The CEO Forum Group Magazine Business 2023 (1) - Flipbook - Page 21
Rarely were factors like inability to utilize technology or poor
adoption of CRM systems mentioned.
The third question we asked in these interviews was:
important, however, is the upcoming “games” or meetings
that have the highest opportunity to drive big sales victories.
Frontline sales managers don’t typically focus much attention
on that. The question is, why?
What is the systemic problem or issue in your
organization that is causing or allowing these chronic
mistakes to happen month after month?
In most cases, it’s because no one is persistently and skillfully
coaching the coaches on how to coach and teach the sales
team to be highly effective in all of their selling interactions.
Over 80% of the executives responded that ineffective front
line sales coaching was the primary reason. Some of the most
common observations from these executives were:
Frontline sales managers need to learn how to run practices
that positively impact how salespeople communicate, ask
questions and tailor their differentiating factors to the specific
needs and concerns of the decision makers they meet
with. These skills are as difficult to develop as making free
throws under pressure or executing a gymnastics routine in
competition.
• We have a lot of inexperienced front-line sales managers
that just don’t know how to train and coach their people.
• Our sales managers are so bogged down with
administrative tasks, they don’t have time to work with the
sales team.
• We don’t have a consistent sales methodology in place, so
most of the sales managers try to teach and coach their
people to sell the way they did and sometimes it works, but
more often than not, it doesn’t.
In many cases, the executives explained that they had training
in place to teach front line sales managers the basics of
coaching, but it wasn’t having much lasting impact. This is
very consistent with what we’ve seen over the last 30 years,
working with hundreds of large sales organizations.
What we’ve found is most companies have made real
progress, largely because of technology, at measuring and
reporting sales metrics, holding teams accountable and
increasing real-time visibility into the numbers. The problem
is, when it comes to more advanced influence and disruptive
selling skills, it takes more than accountability or metricsbased coaching to move the needle.
In most cases, CEOs will get much better results with their
sales teams if they think of this part of the company more like
an elite sports team. What sports coaches do quite differently
from sales executives is they invest most of the organization’s
time into preparing for and rehearsing for upcoming games.
They certainly spend some time analyzing stats and metrics,
but it’s quickly turned into strategy, game plans and practice
to win the next game.
Four practical steps to solve the “no one’s coaching the
coaches” problem:
• Assign real accountability to a senior level executive to
coach the coaches and put a system in place that raises the
game of frontline sales managers.
• Update the CRM system to spotlight more visibility into
the important upcoming meetings (games) so it’s easy for
leaders to practice and rehearse for those key meetings.
• Make sure a teachable sales process or methodology is
in place with sales messaging that can be learned and
practiced in realistic simulations.
• Measure and report practice sessions with as much rigor as
you measure sales metrics. Hold managers accountable for
running fantastic practice events.
Michael St Lawrence is the Founder of SalesGym,
and founded OutSell Consulting in 1996. His client
list includes many of the top global financial
services and tech firms. He wrote the 17-week
Times bestseller “If You’re Not Out Selling, You’re
Being Outsold” and more recently, “How to Influence,” focused
on the essential influence skills that top salespeople and leaders
are using to generate maximum results. Michael has worked
with leading companies including Google, American Funds,
Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Ingram Micro and many others
to help them develop the ideal, high performance sales strategy
to increase sales, reduce turnover and attract top talent. If you’d
like to contact Michael to learn more from this research you can
reach him at msl@salesgym.com.
Most sales management or coaching is actually looking in the
rear view mirror and analyzing the past or what has already
happened and that’s certainly important. What’s more
www.theceoforumgroup.com The CEO Forum 19