You Coach But Do Your Salespeople Follow Through?

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Has this ever happened to you?

A salesperson asks for your advice and it’s opportunity specific, important, and time sensitive.

You schedule a time to talk, provide the coaching, ask if it helped, receive acknowledgement, get commitment for follow through and wish them luck.

Then you wait.

And you wonder.

Did they make the call? Did they reach the prospect? Did they do what you coached them to do? Did they do it the way they were supposed to, something similar, or do it their way and screw it up? What happened? Good outcome or bad? Lesson learned or not? Career changing or just event specific help? Transportable lesson/skills or a one-time use? Momentum building or not? Confidence building or not?

After their call, following up with you is the respectful thing to do – it shows appreciation, that they didn’t waste your time, that they took action, that there was an outcome, that you were helpful. But what happens if they don’t follow up with you? If you don’t learn what happened?

You can bet on one of two things – or both:

  1. The salesperson never made the call/visit and failed to act on your advice;
  2. You were coaching a shit head.

So when either or both of these scenarios are true, then what?

Does it depend on whether they are performers or under achievers?

Does it depend on whether you like them or not?

Does it depend on whether they have a track record of this kind of behavior?

Do the rules change based on the individual involved?

What do you do when it comes to your sales force?

Let’s get a good discussion going on this topic!

Republished with author's permission from original post.

1 COMMENT

  1. This article generated a tremendous amount of discussion over at my Blog. As of the writing of this comment, there were 19 comments there, including some that were right on and some that were way off the point. Continue the discussion here at SalesEdgeOne.com or over at Understanding the Sales Force.

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