PRINCIPLE

focus on

feedback

learning

TOP SALES organizations provide salespeople with constructive feedback and a healthy learning environment in which they can grow and develop.

FEEDBACK

Feedback is a key factor in a salespersons development because consultative sales skills are easy in concept, but difficult to execute. Feedback helps the salesperson know which behaviors to change in order to do a better job. In any sales organization, the most crucial position when it comes to feedback is the first-line manager. The manager should see to it that

salespeople get the coaching they need and that they stay focused on the customers needs. Principle 5 includes several sales traps that managers fall into that adversely affect feedback, and in turn affect salespeoples opportunities to develop:

A Sales Trap 19, Sales Skill Training Is Enough to Solve Selling Problems

A Sales Trap 20, If You Generate Sales Activity, Youll Close More Sales

A Sales Trap 21, Top Performers Are the Best Teachers A Sales Trap 22, Sales Managers Are Good Coaches

Effective feedback uses the same language as the companys sales-skill training program and also offers an effective sales process for salespeople to follow. Managers should monitor the sales feedback and learning process.

COACHING

Coaching is simple to understand, but difficult to implement. The responsibility for developing salespeople and giving feedback usually rests with the first-line manager. Good managers provide feedback, using the common language of their companys training programs. But feedback alone is not necessarily effective when it comes to sales-skill-based training programs.

It is actually very difficult to find companies in which the first-line sales managers effectively coach the verbal behaviors taught in their companys sales-skill-based programs.1 Few companies do a good job on this, as is discussed in great depth in Sales Trap 22, Sales Managers Are Good Coaches.

Many companies struggle to get their sales managers to spend time in skill-based coaching sessions with their reps.

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In defense of the first-line managers, there are several reasons why they do not find or take the time to coach, some of which are beyond their control. These reasons include:

A There is a lack of rewards, recognition, and other incentives that managers can use to develop their salespeople.

A Job and time pressures from within the company and with clients eat away at valuable coaching time.

A The selling models are complicated and dont make it easy for managers to coach salespeople or measure their progress.

A There are conflicts between what the manager believes works and what the particular sales training program states works.

A Managers fear coaching, either because they dont know how to do it or because they havent been trained to do it.

In the end, unfortunately, it probably comes down to business priorities, but its unfortunate that many first-line managers have never even participated in their companys sales-skill-based training program.2

As one salesperson put it:

How can my company expect me to develop my skills as quickly and effectively as they want me to-and as I want to-when my sales manager hasnt even been through the sales skill program weve been using for the last two years? How can he begin to give me feedback on the skills I learned? I know the responsibility for my personal development is primarily mine, but I am jealous of the people who work for managers who know the language in our skill based programs and can offer constructive feedback to my colleagues in the same language.