10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Sales Coach

1. What is your personal track record of success in sales coaching?

Here’s some examples of projects that I sold and led.

• Telecoms – $USD 51m (in just 19 weeks)
• Pharma (Canada) – $CDN 120m (in 9 months)
• Data Analytics (Canada) – $CDN 10m (12 mths)
• Large Life Insurance (UK) –£ 82m (in 12 mths)
• Steel Fabrication– $USD 10m (from $USD 20m base in 2 years)

This is not true for many sales coaches as they do not have the credentials of being a sales coach in a large organization multiple times. And, many sales coaches do not have extensive experience building, developing and managing sales forces.

This may give you the impression that I only work for large organizations. On the contrary helping coach family business owners has become more prevalent including Genzink Steel, a steel fabrication company employing 65 people or a silk screen printer Ace-Hi with 35 employees or a Data Center Company, Global Access Point employing 20 people.

See Nick’s Linkedin Profile for his endorsements and recommendations

2. How do you tailor your sales coaching to my needs and situation?

Many sales coaching programs simply lack the diagnostic skills to pinpoint where least effort can produce best pay-off. The other reason is that many competitors do not take into account fully the financial, sales pipeline pressures that often mean coaching does not follow a cookie cutter sequence. Lastly, most coaches rely on accounts of what happened and not using a rigorous approach to observing sales performance.

3. Does your coach raise the Developing Sales Skills Problem?

1. Sales Training is wasteful on its own – 80% of their value ,even a good training program, is lost in 3 months
2. Coaching improves performance but
3. Coaching and Practice produces the best results

Overall, sustainable change in sales behavior occurs with intensity first. By this I mean coaching and practice in a compressed time frame. Then sustained performance can be maintained at less frequent intervals (monthly) see my blog “Quality Sales Managers Matter”

4. What is your general sales philosophy?

Sales coaches base their approach too often on what they did they believe made them successful. If you probe, you will find many lack a sound research basis and fall back on the mantras of charismatic sales gurus. This results in the coach focusing more on the seller’s perspective than the customer’s buying process. Consequently, their coaching lacks competitive and strategic focus.

5. What professional coach training do you have?

The reality is that good sales people don’t always make good coaches and  have very little professional coaching training.  If they do not have this training, you may not receive all the support you need around motivation, focus, changing your mind-set, accountability, and being able to support you towards success in your entire life.

I will go one further if they haven’t extensively developed sales coaches, like I have, and really don’t have a good claim on being a superior sales coach – I do.

6. What am I committing to financially?

Many sales coaches often seek commitments of 6 months or more with you having to put a lot of money up front. The risk is that you don’t see the results you want and then, you are stuck.

My approach relies on research that shows you need to commit to a 12 to 16 week project of you are going to embed new skills into your sales repertoire. So, a typical coaching project includes:

1. Set up session – 2 hours which will cover:

• Effective Sales Behaviors based on the relevant sales research. For example, SPIN Related Insurance Sales Research.
• Diagnosis of your sales challenges and setting recording a live sales call
• How the routine of coaching – practice – live observation works.
• Action planning include things to focus on in preparing for a meeting.

2. Inter-session observation and analysis to build a behavior profile –

The number of these sessions depends on two factors:

• Your ability to provide recorded sales calls
• You progress

3. 5-6 Coaching Sessions – 1-2 Hours ea.

Consisting of observing or listening to a real call followed by feedback and coaching session together with action planning

1. After each session your behavior profile is updated to measure your progress against researched measures, e.g. do you ask more questions that make statements?
2. Accessing further materials to aid your practice

7. What experience do you have managing or leading a sales force?

Often a sales coach may have experience selling, but they will have little or no experience actually managing, developing and leading sales teams. If you are a business owner focused on building and developing your sale team, then you need a sales coach who has something of value to offer. I have led and coached sale forces over many years and to measurable success.

8. How did you end up becoming a sales coach?

Unlike many coaches I didn’t come to this role by default, burnout or lay off. My mission is:

A seeker pure light whose journey fulfills others

I love to coach selling and change people’s lives in the process.

9. How else can you support me to meet my goals?

The sales coach you are thinking about hiring may know how to sell, but lack’s the necessary skills to give the support you need when it comes to mindset, motivation, focus, productivity, effectiveness, and discipline. Teaching and sharing new skills is just one small piece of effective sales coaching. When an expert sales coach can support you with all the intangibles, far greater results are possible. Pay attention to how they answer this question and ask for examples.

10. Can you show me new and creative ways to increase sales?

If the sales coach is not aware of how to use social media, blogs, website marketing, SEO, AdWords, effective article writing and publication, LinkedIn and other similar tools to grow their own business, how can they help you to grow yours?

Technology is always changing and there are ways to use it to increase your sales results. Find a sales coach who is using these tools to grow their sales coaching business. Find a sales coach who can show you how to generate leads, contact new prospects and network effectively in the modern era of sales. If they don’t use these tools, keep on looking.

Next Steps

Book your first session for me to understand you needs and what outcomes so that I can see if I can help. (I don’t charge for this first consultation). Also, before we talk you might like to note down your needs and desired outcomes so we can use out time to best effect. Here”s some idea starters