What Do I Actually Mean by Sales Coaching?

I have a very simple way of explaining the difference between training and coaching.

Training is putting in. Coaching is pulling out.

When I'm training, I'm generally bringing something to the conversation: an idea, a technique, a framework, some information or perhaps a different way of doing something.

When I'm coaching, I'm much more likely to be asking questions. I'm trying to get the other person thinking, drawing on what they already know, making sense of what's happening and deciding what they want to do about it.

Simple enough.

Except that's not quite the whole story.

Because I'm not particularly interested in being a coaching purist.

I'm interested in results.

Sometimes I'll coach

A lot of the time, the person I'm coaching already has plenty of knowledge. They don't need me to give them another answer. They need some space to think.

Perhaps they're working on a live opportunity. A customer conversation hasn't gone as expected. They're preparing for an important meeting. An account isn't moving. Or they simply know something isn't quite right but haven't worked out what yet.

That's where questions become useful.

• What are you trying to achieve?
• What's actually happening?
• What have you tried?
• What might you be assuming?
• What does the customer appear to be thinking?
• What aren't you seeing?
• What could you do differently?

I'm not asking questions simply because that's what coaches are supposed to do. I'm asking because sometimes a good question does more for someone's thinking than another piece of advice.

Ideally, they leave with greater clarity about what they're going to do.

Sometimes I'll train

But let's say you simply don't know how to do something.

I could sit there stroking my chin and asking increasingly profound questions until lunchtime.

You still don't know how to do it.

That's when I'll shift. I'll explain something, share a technique, show you a framework or give you an example. Perhaps we'll practise it. Then we can go back into coaching and work out how you're going to apply it.

That's not failed coaching.

That's giving you what you need at that moment.

Sales coaching doesn't have to mean pure coaching applied to salespeople. Sometimes the route to better performance includes coaching, training and mentoring.

The clue is in the result

Perhaps my sports background influences how I think about this.

Look at an elite athlete. They might have somebody working on technique, somebody working on conditioning and somebody working on mindset. Those people won't all work in exactly the same way.

Nor should they.

What matters is what that athlete needs in order to develop and perform.

I think sales coaching is similar. There are times when I'll pull out and times when I'll put in. I might challenge, share my experience or simply shut up and give somebody enough room to work something out for themselves.

The method serves the result.

Not the other way around.

This isn't a disguised deal review

There's another distinction worth making.

Sales managers sometimes say they're coaching when what they're really doing is reviewing deals.

• What's happening with this opportunity?
• When is it closing?
• Who's involved?
• What's the next step?
• What do we need to do to move it forward?

All useful questions.

But there's another question worth asking:

Are we developing the deal or the salesperson?

The two aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, I like coaching through live opportunities because we're working on something that actually matters.

But while we're improving the opportunity in front of us, I'm also interested in developing thinking and capability that can be used on the next one. And the one after that.

That's an important difference.

Fixing this deal is useful. Developing somebody who becomes better at working their deals has a much longer-lasting result.

What should you expect if I'm coaching you?

This is probably the useful bit if I've sent you this article before we start working together.

Don't arrive expecting me to have all the answers. I won't. And even when I think I might have one, I may not give it to you immediately.

Expect questions and expect some challenge. We'll work on real situations rather than interesting sales theory, and I may occasionally ask something and then leave enough silence for you to actually think about it.

Also expect me to shift gears.

If you know enough, I'll probably pull. If there's something useful I can add, I'll put in. If sharing an experience will move your thinking forward, I'll share it. If practice would be useful, we'll practise.

Because the objective isn't for us to finish the session and agree that we had a lovely coaching conversation.

Something should happen as a result.

Bring something real

This is probably the biggest thing you can do to get value from our coaching.

Bring your world with you.

That could be an opportunity, an account, a meeting you're preparing for, a conversation you're avoiding, something that happened last week, a decision you're wrestling with, a skill you're trying to develop or a result you're trying to achieve.

We can work with that.

I've said for years that Implementation beats Information. The same applies to coaching. We're not there to collect clever ideas or add more notes to a notebook.

We're there to do something with them.

And between sessions...

Do the thing.

That sounds ridiculously obvious, but coaching only becomes valuable when something happens outside the coaching conversation.

Try the question. Change the approach. Have the conversation. Prepare differently. Test the idea.

Then bring back what happened.

It worked? Good. Why?

It didn't? Also useful. What happened? What did you notice? What would you change next time?

That reflection matters because development isn't one and done. Learning something, applying it, reflecting on the result and adjusting what you do next is how something gradually becomes part of how you work.

Putting in. Pulling out. Getting results.

So yes, my simple distinction still stands:

Training is putting in. Coaching is pulling out.

But good sales coaching needs a little more flexibility than that.

Sometimes you need somebody to get you thinking. Sometimes you need challenge, experience or information. Sometimes you need to practise. And sometimes you need somebody to ask the right question and then keep quiet.

A good coach should be able to recognise the difference and shift accordingly.

Because coaching isn't the result.

Better performance is.

And that's what we're there to work on.

Fred Copestake
Coach