Why Coaching Causes Some Sales Managers to Hold On for Dear Life

Over the past few months I’ve been coaching 30 sales leaders from 3 companies and while most are trying their hardest to do everything I recommend, apply everything they learn, and coach as instructed, there are several that don’t follow through and fail to move the needle for their teams.  A few don’t want to be coached.  A few don’t think they need to be coached.  A few are too proud to be coached.  A couple are too mentally challenged to be coached.

Avoidance aside, there are six scientifically proven reasons for their struggles and I’ll share them with you here.In the table below, you’ll see data from Objective Management Group, which has evaluated 1,838,327salespeople and sales managers.  The first three Sales Management Competencies shown in the table are from the category of Sales Management DNA. They are shown below  as weaknesses.

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 or anyone else?

65% of sales managers have Non-Supportive Buy-Cycles.  This means that they make their major purchases in a way that 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 doing a slow, consultative role-play, 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.

23% of sales managers lack Commitment, suggesting that they won’t do what it takes when that 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 shown above.  Unfortunately, 90% of sales managers are weak in the coaching competency.

When you put all of this together, it’s easy to understand why some 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.

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