SellingSherpa

B2B Sales Best Practices

The Sales Coach’s Playbook: Breaking the Performance Code (Book Summary)

Foreword

  • The four jobs of a sales manager:
  1. Mentor
  2. Trainer
  3. Supervisor
  4. Coach

 

Chapter 1: The Basics

  • In order for your sales coaching to be effective, you must focus on critical behavior modification—not on the imparting of new skills.
  • The most powerful coaching moments, for salespeople and everyone else, involve individuals analyzing their own deeply held personal beliefs and considering whether those beliefs are driving them toward greater success—or holding them hostage.
  • The steps of the Sandler Submarine are:
    1. Bonding & Rapport: Building a relationship by developing a way to communicate effectively with the prospect and building trust
    2. Up-Front Contracts: Getting on the same page as the prospect by setting expectations and ensuring an outcome to each sales call
    3. Pain: Finding the prospect’s reason to buy and gaining a commitment to resolve any issues keeping the prospect from greater success
    4. Budget: Determining what the prospects are willing and able to invest to fix their pain
    5. Decision: Working with the prospect’s process to make a decision on your product or service
    6. Fulfillment: Matching solutions to each pain uncovered during the sales process
    7. Post-Sell: Dealing with “buyer’s remorse” and blocking competitors from reopening a sale that has closed.
  • Each coaching session begins with two assessments: one by the person to be coached, called the self-assessment, and the other by the coach, designated as the coaching assessment.
  • Coaching must be consistently scheduled at regular intervals for it to be effective and deliver the desired results.
  • Training is the imparting of new skills. Coaching, on the other hand, is a way of empowering salespeople to use their existing skill set more effectively in the context of the sales process and thus achieve greater success.
  • In coaching, an up-front contract covers:
    • The timeframe for the session
    • The timing of the follow-up sessions
    • The salesperson’s agenda
    • Coaching methodology.
    • Actionable next steps as well as accountability on the part of both salesperson and coach.
  • The three critical elements to understand during each coaching session are what, reason, and importance.
  • Most successful coaches conduct two forms of coaching sessions: strategic and tactical. Strategic coaching focuses on helping salespeople plan for success. Tactical coaching helps them understand the skills and execution traps preventing them from greater success.
  • In both strategic and tactical coaching, the number one focus of the coach is to ask critical questions in order to help the participant fully understand the issues driving the coaching session.
  • One of these is that every coaching session, without exception, should have a strategy or game plan designed to achieve a certain desired result.
  • [Excessive] focus on problem-solving prevents sales managers from fulfilling their true mission of developing the sales team. [Instead ask,] “How would you solve this problem if I weren’t here?”
  • This agenda must be clear and must receive full agreement by both parties before each session begins. Not only that: This agenda must have clear expectations as well as a defined structure and methodology that allows participants to achieve the goal.
  • The most effective coaching strategies begin with the creation of a success profile clearly delineating behavior the salesperson must perform in order to be considered successful in the job.
  • The coach does this by developing a plan for a series of sessions focused on identifying specific behavioral opportunities for growth and by asking good questions.
  • There are Three P’s of Trust associated with the coaching environment: potency, permission, and protection.
  • When developing a coaching strategy, it is important to have salespeople clearly spell out the goals as well as explain why the goals have personal meaning for them.
  • Managers who habitually respond with, “Here’s what I would do if I were you,” or any variation, are not coaching.

 

Chapter 2: Developing the Coach’s Mindset

  • “Seek first to understand”
  • Once the coach fully understands these issues, the main job becomes twofold: helping the salesperson focus on all the growth options available, and helping the salesperson deal with the specific beliefs preventing full attainment of personal potential.
  • You cannot prescribe a solution to a prospect’s problem until you understand the depth of the issue—no matter what aggressive traits the prospect may be portraying.
  • The effective sales coach deals directly with the self-limiting thoughts in the salesperson’s head that are preventing the execution of new, higher-performing behaviors.
  • The Nine Attributes of an Effective Coach
  1. High self-awareness
  2. Balanced focus: The coach must explore the mix of personal and professional issues affecting the salesperson’s performance
  3. Ability to solve problems
  4. Sincere interest and desire to help
  5. Nurturing and nonjudgmental feedback skills
  6. Strategic thinking skills
  7. Openness to new ideas and approaches
  8. Trustworthiness
  9. Questioning and listening skills
  • who you are (your Identity) and what you do (your Role).
  • The Rule of Three and Two suggests that the salesperson focus weekly on developing three professional goals and two personal goals to commit to achieving each week.
  • Every effective coaching session with a salesperson focuses on three main elements: purpose, awareness, and behavior.
    • Purpose All effective coaching sessions set clear long-term and short-term goals.
    • Awareness The effective coach develops heightened awareness in three important areas: self-awareness, situational awareness, and experiential awareness.
    • The measure of a coaching session’s success is how much behavioral modification occurs as a result.
    • Does this salesperson currently have the selling skills necessary to succeed? Does this salesperson understand how to execute those skills in the context of the selling situation? If the answer to either of these questions is “no,” the problem lies with training and not coaching.
  • The Top Ten Behaviors
  1. Lead generation: Prospecting, the number one behavior that drives all the others.
  2. Building relationships: Establishing a strong, open relationship based on trust.
  3. Qualifying opportunity: Determining a reason to do business.
  4. Making presentations: Presenting solutions to the prospect’s problems.
  5. Servicing customers: Delivering superior customer satisfaction.
  6. Account management: Maximizing business in each account.
  7. Territory development: Building a strategy to grow the territory.
  8. Building a Cookbook for Success: Establishing productive sales activity.
  9. Continuous education: Developing ongoing product, market, and sales knowledge.
  10. Execution of the Sandler Selling System: Mastering the sales process.
  • The effective coach benchmarks the performance of each of these ten behaviors in order to determine whether or not they are being performed at acceptable levels by a specific salesperson.
  • Benchmark the top ten sales behaviors and apply the “more, better, different” analysis to improve performance.

 

Chapter 3: Dealing with Change

  • All of us have to stretch our beliefs and behaviors in order to succeed.
  • Her new goal focused on better pre-call planning and debriefing on her results with a peer.
  • The Sandler Success Triangle
    • Behavior
    • Attitude
    • Technique
  • Coaching the top 20% requires goal-directed thinking. The top 20% are typically motivated by recognition and goals that stretch their accomplishments.
  • Rule of Three and Two prevents burnout and develops a pace for success.
  • Three C’s of Success: conviction, commitment, and competency.

 

Chapter 4: Take the X-ray

  • Salespeople typically fit into one of two discipline sets: goal setters or problem solvers. Goal setters design the success they are committed to achieving and grow in the direction of the goals they continuously pursue. Problem solvers follow a career of default, using the problems they solve as a catalyst for whatever growth they expect to experience in their professional life.
  • More, better, or different.
  • Many salespeople have the skill set necessary for success. However, they struggle with knowing exactly when and how to use the skill in a given situation.
  • For example, for field salespeople, prospecting has five associated Sandler subset skills: cold calling, correspondence, networking, referrals, and business introductions.
  • There are five key behaviors embedded in the sales motor: goal setting, initiative, vitality, ego, and time management.

 

Chapter 5: Building Trust and Comfort

  • There are six critical elements of the coaching contract:
    1. the goals for the coaching session
    2. the time commitment for the session
    3. the agenda that details the exact topics to be covered
    4. the coaching methodology to be utilized
    5. the environment to be created
    6. the follow-up actions to stay on track.
  • Three P’s of Trust in order to foster this atmosphere: potency, permission, and protection.

 

Chapter 6: Coaching: A Process, Not an Event

  • Luis was also creating “learned helplessness” by building an atmosphere where his people weren’t growing.
  • To create a proper environment, the coach should ideally schedule a 30-minute meeting in a private room where both parties are comfortable.
  • Strategic coaching helps the salesperson think differently and plan for success more effectively. Tactical coaching, on the other hand, is focused on better execution of the current skill set.
  • Tactical coaching is usually focused on briefing or debriefing sales calls and conducting role-plays that involve a buyer/seller situation in which the coach can witness the sale from the salesperson’s perspective.
  • Play the Movie Whenever a coach is involved in tactical coaching, it is important to help the salesperson see the problem by walking him through the event in a slow methodical process.
  • The Seven-Step Sandler Coaching System Methodology
    1. Assess Current Status
    2. Establish Growth Goals
    3. Define New Behavior
    4. Execute New Behavior
    5. Review Progress: The Sandler Success Triangle, formed by connecting behavior, attitude, and technique, is the perfect strategy to utilize during these check-ins.
    6. Modify Behavior
    7. Evaluate Success:
  • The behavior journal plays a key role. The salesperson records daily progress by writing a short plan each morning prior to beginning the day.
  • At the end of the day, the salesperson should write a debrief report outlining all accomplishments.
  • Encourage self-coaching and peer-to-peer coaching

 

Chapter 7: Understanding Salespeople

  • Coaching fails whenever the coach takes ownership of the salesperson’s growth—instead of using coaching to ignite the salesperson’s personal passion.
  • Nearly two-thirds of her sales force said the number one reason they showed up for work was “security”!
  • What (the goal or purpose of the coaching process), why (the unique reason for the salesperson to change behavior), and impact (what happens if the behavior pattern doesn’t change) are the three critical areas every coach must explore, in the course of a coaching session, to support constructive change.
  • To get to the core of any motivation, ask 5 Whys

 

Chapter 8: The Coach’s Toolbox

  • Advanced questioning strategies
    1. reversing (answering a question with a question). Responding to a question with a question in order to clarify its meaning or gather more information.
    2. strip-lining (raising a possibility that is the opposite of what the other person expects to hear from you). Think of strip-lining as what you do instead of contradicting the other person or trying to change the other person’s opinion.
    3. active listening (shown by questions and statements indicating you have been listening without an agenda)
    4. Dummy Curve (which includes asking questions that suggest you might know less than you actually do) can all prove helpful in gathering critical information. The Dummy Curve technique is based on the idea that the other person, either the prospect in a selling situation or the salesperson in a coaching situation, must do 70% of the talking during the session.
  • The feedback loop has five stages:
    1. Salesperson’s assessment
    2. Coach’s assessment
    3. Awareness gap analysis
    4. Real-time understanding
    5. Ownership of feedback:
  • The first step in the template was solely designed to build the relationship; the second step was designed to build a roadmap including a timeline for actions both parties would take; the third step involved determining the pain; the fourth step involved exploring budget and the prospect’s decision process. The presentation and product demo took place in the fifth step, after about thirty days and three meetings. Carlos would negotiate value and onboard the new client in the next two steps.
  • Four important elements an effective coach incorporates into his strategic thinking process in order to be more effective are listed below.
    • Challenge: The effective coach challenges the thinking of the salesperson as well as his own thoughts about the situation.
    • Broaden: The effective coach widens each coaching situation to its broadest point by asking exploratory questions designed to touch upon even the fringe areas of the issue in question.
    • Deepen: The effective coach probes below the surface of the issue to discover any potential “iceberg effects.”
    • Learn: The effective coach continuously learns new approaches to address all the issues salespeople bring to the table.
  • The Sandler Coaching Funnel
    1. What are you trying to accomplish? What is the goal or problem resolution?
    2. What is driving this goal or problem resolution?
    3. What actions have you taken so far?
    4. What roadblocks do you have to overcome?
    5. What is your level of motivation to change?
    6. What’s holding you back from achieving the goal or solving the problem?
    7. What is your level of commitment to success?
    8. How do you benefit from accomplishing the goal or solving the problem?
    9. What meaningful action can you take at this time to make progress?
    10. How can I [the coach] help you achieve the goal or solve the problem?
  • The coach typically reviews the journal with the salesperson after twenty days of the salesperson’s executing the activity. The 20-day review is important as it removes performance spikes, both high and low, and helps both coach and salesperson focus on the pattern of behavior creating the belief system. Reviewing the journal daily is not effective. It
  • The morning page consists of feelings at the start of the day and personal and professional goals for the day. These goals are designed to drive behavior that improves the salesperson’s professional success and strengthens his inner beliefs.
  • The coach, in turn, keeps a similar journal about the salesperson to record progress, and this is reviewed with the salesperson every ninety days.
  • Coaches should also keep a private journal on each of the salespeople they coach.

 

Chapter 9: Thoughts Influence Performance

  • 5-5-5 phone methodology: five minutes to prepare, five minutes for the call, and five minutes to debrief the result.
  • Change the opening to, “Have I caught you at a bad time?”
  • Salespeople must set short-term goals, accomplished daily, to help build a success track.
  • Practice in the salesperson’s world means role-play.

 

Chapter 10: Becoming a High-Performance Coach

  • There are four keys to building a successful guidance system for a salesperson:
    1. Analyzing the strength of the relationship between the coach and salesperson.
    2. Setting realistic coaching goals, including the timeframe for accomplishing them.
    3. Establishing a communication style that fits the salesperson’s personality.
    4. Applying the Sandler coaching methodology within the context of the selling situation.
  • Here are some examples of the behavioral metrics I use to create a performance bar for a sales team.
    1. Number of “suspects” at the start of each week.
    2. First face-to-face appointments.
    3. Active qualified proposals.
    4. Number of “close the sale” meetings.
    5. Number of prospecting hours.
  • The effective coach understands the systematic approach today’s buyers use in their attempts to control the sales call. At Sandler Training, we refer to this control as the “prospect’s system.”
    • It begins with the buyer misleading the salesperson by feigning interest.
    • From this step, the system moves forward to a request for a proposal, and evolves into a false negotiating process where the salesperson is forced to lower the price, sacrifice margin, and make general concessions to entice the buyer to act.
    • In the final stage, the buyer, having negotiated multiple proposals from several sources, no longer has a need for the losing salesperson, avoids all contact, and moves on.
  • As I’ve noted elsewhere in this book, it’s important for coaches to keep an ongoing journal of the information gathered during coaching sessions.

 

Chapter 11: Moving Forward

  • Coaches must focus on the big picture and define coaching objectives for each salesperson and session. They must establish guiding principles and nurture every relationship while creating a low-stress environment.
  • Developing relationships with prospects, finding reasons for them to act, and presenting a solution (personalized to prospects’ needs) are the keys to Sandler selling success.
  • Ten coaching best practices
    1. View coaching as a process, not an event.
    2. Integrate coaching into the company culture.
    3. Instill personal accountability in the mind of the salesperson.
    4. Eliminate the “called to the principal’s office” mentality.
    5. Begin with a full assessment of each salesperson.
    6. Resist the urge to simply fix short-term problems.
    7. Block the urge to get creative or to wing it.
    8. Be ready to deal with internal, personal issues the salesperson faces as well as external, more obvious problems.
    9. Build a self-coaching model that the salesperson can use between sessions.
    10. Stick to facts.
  • The methodology you’ve learned in these pages creates a blueprint for success known as the Sandler Change Triangle. This model is based on raising salespeople’s capacity for higher performance, improving competency so they can rise above the sales problems holding growth hostage, and expanding capability when they are in the selling arena.
  • The most effective coaching helps the salesperson focus on becoming rather than just doing.
  • 23 Action Steps to Build Coaching Effectiveness (this summary only lists 4 of the 23)
    1. Help salespeople set long-term and short-term goals that they are 100% committed to achieving. Use the Rule of Three and Two to develop both personal and professional goals.
    2. Begin coaching the middle 60% of your sales force.
    3. Incorporate coaching time in your weekly calendar.
    4. Use journaling to track each salesperson’s growth and progress.

 

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