Based on nearly 2,000,000 sales person evaluations, Dave Kurlan of our partner OMG has shown that 34% of sales people are not coachable. I’m personally quite surprised it’s that low, but who am I to argue with the facts.
Here’s a hard truth of selling. If you are not coachable then you are not going to grow. If you don’t grow then your success will be limited.
If you are not coachable then you are not going to grow Click To Tweet
This is true for anyone in sales. Whether you are in an inside/desk role in an office or an outside/AE/Account management role out visiting customers in their offices. Every sales person has a number of key moments throughout the sales process where it is important to deliver. To deliver you need to perform.
What’s that well proven saying… fail to prepare – prepare to fail. Athletes prepare for those key moments so why should you follow suit?
Because, without coaching you won’t develop your selling skills, you won’t practice dealing with challenging situations and you won’t rehearse to fine tune your key messaging for those key moments. You know, the ones that make a difference between advancing an opportunity or account towards success and things going cold.
Being coachable means;
- Getting feedback on your pre-call plan, helping you to prepare properly using a consistent, structured approach to planning
- Building the feedback of others into your preparations for your key sales interactions.
- Reflecting on performance soon after the meeting/call, using your structure to rate performance.
Sales managers have a huge role to play here and many fail to make the time to do this with their team anything like enough. Only 18% of managers invest more than a quarter of their time doing this, preferring to spend time [presumably] in “management meetings”.
Only 18% of managers invest more than a quarter of their time coaching their sales team Click To Tweet
I have seen that the best performing sales people will seek out coaching proactively. They want it and crave it. They are willing and able to internalise the feedback.
Mindset is critical to success, as the best are always open to feedback and refuse to take things personally. They know it is about improving. Growing in their capabilities to be more successful.
So get out there today and ask for coaching from your sales manager and colleagues. A five to ten minute session can help you land that next key deal.