Sales is a team sport and like in any sport, a sales team without a great coach is a team that will never win, regardless of the talent and skill of its individual members. Effective sales coaching is about helping your sales people get better at what they do.
Below you will find 10 Sales Coaching Quotes that I find insightful and inspirational. Many come from sports coaches who understand the power of great coaching.
- “Who, exactly, seeks out a coach? Winners who want even more out of life.” – Chicago Tribune
Before you even begin to think about sales coaching, it’s important to understand the type of person you are going to be coaching. Reps and managers seeking out sales coaches are the type of people who are driven and motivated by the pursuit of excellence. Tailor your sales coaching approach correspondingly and understand that you are catalysts they look to to help them attain greater success and achieve their goals.
- “The coach is someone who gets you to do what you don’t want to do so that you can be who you want to be.” – Tom Landry- Dallas Cowboys, Head coach, 1960–1988.
As a sales coach, your primary job isn’t to provide comfort to the people you’re coaching; it is to identify where they need improvement and motivate them to act accordingly. Any effective sales coach understands that improving sales skills is a challenging process and the sales people you’re coaching must be committed to self-improvement.
- “As a leader, how do you get the most out of people? Give your most to them. People notice giving and taking. Leaders give!” – Kevin Eastman, Creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and founder of Mirage Studios
To get the most out of the people you’re coaching, you need to provide value first. An exceptional sales coach is one who understands that effective coaching is focused on the sales reps you’re coaching, not on yourself. Give your sales reps your time and attention and they will become all the more inspired to improve.
- “A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” – John Wooden- Legendary UCLA Basketball coach
Some people take criticism well, others take it personally. Regardless of where your sales people lie on the spectrum, it is your duty as a sales coach to offer constructive criticism and advice in a manner t
hat compels the people you’re coaching to positive action and self-betterment.
- “If the players don’t trust the coach, it is a problem, and vice versa.” – Bill Parcells – Dallas Cowboys Head coach, 2003–2007.
Trust is the foundation of any productive relationship. Your sales people must be absolutely confident that you not only have their best interests at heart but that the advice and guidance you provide is exceptional. Doing so will earn their trust and cultivate incredible growth and success.
- “The most important thing in coaching is communication. It’s not what you say as much as what they absorb.” – Red Auerbach- Basketball Coach
Different people respond to different styles of communication. An effective sales coach tailors his or her approach specifically to the individual they are coaching, and communicates it in such a manner that resonates with the person being coached.
- “Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” Timothy Gallwey, Author of The Inner Game
Your role as a sales coach is primarily to inspire and lead your team in such a manner that they become inherently motivated to better themselves. You’re a sales coach, not a teacher, and the reps you’re coaching will achieve far better results if they learn material and concepts themselves (guided by your leadership), rather than have someone teach it to them without having intrinsic motivation to improve.
- What do you coach? You coach the gap. Build a bridge that takes your people from where they are today to where they want or need to be. – Keith Rosen, Bestselling author and Executive Coach
One of the most important things you need to do as a sales coach is to identify specific areas of weakness and coach to them. Many of your sales people are going to have aspects of sales that they are exceptional in. Focus on where they need improvement and adapt your coaching approach to fit their individual shortcomings.
- “You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.” -Bob Nelson, Ph.D., Bestselling author
People work the hardest when they are intrinsically motivated. A truly exceptional sales coach is one that leads and inspires his or her sales people so effectively that they seek improvement because they want to, rather than because they are being made to.
- “I never cease to be amazed at the power of the coaching process to draw out the skills or talent that was previously hidden within an individual, and which invariably finds a way to solve a problem previously thought unsolvable.” –John Russell, Managing Director, Harley-Davidson Europe Ltd.
An exceptional sales coach is able to extract the best from his or her sales reps. Often, this involves discovering new skills and talents in your sales reps that they were previously unaware of and developing them to be exceptional. Always look for areas of potential growth in your sales people, and be sure to cultivate the skills that they never knew they even had.
Coaching requires diverse skills. You are required to be a leader, an innovator, a negotiator, and a motivator all at the same time. Sales coaching is the means by which all of the aforementioned attributes are cultivated in people with potential. Providing effective leadership and guidance to your sales reps will not only boost their productivity, but it develops the character traits necessary for them to become truly outstanding sales people.
