Top sales managers agree that solid sales coaching makes a huge difference between a good and a bad sales quarter. Spending time coaching your sales people is worthwhile, it’s time well-spent, and if your sales managers are spending more time poring over spreadsheets and not coaching their reps, then you need to change your priorities.

What the real top sales managers don’t agree about, however—is how to best go about doing it. It seems everyone has their own opinion of sales coaching.

This difference in opinion and coaching styles has led to a number of useless tips floating around the industry – what top sales managers like to call “sales coaching myths”. Over the next couple of articles we’ll be discussing the different sales coaching myths – so your sales managers can avoid sales coaching mistakes that have the reverse and sometimes debilitating effects.

So without further ado, let’s get on with the show…

Myth #1 – Sales coaching is telling people what to do to improve their performance.

There’s some truth in this statement. The long-term goal behind sales coaching is to improve the performance of  the sales people. The above statement says to “tell” your sales people what to do. For average sales managers, there’s nothing that could go wrong with that logic. But for top sales managers, they are aware that effective and efficient coaching is not so much about teaching sales people as it is about helping them to learn.

There is a big difference.

The average sales manager sees it from this perspective: “I’m the manager. It’s up to me to figure out what’s wrong and then I’m gonna tell you what to do to improve your performance. Your job is to get better. My job is to tell you what you’re doing wrong.”

Why is this flawed? Because this way of doing things isn’t coaching – its just dictating flaws.

Top sales managers see it differently, they rather think: “It is my job to know your strengths and weaknesses and help you find alternative ways to accomplish your – or our – goals by leveraging strengths and minimizing weaknesses.”

This real sales coaching model succeeds because both the coach (the sales manager) and coachee (the sales person) work together to help the salesperson achieve their goals.

Top sales managers don’t just tell their reps what to do, they get involved, they get engaged, they know the reps stregnths and weaknesses and work within the confines of those talents to harness the best from them.

Whatever they do…they don’t just dictate and tell them where they stink.

In our next post, we’ll discuss the myths surrounding the assessment of one’s strengths and weaknesses.

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