Coaching for Success: Management Strategies with Brian Tracy .

By Brain Tracy

The ability to encourage your salespeople to produce at their maximum potential is central to your success as a sales manager. The fact is that the best companies have the best-trained salespeople. The second-best companies have the second-best trained salespeople. The third-best companies have the worst salespeople and are on their way out of business.

One of the best ways to differentiate yourself, your company and your products and services from your competition's is to have a world-class, highly skilled sales force. The more skilled and competent your salespeople are, the more they will sell under any competitive conditions.

Skills coaching is a powerful way for you to increase the confidence and competence of each of your salespeople. It is something that should be incorporated into your daily and weekly relationships with your team members.

Coaching your salespeople on the essential skills that they need to make more sales can dramatically increase your sales results. Everyone needs coaching because even the most skilled and successful professional can benefit from outside advice.

Your top salespeople are your most valuable asset as a sales manager; everything that you can do to increase their performance reflects well on yourself and helps your company.


To coach effectively, it is essential that you observe your top salespeople in action so that you know what they are doing and how they are doing it. Look for superior sales techniques in your people that you can teach to others. Go out on sales calls with them. Make a note of what they do in common.

There are seven steps to coaching sales skills:

1. Sales coaches don't sell on a salescall; their job is to learn how the salesperson is performing at the moment.

2. Your job is to observe the performance and behavior of the salesperson quietly and take detailed notes.

3. Look for performance gaps; make a note of things that the salesperson is neglecting to do.

4. Identify the critical success factors for a sale, and observe whether the salesperson is using them all.

5. Catch your salesperson doing something right; immediately after the call, praise the salesperson for some aspect of her performance.

6. Before you say anything, ask the salesperson to do a self-assessment, to evaluate himself on how he handled that sales call.

7. Imediately before the next call, suggest one method or technique for the salesperson to try with the next customer.

The pay-off for effective skills coaching is tremendous. It is the fastest way to bring about rapid improvement in sales effectiveness and sales results.

Teaching your salespeople to sell better is the very best use of your time. Taking the time to teach your salespeople builds a sense of belonging and commitment. Skills coaching improves a salesperson's motivation and is the foundation of building a world-class sales team.

As a sales manager, your performance is the performance of your team. Everything that you can do to improve individual performance reflects well on you, boosts your reputation and respect in the company, and helps your company increase sales and profitability.