4 Ways Sales Coaching Can Help New Hires

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 salespeople are hired because they can bring an extended rolodex of contacts with them, how can sales managers help them achieve success and leverage that contact list with the most effectiveness?

These three examples of real-world sales challenges (finding the right people, deceasing ramp up time, and helping salespeople leverage their strengths) point to a dynamic, challenging, and non-standardized selling process. The approach that sales managers take to address these challenges (and others) must support uniqueness -- the organization is unique and the salesperson is unique. Let's face it, no matter how solid the recruiting, and selection process is, sales managers still need to support their sales team members -- nobody can do it alone.

A key measurement indicator to this reality is sales team turnover. Within the United States, high sales team turnover is an unfortunate reality faced by many sales managers. Why does sales turnover exist? Many factors, such as a sales recruiting process that isn't fully aligned, or a sales training program that is less than adequate can contribute to increased turnover. To combat high turnover rates, more and more sales managers have turned to sales coaching as a way to help the sales team increase their competency and capability with the sales job they're in.

Sales coaching can help address three important questions:

- Does the salesperson's purpose fit with your organizations' vision?

- Does the salesperson's character fit within your organization's culture?

- Does the salesperson's ability fit within your organization's sales process?

Does the salesperson's purpose fit within your organization's vision?

A well thought out sales coaching program can help identify if a sales team member's purpose is in alignment with the organization's vision. The purpose of a salesperson is typically comprised of his or her needs and personal vision. More importantly the factors that motivate him or her are the catalyst that fuels their quest to fulfill their purpose. Individual need for achievement and personal goals are analyzed within the context of the client company vision, organizational values, and organization goals. If the individual cannot find the inner motivation to help the organization attain its future goals and vision, then the ability to help the firm grow is hampered and the candidate would most likely not be a good fit. A good sales coach must be aware of this.

Does the salesperson's character fit within your organization's culture?

A well defined sales coaching program can help assess if the individual's character is in alignment with the organization's culture. A person's beliefs and ethical mindset must fit within the culture of the firm where they will work. Most sales managers understand that the "character fitting the culture" dynamic is a key contributor to success (or failure). A good sales coaching program can help the salesperson fit in and have an impact to their organization. The culture of the organization will often challenge a sales coach to help the salesperson identify critical team values, norms, and beliefs. More importantly, the sales coach can help the salesperson as they try to attain critical business goals. The vision of the organization must be embraced by the individual. And remember, that character is comprised of their personality traits (such as extroversion, openness, agreeableness, etc) and their emotional intelligence.

Does the salesperson's ability fit within your organization's sales process?

A great coaching program for sales teams is a key driver of sales competence. Sales competence is defined as the salesperson's knowledge, skills, or abilities to perform. Sales skills are based on a sales person's knowledge of their position requirements as well as their capacity to perform the necessary work. For sales positions, these abilities could include the ability to understand where the future customer is in their buying process as well as what type of buying style they are using. Abilities are also comprised of the underlying knowledge needed to succeed. Different types of knowledge are needed for different types of sales environments and sales processes. As an example, the knowledge needed to sell into the federal government is different than the knowledge needed to sell commercially. Both the individual's skill and the business outputs are assessed through past experience and track record. Past performance is important to determine applicable skill of the individual as well as the viability of the company.

Let's face it, sales training programs can fall short on helping new salespeople make 'heads or tails' of their organization. A new salesperson may have critical questions that they need to address in areas of culture, process, character, vision, and competency. A well designed sales coaching program can help sales managers stay focused on the most important levers that will help attain revenue, while addressing the real-world aspects of selling that can cause confusion, lack-of-focus, or a lack of motivation. Through effective sales coaching, organizations can better support their sales training programs through reinforcing key sales training knowledge out in the field, where the action is. Sales managers, coaches, and trainers, should build their sales training with sales coaching in mind, and solid tools, processes, and job-aids from reputable organization can help fast-track sales coaching success.