David Brock | A Sales Guy

Coaching Matters

Last week I posted my thoughts on people who are coachable. My take, it’s the most important trait you can hire for. You can see the post here.

One of the most interesting things about the post was a comment left by David Brock CEO and Founder of Partners in Excellence, a sales consulting firm. David made the point that just as important to finding good coachable people, was making sure those people had coaches.

. . . Great managers need to both coach and be coachable.

We do face a real challenge, hiring people that are coachable is great, but they need to get the right coaching. Too few managers invest the time in coaching or coach effectively.

While the data is a few years old, we did a survey of several 100 sales managers a few year ago. One question was, “How frequently do you coach each sales person?” The response astounded us, 68% coached their sales people once a quarter or less.

Managers don’t understand coaching and don’t integrate coaching into the fabric of the business. To drive high performance, it’s critical to have coachable people, but it’s as critical to coach them!

David makes a great point. To hire coachable people and then not coach them is not only inefficient, but foolish. We need to coach the coachable.

My management style is to coach. Some people like it and others can’t stand it. To me a coaches job is to bring people along. It is to get as much out of them as possible. Coaching is about providing people the support, feedback, and honesty that will allow them to grow and be the best they can possible be. Not everyone likes to be coached as they don’t like to be told they aren’t good at something, or that they need to improve. A lot of people don’t like the openness and exposure that comes with coaching.

It’s because of this, coaching is hard. Coaching takes an investment in people, management doesn’t. Management isn’t an investment in people, it’s an investment in process, goals, and delivery. People are just another resource to be managed. This can work in the short-term, but not in the long-term.

Coaching is an investment people. To be a coach takes time, commitment and understanding. Coaching requires an understanding of the person as a person, what their motives are, their career aspirations, their strengths and weaknesses, their capabilities, their learning style, their personality, and more. Coaching embraces the individual not the resource.

I like this part of leadership. I get motivated and inspired by watching others reach their goals, grow as individuals and achieve greatness. Because of this, I coach.

I invest in the people that work for me. I challenge them to set higher goals. I look to understand who they are and how they tick. I want to know why they do what they do everyday, how they do it, what they want to do next, what causes them anxiety, what is a breeze, what they use as a crutch and what they avoid. It all helps me to be a better coach. I look to coach my people every chance I get. Like David said, it’s not a quarterly effort, but should be an ongoing process. Coaching happens throughout the days, weeks, and months. Coaching is situationally driven. Coaching is about capitalizing on situations. Coaching requires being on the lookout to provide opportunities for growth or improvement. Good coaches provide support when the opportunities appear, not at some regularly scheduled time.

I like what David said. He’s right. Hiring coachable people is only half of the effort. Coaching them is the other half. Hire coaches and hire coachable people and then coach them. It makes all the difference in the world.

What is Effective Coaching? (socyberty.com)

July 13, 2010 | Filed under: Career Development,Leadership,Personal Development | View Comments |

Strategy + Tactics=”Tactegic”

My friend David Brock wrote a great post the other day called, Being “Tactegic.” He talks about sales people and our tendency to be too tactical.

I realized the sales people were focused purely on tactics—it was like watching a ping pong match. The customer would hit the ball, the sales person would respond, things kept going until someone missed. Sales people act then react–almost taking a random walk through the deal.

I think David is spot on with this. Far too often sales people are reactive. There are a lot of reasons for it. Lack of sales talent or sales skills, sales management, customer buying habits, quota, the market etc. all contribute to sales people taking a reactive and tactical approach to sales.

I like to think of this type of sales as “go get a rock” sales. The customer asks for something, the sales person goes and gets it. The customer wants a particular feature the sales person comes back and yells at product because they will lose the deal if it the feature can’t be added yesterday. As David says it’s like watching a ping pong match.

The tactical is important. However, David got it right in talking about the highest performers.

The highest performers think several steps ahead . . . They blend their tactics and execution with their overall strategy to win the deal as quickly and efficiently as possible. The best sales people are “Tactegic.”

Go get a rock sales doesn’t scale. It won’t keep a company in the lead. Go get a rock sales uses customer knowledge not to sell but to justify customer product demands. Go get a rock sales offers little in the form of demand creation. Worse, there is little relationship depth with this type of tactical selling.

Optimal selling environments are “tactegic.” They balance a strategic approach with tactical execution. They are playing chess rather than ping-pong.

A recent customer of mine would say he has no time for vendors. He would continually remind us that he didn’t want to be telling us what he wanted, but wanted us to tell him what he needed. He hated the go get a rock game. He was a great partner and to this day a good friend. Not all customers will do this for you. They won’t make it easy to be “tactegic”. You’re going to have to figure it out on your own.

I can spot a tactical sales team in a minute. They’re the ones looking for the rock.

May 18, 2010 | Filed under: The Chase,Uncategorized | View Comments |

Is Sales “STUCK?”

Consultative selling, Spin selling, Selling 2.0, Provocative selling, we’ve heard them all. But, are they innovative? Are they bringing anything new to the table. David Brock at Partners in Excellence Blog has been asking this question a lot. Innovation in Sales; An Oxymoron?

David makes an interesting point:

. . . with all the talk going on, when you peel everything back, have things really changed? Customers still avoid wanting to speak with sales people. We hear too much about sales people pushing products, not understanding customer problems and creating value, and the list goes on. Often, it seems to me, we are having the same conversation repeatedly. Sometimes we change the word or methodology, sometimes we add technology or tools so we can do this stuff at the speed of light, sometimes we disguise it with new buzzwords, but somehow it seems that things aren’t changing.

I think David is on to something. I often wonder the same thing. Is sales changing? Is sales being innovative. Is the profession and how we practice it growing? Has there been any innovation in sales in the past 50 years?

This is the next topic on Sales Smack tomorrow night at 7:00 EST. Jump in with us as we try to break down what is happening in sales and what is really happening to the second oldest profession in the world.

Sales Smack is an open forum where everyone get’s a chance to share their opinion. A live, open, conference call on TalkShoe, where we break down sales topics in an open podcast forum.

See you there.

January 25, 2010 | Filed under: Sales Process,TalkShoe Events,The Chase | View Comments |

TalkShoe: Sales Smack

Tonight was the first Sales Smack even on Talk Shoe. I talked about it last week. You can listen to the replay here.

I thought the idea had potential, but like anything you try for the first time you’re never quite sure how it’s going to turn out. The topic was; Is Sales Responsible for a Companies Growth? We had good attendance. David Brock, Paul Dunay, Shane Gibson, Tibor Shanto, and Jerry Kennedy, where just some of the folks on the call.

The call exceeded expectations. It was a killer event. There was good discussion. It was lively, energetic, funny, and informative.

I came up with the idea, because I wanted to do a Podcast type event, but I didn’t want it to be a stiff, talking heads, static event. Tonight was far from that. There were a lot of good tweets and folks really enjoyed the interaction.

I learned a lot by engaging with this group and that was the icing on the cake. I went in with one opinion and walked out with a better one. My perspective grew from the call. In my opinion, that is what good social engagement does.

We’ll be doing Sales Smack every other Tuesday at 7:00 EST. The Next Event: Does Sales Need to Innovate? If so how do we do it?

Maybe we’ll see you next time. For more info just go here.

Sales Smack, Talk Shoe, and Other Topics (thecustomercollective.com)

January 13, 2010 | Filed under: Business Performance,TalkShoe Events,The Chase | View Comments |

I Fricking Love The Sales Process

I’m sure many of you have figured out, I’m not your typical process guy. I’m not a big fan of process, but, there are a few places where process works. The sales cycle is one of them.

David Brock thew out this sales process post last week, But We Have A Sales Process . . . It’s a good post on why a Sales Process is necesssary. I agree with much of it. His post went and got Anthony Iannariono all fired up. In response, Anthony posted this: Sales Process Problems: Turn by Turn Guidance is Unavailable. I agree with much of what he says too. They are both good posts.

After all this Sales Process talk, I had to jump in. I love fricking sales processes. This is where I agree with David. They work. BUT, I don’t measure activity and this is where I agree with Anthony. Measuring activity does nothing but constrict the sales team.

I measure results.

Every sales cycle has a series of customer events or triggers that almost always happen before the deal closes. In almost all cases they happen in a linear fashion, ie one happens before the next one happens. These events are customer driven not vendor driven. They are based on how the customer buys. They could be the combination of signing of an NDA, the approval of budget, a pilot, the creation of a evaluation team, a solution assessment and contract signing (a six stage sales process). It could simply be a face to face meeting, a trial and approval from the CEO (a three stage sales process). What it is doesn’t matter. Knowing what it is matters.

Most sales processes focus internally and are activity based. They don’t work. Activity management doesn’t guarantee results. A sales process needs to map to the decision process of your customers. How does your customer buy? What steps do they take before they agree to buy? What support must be had? What processes must be followed? Who’s approvals must be gained? What must happen before money goes out the door? Figure out these questions and you have your sales process.

Every company has a process for buying new stuff. Go figure it out. Then build your sales process around that. Don’t make it activity based. Make it results based. Let your sales people figure out for themselves how they are going to get their prospect to “create an evaluation team” or get “the CEO’s approval.” That’s their job. Just don’t let them move past that stage in the sales cycle until they figure it out. Because, that’s your job.

December 16, 2009 | Filed under: Sales Leadership,Sales Process,The Chase,What I Think! | View Comments |

Sunday Morning Blog: Partners In Excellence

It’s been awhile since my last Sunday Morning Blog. I need to get better at this. However, if I don’t find a blog I like during the week, it’s fruitless to make one up. This week was easy as David Brock author of Partners in Excellence put out a good blog. His passion for sales is clear. He’s not afraid to take a contrarian view. He pushes conventional wisdom, while supporting the status-quo when it works. David’s blog is a easy to read, easy to digest and always give’s you something to think about.

He takes on more than just sales, tackling general business, marketing and leadership.

Here is a taster; It’s good stuff:

-Do you Trust Your People Enough to Let Them Succeed?

- The Pipeline Review – an Underused and Under-Appreciated Coaching Opportunity

- Does Your Customer Have a Need to Buy?

David is also a generous Twitterer, put good stuff out and he’ll retweet it. Check him out, it’s worth it.

Happy Sunday morning reading!

August 30, 2009 | Filed under: Sunday Morning Blog | View Comments |