team can do to make a bigger difference to clients?

Sales Coaching Practise

My family’s not normal. How about yours?

Sometimes on Saturday mornings, we take family outings to watch sales people sell new products. I know … strange. You see we have a reason for our strangeness. My husband and I are both in the sales education industry.

The day had arrived. The first 3D TV was released. My husband being true to his gender loves anything to do with technology. He was thrilled. Like a kid in a candy store. So this was serious stuff.

So off we went in search of his future 3D TV.

It was 10:15 am and there was already a crowd around the 3D TV. Cool.

My husband is so giddy he can hardly contain himself. He had a bunch of questions about the difference between the 3D TV and the latest Sony HD TV (he’s a Sony loyalist).

The other people standing around the TV were taking turns with the only two 3D glasses. (Note to sales manager: if you are expecting a crowd to see the 3D TV, you might want to have more glasses available.)

We waited our turn for the 3D glasses (In the mean time my teenage son takes off to look at the computers. Note to sales manager: have something by the 3D TV to keep our attention if you aren’t going to have enough glasses for us.).

There was a salesperson standing nearby. He was answering people questions about the 3D TV and monitoring who had the glasses.

My husband saddles up beside the sales fellow and asks the fellow one of his questions.

Just as an FYI, we were in a store that sells the Sony my husband wanted to compare to the 3D TV.

The fellow responds to my husband in an annoyed tone, “I don’t know. I just walked on the floor after being away for a week. I don’t know anything about the 3D TV.”

I wasn’t standing close by but I could hear the fellow’s annoyed tone and it didn’t make me want to stick around. And my son who was coming back from the computer section, stopped in his tracks and gave me one of those teenage looks that only translates into, “What’s up with this guy?”

Within moments, we were handed the 3D TV glasses by the fellow. And he proceeded to tell us, “They’re expensive but you get two with the TV when you buy it.”

Ouch. I wonder how his sales manager would feel if he heard the fellow say the product was expensive.

And the fellow also missed that because we were more than two we would have to buy some “expensive” glasses.

Ouch again.

Needless to say we didn’t buy from this fellow. Actually we decided not to buy a 3D TV. After all, the glasses were too expensive.

How would you sales coach this fellow if he was one of your team members talking about your product?

Sales Coaching is a Balancing Act

Sales coaching is a balancing act. Yet, you may want to clarify which way you lean.

What’s the balancing act, you ask? Well … when you coach, you have several people to consider. You can be client-focused, team member-focused, you-focused, your boss-focused, or company-focused.

Who’s the priority? Whose goals should take priority? Whose perceptions should take priority? Does one group come before another? Are they all equal? Or is one weighted more than another? What would the percentages of each be?

Here’s my suggestion:

When you are in a coaching session, keep the focus on the team member you are with and the effect their actions are having on clients.

It does take you, your boss and the company out the picture … most of the time. Yet experience has demonstrated that if you focus on your team members and clients, you’ll meet yours, your boss’ and your company’s needs.

By focusing on the needs of two groups (your team member and clients), you’ll meet the needs of all five. That’s a nice return on your focus investment.

How can you increase your focus on your team members when you are sales coaching?

What are you doing to ensure you are focusing on clients in your sales coaching sessions?

What can you ask your team members to help them become even more client-focused?

What’s Not Part of Sales Coaching

Sometimes sales managers are trying to get their team members to do the “right” thing in coaching. They try to direct their team members to the “right” answer. Or they try to get them to engage in the “right” activities.

Here’s what is not a part of coaching … the word “right.”

“Right” implies that there is one way to respond. This would also imply everyone your team speaks with is the same.

When I observe some managers coach, I sometimes hear them using the language of “right.” Instead, I encourage them to start shifting their thinking towards “more effective.”

By getting them to focus on helping their team find a more effective way of responding to clients (rather than the “right” way), their team members are then focused on the client not what they do. By focusing on being “more effective” next time in their approach, they are more focused on the dynamics of the conversation they are engaged in (not on using the “right” words that may not fit the situation).

When you are in a coaching conversation with your team members and they are reflecting on what happened during a client conversation, you might want to use questions like:

“When you look at how the client responded, one a scale of one to ten how effective was your approach?” (Let’s say they responded with a 6)

“Where would you have liked to rank?” (Let’s say they responded with a 9)

“What made yours a six?”

“What could you have been more effective?”

“What could you have done to make it a nine?”

“How about we brainstorm some more options?”

“Of all the ideas we’ve discussed, which ones do you think would have made it a nine for this client?”

These kinds of questions will help your team members move away from being corporate “right” and move towards being more client “effective” in their approaches.

Managing the Need for Information During Sales Coaching

One of the toughest things about coaching is shifting yourself from being the resource of all information.

Quite often you will know where to go to find the answer to your team members’ problems. Yet, if you provide information for them, you rob them of the opportunity to learn … and you give yourself homework.

Instead, integrate the seeking of the necessary information into your coaching session if the information is something they will need to access in other aspects of their job.

If a team member needs information during a coaching session, ask them where they might find it. See if they know where to look or who to ask.

If it’s appropriate and time effective, ask them to go get the information so they can bring it back to add to the coaching conversation.

You want to ensure that if you got them to get a document (or information) that it is relevant to the current coaching conversation. You do this by integrating it into your conversation.

Let’s say one of your team members has just came back into the coaching room with a document about a product they should have known about over a month ago. You might ask questions like:

“Give it the once over and tell me what do you think are the most relevant parts for a client?”

“What would be the benefits of this product for a client?”

“What questions could you ask a client to determine if this product is right for them?”

“Would you like to brainstorm together some other questions you could ask?”

“Would you like to role play a conversation with a client? I’ll be the client if you like.”

By integrating the seeking and utilizing the information into your coaching conversations, you ensure your team members know how to use the information. If you just supply the information, you rob them of first where to find the information and second how to use it.

To help your team think and do better, integrate the finding and using of information into your coaching sessions.

Who on your team often isn’t up to date on their use of information?

What can you do to get them to find the appropriate information during your coaching sessions with them?

What are you going to ask them to help them know how to effectively use the information?

What Have You Done Lately for Your Sales Team

What have you done lately for your team members?

Hopefully nothing. Surprised by my answer?

Let me explain.

Yes, you should be there for your team. Yes, you should listen well so you can be helpful. Yes, you should ask great questions to help them reflect and increase their awareness so you can provide them with relevant best practices or information.

Yet … it’s not your role as the sales coach to have homework from your coaching sessions. Your team members are to leave the sales coaching session with homework … their commitment to what they are going to do differently next time they are in a similar situation.

Who on your team often ends up giving you homework from a coaching session?

What can you ask so they take ownership of getting any necessary information so you do not have homework?

How can you integrate getting necessary information into your coaching sessions?

Sales Coaching Tip – The Real Cost of Client Objections

Sometimes your sales team members don’t ask clients about their objections because they don’t see value in asking. Yet, if your team really knew the cost of not asking, their behaviour would probably be different.

To discover what your sales team members think is the effect of not asking about client objections, ask them questions to help them think more deeply about the effects of client objections.

During your sales coaching sessions, you might ask some questions like:

• “What will it cost (not only in terms of money) them in the long run?”
• “What would be the worst case scenario for them?”
• “How is the other product cheaper for them in the big picture?”
• “What would be the problem if they went with the cheaper one?”
• “What kind of time would they lose if they got the cheaper one?”
• “What would be the costs to the client if they didn’t buy?”

By asking a few targeted sales coaching questions, you can help your team think through and discover the benefits of discussing objections further with clients.

Who on your team is not helping clients with objections as well as they could?

How can you help them help clients better understand the costs involved?

How can you help them to be more proactive with clients about the costs of them not asking about objections?

Your team performs the way they do and get the results they do because of their thinking. Yet, shifting their thinking doesn’t always feel like an easy task. Sometimes it feels like an impossible task.

Here are two secrets to help you influence their thinking. One, start by reviewing with them what they did. This will help you understand their thinking in action. As you know, they do what they do because of their best thinking at the time. Two, once you have discovered what they did, help shift their thinking specific to that situation.

Let’s say your team member shared with you the challenges he had trying to sell additional products to a client. Once he has finished reviewing the situation, you might ask some of the following:

• “What other product(s) might someone in a similar situation need?”
• “What additional product(s) could they have saved money on?”
• “If they had bought another product, how much time would they have saved?”
• “What additional questions could you have asked to help the client even further?”
• “How could you have positioned those additional questions as an advantage to the client?”

Often your team members perform the way they do because they don’t see alternatives. By asking them questions to open up their thinking to other options, you increase the chances that next time they will engage in new more sales productive behaviours.

Who on your team is stuck in a performance rut?

What do you know about the thinking behind their behaviour?

What can you do to help shift their thinking next time you are coaching them?