Rule number 21. Empower your people to succeed without you. Coaching creates wisdom.
Now think about that for a second. Coaching is one of the four hats of leadership and you’re going to spend anywhere from 20 to 30 percent of your time as a coach.
Here’s some basic rules. Number one, coaching isn’t telling. Coaching is self-discovery. Be a doctor of sales. When you walk into a doctor’s office, they don’t tell you what your problem is, the patient tells you. And the doctor asks good questions to better understand all the hurts that they’re experiencing before they got here.
Same thing holds true with a salesperson. When they show up, they’re a painting a picture of a call or a scenario. Don’t jump in. Don’t fix it. Don’t get sued for malpractice as a doctor, what if they jumped in too soon. I want you to ask good questions. I want you to have patience. I don’t want you to tell them the answer. I want them to self-discover the answer and to use your questioning skills to better understand what the scenario was and what maybe could they have done differently.
The other thing that I want you to understand is coaching is a journey and if you were to take the top 10 sales behaviors and map where people are today and where they should be, so if I’m a two on prospecting and I think I should be a seven and I can get there within 12 months, that’s an area that I could help you through training and coaching become from a two to a seven.
And the important thing is, what’s the impact? If you became a seven, what does that do to your book of business? What does that do to your corporate goal? What does that do to your personal goal? And once I’m energized as your sales person because you’re coaching me, you’re showing me that you care about me, you’re showing me how to succeed. You’re showing me how to farm and fish, to use that analogy. I will always be in your debt. And I look at you much differently than I do and as a supervisor who just says, “Read my card. I’m the leader. You’re not. Follow me.” That’s not coaching. Coaching is based on trust, respect, and confidence and conviction that you’re looking after my best interests.
So it’s important. Training is not coaching. Don’t let your ego take over in a coaching session and the minute you hear yourself saying, “Hey do this, this, this, and this” because you’re impatient or you got 1,000 things going on, you’re off on the wrong track. Slow down. Don’t be sued for malpractice. Your ultimate goal is I want my people to be self-sufficient. When my people can connect dots and operate within the guard rails and are self-sufficient, I am a success. Good luck.
