With March Madness tipping off this week, I plan on getting my annual fix of college basketball. What I find striking about the annual NCAA basketball tournament is how often the same coaches – Pitino, Boeheim, Krzyzewski, and Williams, just to name a few – achieve great success. Great coaches are consistently able to get their players to play at full potential. The names are synonymous with winning, bringing their precision-tuned style of basketball to spring time like a papal conclave descending upon the Vatican.
So while you’re engrossed in this year’s tournament, ask yourself, “What are the behaviors and characteristics of successful coaches? What coaching behaviors lead to consistent success?
While we’ve written extensively on sales coaching, in our experience great coaches create a coaching culture. In other words, everyone on the team is trying to improve their skills all of the time, even the star performers.
Here are three things you can do to create a coaching culture on your sales team:
Focus on behaviors, not judgments. A great basketball coach wouldn’t say, “You really stunk it up out there!” but rather, “Let’s focus on better execution. Put a little more strength behind your passes and the result will be fewer turnovers.” Behaviors are observable, objective, specific acts or actions, whereas judgments are subjective beliefs, assumptions, or generalizations. Moreover, judgments are not helpful to the salesperson unless it is followed with a specific description of behaviors. Saying “You did a great job” is not helpful. Contrast this to “You did an excellent job when you responded by clarifying the client’s objection.”
Build trust with your team. Great coaches are trusted and respected by their teams. So how can you build trust with your team? Start by exhibiting trust behaviors since trust is earned by what you do, not what you say. These trust behaviors include:
- Not ridiculing their mistakes. No one likes being made fun of, and more importantly, it will cause your team to become defensive and not open to feedback.
- Demonstrating genuine concern for each sales person on the team and his/her development, while giving the sales professional freedom to make mistakes while learning.
- Making agreements and keep your promises.
Use the 80/20 rule for feedback. Once trust is established, the sales professional will be more receptive to receiving your coaching feedback. When giving feedback, use the 80/20 rule: 80% of feedback should be positive; 20% should be negative (or constructive). Positive feedback should be shared publicly. “Let’s hear it for Mike. He scheduled 20 appointments this month and closed five deals.” By contrast, negative feedback should be kept private. “Mike, I noticed you’ve been getting to work a little later each morning. Let’s focus on getting here by 8:30 every morning and make additional 8-10 phone calls per day.”
Creating a coaching culture is a foundational first step for building a winning team.
