Sales Coaching Blog

It’s no secret. Often times the best sales people do not make for the best sales coaches, yet sales departments continue to promote their top performers into coaching roles.

Personally, I believe this happens for 3 reasons. (1) It is how it has always been done. (2) It's easy and convenient. (3) Sales departments have yet to define what characteristics make a good sales coach and how to identify those characteristics in the candidates.

At our most recent Sales Coaching Summit, we announced our 2018 Sales Coaching Award winners. Two award recipients were recognized for not only leading their teams to excellent sales results, but doing so through the implementation of coaching best practices that allow their sales team members to grow and flourish. The highest individual honor was bestowed upon 2018 Coach of the Year, Curt Reekers of Orthopedic Solutions Inc.

One of the most valuable things about our work at EcSell is that we use data as the guiding force for our work. We don’t just guess, use our own personal experiences, or philosophize about the impact of sales coaching. Instead, who we are and what we do is based on empirical evidence.

One of our main sources of data is the EcSell Institute Through the Eyes of the Rep (TTEOTR) survey. Part of this survey asks reps to tell us what they believe their manager does best as a sales manager, or coach as we like to call this role. By analyzing what a rep perceives their manager does best, we have a window into understanding what manager behaviors reps feel benefit them the most. In other words, when we know what behaviors our reps value in their manager, we know which manager behaviors make the biggest impact. 

Sales conferences sound like the most boring events on the planet. There, I said it for you. But quite honestly, EcSell’s Sales Coaching Summit is far from boring. Most attendees leave saying it was the best investment they made for themselves, their team and their organization and some of those people weren't even in sales. Don't believe me? Read the testimonials at the bottom of this blog. 

Here are 10 reasons why our sales coaching summit is unlike any other:

I am a sucker for good openings. As a result, Simon Sinek had my full attention from the beginning of Start With Why. He punches the reader in the mouth on the first page by setting them up to make a false assumption.

He does this by giving the reader detailed information about an event, and sets the reader up to be confident he is describing John F. Kennedy, but in reality, was describing Adolph Hitler.

Losing is hard, but it is especially hard when you unconsciously correlate your loss to your sense of self-worth. Admittedly, this is something I used to struggle with early and often in my business career. I wish that I had read Maxwell’s Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn earlier in my career, but as Maxwell’s mentor, the great John Wooden said “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts”. I guess that is my silver lining, as well as everyone else’s.