Coaching Skills
- No. of reasons coachee gave for his recent poor sales performance when we met this week: Lost count after 15
- No. of real reasons why his performance was suffering: 1
I found myself giving an impromptu coaching session this week, to a usually top performing salesman who had temporarily misplaced his mojo. (Hey, I ‘m down with the kids, what can I say).
A top performer for 3 years in a row, it seemed he hadn’t sold a thing since mid November. In a bid to talk him down from the metaphoric roof upon which he was teetering, I started by asking him what he thought was the cause. His initial response sounded reasonable enough – not enough leads, not enough customer appointments, economic climate, people not wanting to spend at the moment.
In digging deeper, it transpired that he’d never been in this position before and had no strategy for dealing with it. He’d been feeling increasingly stressed and not a little desperate. Not wanting to bother his line manager, he had battled on alone – losing confidence with every rejection he encountered. In line with his personality type (see Myers Briggs) he’d even begun worrying unnecessarily about his job security.
Through our discussion, he began to see that he was in a vicious circle of his own making. The more desperate he got, the more his customers picked up on this and the more they said ‘no’ to him. He realised that was so much more relaxed, when he was on a roll – and this is what had made him successful in the past.
In recognising this, he way already well on the way to breaking the cycle. A few more carefully worded questions had him thinking and feeling differently about the future.
He went on his way, energy renewed, confidence high. He gained 101 customer leads at a seminar later that day. (Unfortunately his beloved football team went out of the FA Cup that night but I couldn’t help that. I’m a coach – not a miracle worker.)
To have good coaching skills, you don’t need all the answers. You just need to know the types of questions to ask and the skill to really listen to the answers you get.
To find out how you can improve your coaching skills, contact us for a chat or take a look at our Communication Skills Programmes.
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