If You’ve Been Burned by Sales Coaches in the Past, Read This Now

When done right, sales coaching should be a lot like performance (athletic or even performing arts) coaching. The coach helps the client identify gaps and opportunities that the client can’t see for themselves because they’re too close to their own work.

Sometimes even the most successful professional needs an outside specialist to take their performance from good to outstanding, to help them come up with new ideas, or to help them see things from a different perspective.

Still, though, sales coaching can stir up a lot of fears for some people.

In our years of coaching sales teams, we’ve found that their fears around getting coaching come down to these six things.

Sales Coaching Fear #1: You’ve Been Burned in the Past

The first fear we often encounter is probably the most legitimate one. You have purchased a similar service in the past, and while it was inspirational, it lacked real, lasting results.

Traditional sales coaching methodologies are often based on teambuilding and enthusiasm. They feel more like a pep rally than anything, and they lack clear, actionable steps. They also lack accountability — not just on the salesperson’s part, but on the trainer’s part to follow up over time to help the salesperson see measurable results.

Here at RESET, we don’t believe that a pep rally will get you very far in business. So we’ve created a four-step methodology called The Connection Process.

It works with every client, every time.

Step 1: We help you identify smart clients. Smart clients are target customers that are a fit for the culture of your firm and the desired growth outcome of your firm. After all, not just anyone will buy your product or service.

Step 2: Together we get a deep-dive understanding of the business and political issues that are affecting your target customer’s marketplace, and the issues at play within their internal organization.

Step 3: We help you create multiple paths of connection within your target customer’s organization. This means understanding the who’s who, and how they influence the final decision about whether or not to buy your product or service.

Step 4: We carefully craft a narrative that describes the value and impact of your brand — not just a technical description of your product or service.

Sales Coaching Fear #2: You Don’t Really Need It

The second most common fear we hear about is purchasing sales coaching when you think you don’t need it. You think that business is going well, and that sales coaching might just be a waste of budget.

It’s actually when business is going well that we see clients are at the most risk. That’s the time that sales organizations are most susceptible to a dangerous plateau.

What happens in these instances is that the firm stocks up on revenue stream for the next couple of weeks or months, and they stop looking for replacement revenue in the marketplace. There are two huge dangers here:

In that comfort zone, your firm is stagnating because you’ve taken yourself out of the marketplace mix of new opportunities.

Eventually, that revenue stream dries up and the firm is left wondering where the next check is coming from.

A sales plateau will almost always lead to stagnation and then decline. To avoid this, get sales coaching when things are going well — don’t wait until you’re in a panic.

Sales Coaching Fear #3: The Results Sound Too Good to Be True

Your mama might have told you that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And with many traditional sales coaching programs, that holds true. Most sales training programs promise results that even your best salespeople couldn’t produce.

Our program, The Connection Process, isn’t just a proven methodology. It’s a framework we use to make sure your people are hitting every milestone and getting all the incremental results along the way that will eventually build up into long term, sustainable business results.

In addition to the measurable results we help our clients achieve, we also offer things that might be even more valuable: an outside perspective and hidden marketplace connections. For our advanced clients who have been through The Connection Process, we introduce them to exclusive deals that are under the radar in the marketplace. This gives them access to financially significant opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Sales Coaching Fear #4: You Won’t Get Overnight Financial

Another fear we see all too often is that you won’t get overnight financial results.

Let’s be clear on this: We don’t want to aim for overnight financial results, nor will we promise this.

Wanting instant results is an indication that you might already be too far in financial trouble. The sales problem didn’t start now, and it won’t be fixed now — the problem began long ago and has worsened over time. Asking for overnight financial results is a huge red flag to us. And if someone is promising you those instant results, that should be a big red flag to you, too.

Building strong sales skills takes time. The Connection Process is built around a sustainable methodology — if you take the time to learn it, it’ll always work for you. The ongoing accountability that we’ve built into the system helps create and maintain those lasting and sustainable revenue results, too. The Connection Process is meant to grow your business for the long-term.

Sales Coaching Fear #5: You’ll Be Taught “Icky” Sales Tactics

Many people who reach out to us about coaching have experienced traditional models of sales coaching that focus on closing clients. Those programs treat clients like commodities, not human beings — and the result is that the salesperson and their clients feel icky about the entire sales process.

There’s a reason we call our program The Connection Process. It addresses the underlying psychological business and political issues that are driving your target client’s marketplace, customers, stakeholders, staff and competition. We shift the focus from closing to connecting, which creates an entirely new sales dynamic.

Sales Coaching Fear #6: You Already Have an Internal Staff Member Assigned to do Sales Training

The final fear we hear most often is that you’ve already got an internal staff member assigned to this very same task. You’re already paying someone to train your team — why should you pay more?

Like any good athlete or performing artist who works regularly with a coach knows, sometimes it takes an outside perspective to take your performance to the next level. A new or different kind of coach can bring fresh ideas from the competitive marketplace and help you see things from a different angle.

Our goal here at RESET is to integrate our insight in a way that complements, not competes with, the ongoing internal sales training that you are already invested in. We have the privilege of being privy to the most current business trends because we work with service companies across a variety of disciplines. We work with owner institutions including regional hospitals, renowned universities, international airports, and government entities — and we also work with the large capital funding institutions that make so many of these capital projects possible.

The Bottom Line

We’re interested in helping you make connections and strengthen your sales performance — not just teaching you the newest sales tactics. When you’re ready to take your business from good to outstanding, reach out to us at resettogrow.com.