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The Office Coaching SessionThe Office Coaching SessionThis type of session, as mentioned earlier, is typically designed for management and administrative skills, as opposed to the field ride-along, which coaches selling skills. In an office session you have more focused time to concentrate on behaviors necessary for overall success. As with the ride-along, make sure you don’t overwhelm the person by overloading activities into your session. Let’s look at a best practices model that will improve the success of your session and the competencies of the sales professional or sales support team member.
Listen for areas of emotion, called ‘‘needs statements,’’ to focus in on, since these will be the statements that express some personal value feeling toward the subject being discussed. For example, ‘‘I love our products,’’ ‘‘the customers are a pain,’’ or ‘‘this rollercoaster ride’’ are all personal value statements that deserve greater attention. Use all your active listening skills to keep the dialogue going on these expressions. Next ask about some of the specific things the salesperson has said by asking closed-ended questions. Here you should concentrate on the needs statements in areas related to the subject you wish to coach on. Closed-ended questions allow you to narrow down the scope of the discussion to something that is manageable. An example here might be ‘‘You said your customers were a pain. Specifically, in what way are they a pain?’’ Finally, confirm the questions and answers so far by restating what the discussion has been up to now—from beginning to end and without judgment. This will often get the person to prioritize or add additional information. If the discovery session is handled correctly, a sales manager can direct the questions and answers to a point where it segues into the balance of the coaching session quite nicely. One thing to keep in mind is your design of the questioning process. Too many open-ended questions in a row make the person feel that he is wasting his time because you aren’t doing anything with the answers. On the other end, too many closed-ended questions make a person feel as if he is being interrogated by the authorities! For best results, use a 1:3 ratio. For every open-ended question, you can comfortably follow with three (maybe four) closed-ended questions in a row. When the cycle is completed, you can then ask another open-ended question and three or four more closed-ended questions. This cycle can be repeated three or four times.
Sometimes the coaching session will not be as effective as you had hoped, but most of the time it will meet and exceed your expectations. If there is a problem or if you see no improvement, you will need to go through the coaching process again. But this time, you will probably need to insert yourself into the solution and become more actively involved with the milestones. Remember, the goal is to improve performance.
I have had the privilege of working with the U.S. Army Special Forces Command. One question that consistently comes up is how to move the traditional direct command model into a more adaptive model for today’s military actions. When two or three Special Forces are dropped into a hostile territory, they can’t wait to be told what to do. They’ve got to feel empowered to make their own decisions. I believe that, at the increasingly hectic pace of modern business, the same question needs to be asked. As a sales manager, your time is valuable. So the question becomes, when do you coach between direct commands and total empowerment? Let’s take a look at a simple process flow model I created (see Figure 8-1). Your job is to move away from direct command as quickly as possible and learn to delegate opportunities that will lead to true empowerment of a clear thinking sales team. To keep the individuals moving in the right direction, you will need to coach often and well 187
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