For your sales enablement practice, you want to improve your sales productivity (your sales force's ability to generate profitable revenue) . Achieving this goal first requires a strong foundation of the concepts of sales enablement and sales effectiveness. This post lays out that foundation which fuels the mashup of sales enablement and sales effectiveness. I’ve always liked the Socrates quote, “The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” Remarkably, we have relatively few common definitions in the sales profession. So, for purposes of alignment and...

One of the most frustrating aspects of sales coaching is dealing with sales reps who don’t want to be coached. We all have managed these types of employees. They get defensive when you provide feedback, deny they have a development need, or try to deflect the blame for performance challenges. Do any of these sentiments sound familiar? Sometimes despite your best efforts, sales people will resist coaching. When this happens, it is important to not match resistance with resistance. This will only create conflict. What’s more, it will not help you achieve your...

The results of LearnCore’s recent survey, Employee Engagement and the Link to Learning, made one thing clear: everyone wants to be better at doing their job. Study after study shows the importance of employee engagement, and giving individuals the tools for success moves the needle faster.  Great sales managers know highly engaged employees are more innovative and productive and that these factors contribute to bottom-line performance. Engaged employees are retained employees, reducing costs related to recruiting in highly competitive markets. Engaged sales reps...

Sales managers must master the critical skill of sales coaching in order to maximize the sales performance of their teams. The role of a sales coach cannot be over-estimated for any high performing team. One common obstacle that many sales managers encounter when they try to coach their teams is getting buy-in. In other words, convincing a salesperson to try a new approach or change a behavior. While it is easy to blame the salesperson in these situations, sometimes it is the sales manager’s approach to sales coaching that is the root cause of the problem. All...

Consistently using the right sales coaching style facilitates the development of a high performance sales culture. The Coaching Style Model examined in the ASTD Sales Coaching for Business Impact Certificate uses two “lenses” to view and evaluate sales rep behavior: When a sales professional’s situation is difficult to evaluate, focus first on the observed (Primary) emotional engagement in the situation. Then examine the next most observable (Secondary) behavior.  This approach is helpful because it gauges the level of willingness—whether the sales rep is open to...

With today’s competition, we need to focus on cutting cost—all while building our client base and closing the sale—right? Who has time to coach members of the sales team under these conditions? I would argue who can afford NOT to coach their sales teams? I believe the sales teams with the best coaches are more productive and have more loyal team members—not to mention higher sales.  But before I continue, let me define coaching. An article on the new ASTD Competency Models in the January 2013 issue of T+D Magazine defines coaching as: "using an interactive...

In today’s sales environment, new sales tools and techniques are constantly emerging. It’s easy for sales managers to be so focused on implementing new processes or achieving sales goals that they forget to make time to for the most important aspect of their role: developing their sales reps. Coaching new and seasoned professionals before and after sales calls is a key responsibility. Other tasks and obligations are important, but at the end of the day, all those other things don’t mean anything if a rep can’t conduct a good sales call. Preparation is key Many...

A new sales coaching strategy improves the performance and sales results of internal associates. The following story was shared by Ben Alcid, vice president of field development and advanced markets at MetLife, and Melanie Dumas, MetLife's director of field development. MetLife Annuity Product Wholesaling MetLife sought to enhance selling behaviors and increase business revenue, top-line growth, and shareholder value. Annuity Product Wholesaling, a group within insurance and financial services provider MetLife, needed an adaptable sales coaching program that...

The flaw in current coaching models is that they weren't designed to apply to salesforces. For decades, companies have trained and retrained their sales managers on how to coach their sales reps. Yet many organizations report that their sales managers do not coach well enough or often enough to maximize sales performance. So why is it that so much money and energy have been invested in something that has yielded so much frustration from a training and development perspective? Is the sales training to blame? The sales managers? Both? Someone else? The problem lies...

Sales leadership talks about it all the time. Sales consultants advocate it. Sales managers say they would like to do more of it—if they had the time. The “it” of course is sales coaching.  Yet, if you nose around out there, you will often find less coaching is occurring than might be expected given all the voices of advocacy. Why is that? While there are a number places to lay blame, here is a breakdown of four of the more devilish reasons.  Although little coaching is occurring, many companies seem immobilized to do anything about it. This begs the questions:...

Why doesn't sales training work? Top performing salespeople are often in many different companies in any given day during any given week. Each person they interact with expects a certain level of integrity and also a high level of performance. Sometimes this is hard to juggle. While the salespeople are meeting the high expectations of buyers, their own organization expects them to drive results by selling as much as possible. Sometimes what their client's need and what the company is asking them to do can come to a crossroads -- this is where the highest level of...

A successful  sales coaching program will instruct your sales team to use the following approaches. How does your coaching program relate (if you have one)? Your sales coaching program should help you and your team:

Many sales managers try to build their sales team with experienced salespeople who have a proven track record in their industry in a way to help them "hit the ground running." But what if you are unable to find highly skilled salespeople for your industry? Even if sales managers have the ability to assess critical success indicators in their sales recruits (such as personality, drive, ambition, or compatibility, etc), how can sales managers help their new sales team members decrease ramp up time and the time required to achieve their first sale? Even if...