Sales Performance Coaching is the most critical competitive skill that any sales organization can have. It is the most potent tool available for improving performance, maximizing productivity and achieving revenue growth.

The goal of coaching is to increase performance by helping us as leaders and managers maximize our organization’s resources — starting with individual contributors. The first objective is to help make the leap from boss or manager to coach, so that coaching becomes an integral part of how we lead. The broader objective is to help create a collaborative culture with the team and organization.

The model is developmental, which means that you work on one priority at a time. Not only does this achieve the best and fastest results, it is time efficient in that you can coach in 15 minutes or less.

The more effective collaborator and coach we become, the higher team and individual morale becomes and less directive we have to be in our behavior with our team and others.

Directing people in what to do rather than eliciting their perceptions and ideas can see more time-efficient, but it comes at a cost.

People who haven’t had to think through what is blocking the desired performance will turn to you as the answer source over and over. Without giving their input, they are much more likely to feel ownership and maintain a commitment to sustainably execute.

Individual Performance Coaching

Individual performance coaching is coaching by asking: Encouraging people to think through their obstacles, share their perceptions, figure out solutions.

Certainly, a leader’s input is needed and there is no substitute for being clear on your expectations. There may also be times when it is appropriate for a leader to be direct. However, if the goal is developmental, rather than evaluative, coaching with questions will produce results and strengthen relationships more effectively and efficiently than any directive you a leader can give.

Consequence Coaching

As all leaders know, there are times when regardless of the amount of support you given, some individuals won’t make the grade. Once you’ve exhausted all avenues of development, as a you’ve exhausted all avenues of development, as a last effort to turn the situation around, switch your coaching persona from developmental to consequence. Consequence coaching addresses performance problems that have been ongoing.

The objective of Consequence Coaching is to spell out in no uncertain terms the standards that the individual must meet and what they will face if the fail to meet these standards. Consequence Coaching makes the shift to evaluation. At this point, the leader is no longer asking the individual for their perception because the leader has already heard the same response several times over.

Consequential Coaching is developmental in that the goal is to provide support to help the individual improve and succeed. It is evaluative in that it provides hard measurements and set standards and consequences if the metrics are not met.

Developmental Individual Coaching

The Development Individual Coaching model may seem a bit simplistic at first, but with experience managers will internalize the steps and principles to make it their own.  At the end of the coaching session, the leader reinforces your support and confidence in the person being coached.The four steps of the model are: