Sales Sparring and Coaching

The (sales) coaching faces new challenges within the instant “get-the-mobile app” digital transformation of how we do things. Fitness, yoga, meditation, etc., are some of the typical apps replacing (instead of complementing) coaches and trainers in the complex physical and emotional world.

The new business climate pressured by cost-cutting and search for vanilla solutions in the area of people’s potential development could not bypass the sales profession. The digitalization of sales onboarding and training through digital self-learning seems to be a cost-effective replacement for classroom-based training and education (which, by the way, didn’t deliver on promises from “theory to practice,” i.e., from “knowing to executing”).

In B2B, sales coaching is often misused (and abused) to create a more “friendly” relationship between a “demanding” manager and a “non performing” sales person. Very rarely, if ever, coaching is proposed to successful sellers. Yet when asking top performers what they miss most to stay on top of their game, the answer we hear is: “somebody to challenge my current way of doing things – without punishing me for my weaknesses.”

Why are most sales managers “programmed” to fail as sales coaches? They must balance between short-term results (quarterly, monthly, or even weekly) and long term teams development. This imposes expectations on the people they manage and every “broken promise” or “undelivered committed deal” directly impacts their “emotional bank account”. Not only that, it affects the emotional account of a seller as “they let the manager down” by the failed promises.

It is only a question of the salesperson’s “emotional bank account” credit limits before the relationship drains trust and interferences start to run the game of “hope.” As a result, more broken promises spiral and pressure on both sides.

One of the most significant benefits of sales coaching (internal or external), when not done by direct reports and sales managers, is the emotional detachment which enables sales coaches to see situations through the eyes of the person they coach.

Addressing the seller’s situation from a non-biased perspective and providing coaching and sparring support accelerates professional and personal growth, sales engagements with clients, and as a result, successful and predictable business growth.

While specific “advice sharing” can relatively quickly happen “on-the-fly,” most situations require dedication of time and attention for the coaching sessions and follow-up actions.

The sales manager’s dual role (being a manager and a coach) is often exposed to prioritization between firefighting demanding client situations and, as often perceived, “non-urgent” coaching and sparring support of their team members, which in return create more firefighting.

The engagement of external sales sparring and coaching support has proven to be one of the best approaches to the traditional “chasm” between “knowing what to do and doing what we know” to achieve sales goals in the long run.

In the first place, coaching is helping people get to where they want to go, nothing less and nothing more.

The second keyword is sales. So, sales coaching is a process of helping sellers achieve their sales goals ideally by blending the achievement of assigned targets and developing interdependent categories: mindset, skillset, and toolset (see-do-get).

And finally, sparring. Sparring partner is mainly associated with sports (like martial arts or tennis) where real fight or game situations are simulated and practiced before the competition. In sales, sparring and coaching prepare candidates for specific client engagement while developing a particular element from the mindset-skillset-toolset framework. The sales manager or sellers define the focus area or points of attention for sparring and coaching, ideally in mutual agreement.

The pre-condition for a successful sparring coach (like in sports) is to have the deep contextual knowledge and skills required to lead sparring coaching sessions. Trust and belief in the coach as a “peer” partner cannot be emphasized enough. Rarely and very few sales leaders can play that role with their direct reports, not because of their intent or talents but due to the paradigms associated with hierarchical dependences.

The sales sparring coaching program is developed for each seller individually based on the following inputs:
• Observation and shadowing
• 360-degree assessments)
• Rehearsals and role-playing

Based on the client’s context, the consolidated subset of findings and recommendations would be presented as a draft plan for a sparring coaching program.

The draft plan might consist of the following:

• primary and secondary areas for growth and improvement
• use case – actual sales project(s) where primary areas for growth will be applied
• initial # of coaching hours and preliminary schedule
• go/no go control points to enable a candidate to exit the program (no value, not compatible with a coach, etc.)

Upon potential modification and approval of individual Sales Sparring Coaching engagement, the program will run via remote (video) coaching sessions. It is highly recommended to schedule the first physical review meeting with the candidate and sales manager after 6, no later than 8 weeks, to evaluate and (if needed) recalibrate the individual program.

The main characteristic of the program is to be tactical and pragmatic in supporting the seller’s daily/weekly activities by helping them understand the “Why” and assisting in developing best practice “How” to execute a particular step of the sales process.

Although this is about “sales coaching” we have to anticipate the importance of trust-related challenges such as confidentiality of information exchanged. Based on the sales manager’s input and expectations, it is crucial to transparently share the confidentiality rules of engagement.

While the primary focus of Sparring Coaching is to remove individual sellers’ “interference” to perform upon existing knowledge, it can also be anticipated that specific skillset training might be required. If the need for such skillset training is common to more candidates, a group training or workshop might be an optimal solution. The coach will outline a potential complementary training program to the assigned client’s counterparty, who will assume ownership to identify and organize appropriate training upon management approval.

As outlined above, each program will be calibrated to the individual “as-is  to-be” situation both from a content perspective and intensity point of view. The initial recommendation is to have a minimum of 1-2 weekly sessions of 1-hour video meetings for the first 6-8 weeks (corresponding to the first milestone review) and later scale the intensity pace based on the agreed milestones. The required one-to-one meetings will be scheduled upon initial individual interviews.