Implement One-on-One Coaching in Sales by Advance

Online, May 22, 2014 (Newswire.com) - Sales coach Jeremy J. Ulmer, who lists among his credentials twice being ranked the No. 1 sales performer at two global Fortune 500 companies, says the first step to improving sales is talking directly to the team to find out what struggles they are facing. What makes their jobs difficult? What could they do better? What could they be provided with to do better?

"Sometimes they're very open and they tell you a lot of things," he says.

Other times you will have to pry a little by asking how they're managing time, what an average day looks like and to describe how they run sales call.

Then he picks one problem at a time to work on to get better results. That sometimes means removing technological distractions and giving additional management support.

Several experts recommend pairing low-performing sales representatives with successful ones. Ulmer says that strategy was a better learning experience at his first sales job with Xerox than the company's 10 weeks of official training.

Sometimes Ulmer will put a sales team on a strict schedule so they are making sales calls during dedicated blocks during the day, instead of sporadically throughout all work hours.

Limiting the coaching to specific groups of employees is often more effective than spreading it around the company as a whole, says Matt Dixon, managing director of the Corporate Executive Board.

"Coaching is not meant to be democratic," he says.

Too many managers fall back on what he calls "spreadsheet coaching," where the focus is on whether the sales staffs are hitting their numbers. Instead, you should be working closely with the individual sales representatives to understand the context of the problems.

"When it comes to coaching, they're so focused on that number and hitting that quota, they lose sight," he says. "The way that you do that is not focus on those outcomes but focus on behaviors."

Dermot Bradley who is the founder of Advance Selling Skills Academy (UK), creates what he calls a Performance Improvement Plan for each ailing salesperson he meets. It's essentially a battle plan to help the employee assault obstacles to productivity. Often times, the problem is a lack of follow through, which leads to fizzling sales momentum. Having an action plan helps keep track of things like that that might otherwise be overlooked, he says.

"That's why I try to document," he says. "I can show the sales person or manager that there's some growth or some success."

Advance's sales workshop is a must attend for all sales professionals to get a proper road map of Sales Success.

Contact Details:
Advance Selling Skills Academy Limited
Web: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/
Email: customerservices@advancetm.com
Telephone: 0845 125 9098 (UK)