Sales Management Competency |
Percentage with Competency as |
Controls Their Emotions | 55% |
Supportive Beliefs | 100% |
Supportive Buy-Cycle | 65% |
100% of sales managers have Self-Limiting Sales Management Beliefs. Let’s say that their beliefs include, “coaching won’t work” or “my salespeople won’t follow a sales process” or “If I hold my salespeople accountable they’ll quit” or “If I debrief their calls the way you instruct they’ll hate me” or “I could never learn to role-play the way you teach it.” If they have any of those beliefs, what are the chances that they can apply what they’re learning from me?
65% of sales managers have Non-Supportive Buy-Cycles. This means that they way they personally make a major purchase will not support ideal sales outcomes. It could be that they look for the lowest price, comparison shop, think things over, think a relatively small amount of money is a lot of money, they do research, or some combination of those things. If that’s the case, and a salesperson comes back with a put-off, objection or excuse, the sales manager won’t be any more effective coaching the salesperson than the salesperson was dealing with it with the prospect.
55% of sales managers become emotional. They’re talking to themselves or thinking too much and as a result, their listening skills won’t be optimal. If they attempt a role-play to demonstrate the coaching strategy, they might jump ahead instead of following up answers with appropriate new questions to ask.
Those aren’t the only factors. Two more come from the category Will to Manage Sales.
Sales Management Competency |
Percentage with Competency as |
Commitment | 23% |
Takes Responsibility | 55% |
Coaching | 90% |
23% of sales managers lack Commitment, suggesting that they won’t do what it takes when what it takes is outside of their comfort zone.
55% of sales managers are Excuse Makers and when they rationalize why coaching won’t change anything, why some salespeople can’t be coached, why coaching them the way I recommend won’t work, nothing will change. Excuse making must be snuffed out from the top down.
The five competencies we discussed above don’t even take into consideration the actual Coaching Competency! Unfortunately, 90% of sales managers are weak in the coaching competency.
When you put all of this together, it’s easy to understand why so many sales managers struggle so much when it comes to coaching.
I can help! Each year I host the top-rated Sales Leadership Intensive where, for two long days, we help sales managers develop their ability to consistently and effectively coach up their salespeople. As of this writing we had around 5 seats left for March 19-20 so if you can make it I promise it will be life-changing. This is the best coaching-specific training you will get anywhere! You can learn more here.
Image Copyright iStock Photos