The Importance Of Coaching In The Day And In The Moment

[Kevin Price]: Welcome back to the Price of Business. I am your host Kevin Price. Talking about you and your business. I tell you guys like Kirk they fire me up man I am tellin yah you need to go, by the way, to my page over there on FaceBook and put in Kevin Price. Or hey, go just to face book and put in Kirk Ziglar, I am tellin yah folks you want to become friends with him. Tell him Kevin Price sent you, he is a good guy. Let me tell you about another great guy, he is one of my favorite features we do every single week on The price of business is learning about sales, sales management, customer service management, the whole nine yards with one of the world premier experts on that subject, that is my good friend Walter Rogers; I always look forward to having you on the program, especially when we get you Walter. Welcome to the program.

[Walter Rogers]: Hey thanks Kevin. You are making me blush with that world expert comment.

[KP]: Well absolutely, Baker Communications is in our own back yard but, your footprint is around the globe.

[WR]: We love that, we love serving customers all over the world, absolutely, but we also love Houston TX our headquarters. It is a glorious day here today Kevin isn’t it, it’s about 70 degrees.

[KP]: Oh my goodness, it’s incredibly nice, you know right now we are usually in the high 80’s, as you know, here in Houston. I couldn’t be more delighted with the weather we are enjoying today, absolutely. Tell us what you’ve got lined up for us my friend.

[WR]: So, we have been talking about sales management and the twelve behaviors that the best sales managers we observe actually exhibit. Today’s topic is about coaching and the importance of coaching in the day and in the moment; as we say Kevin.

[KP]: Yep very good. You know I think that is part of the problem people in sales have is they are held hostage by clients that have not said yes or they are speculating about the future rather than being available to the clients that they’re dealing with today.

[WR]: Yep. Yep. Yep. Most managers are still, unfortunately, spreadsheet jockeys, as we call them, they are managing the numbers and not necessarily helping their people develop their skills, develop their talent, look for additional opportunities. Today’s really all about coaching, a great way to think about it is, and I know you have some strong opinions about the sports team here in Houston Kevin.

[KP]: Wahoo!

[WR]: So maybe we don’t get into those but, the sports analogies always seem to work.

[KP]: We have won four series in a row, our Astros did. I am okay on the Astros right now. If you take the last ten games, we are one of the strongest teams in the National league. So, you know.

[WR]: Let’s keep that going forward for sure. Coaching is a great thing to talk about because, the coaches that are running these teams, you know what do you think they are doing, when the game is unfolding and maybe a player isn’t pitching right or they are not throwing right or they’re not catching right or they have missed a block or whatever; do you think they wait until three weeks later to have a conversation about that?

[KP]: Nooo. No. They want to know talk right at the moment of what worked or what didn’t work

[WR]: Exactly right. That’s the time where you have the most amount of impact, the information is most current, most relevant and you can give specific coaching advice as to how to improve that behavior that performance or whatever it is you are trying to attack. But Kevin, when do you think most managers today actually coach?

[KP]: I think they probably do quarterly reviews, those types of things. Your basic reviews, whether or not you need it is when they do it.

[WR]: Whether or not you need it is when they do it and typically is when there is some type of problem that comes up. It’s typically not coaching it’s more, “Hey this problem just came up and we need to fix it.” And the manager will do what? They will fix the problem for that sales professional so, that doesn’t really help the sales professional grow.

[KP]: Right.

[WR]: There are some substantial differences between management and coaching. I don’t if you have had a chance to look at the article we just posted today, so probably not. But, we have a list of differences between how a manager approaches a certain situation and how coach approaches a specific situation. But we do not have time to go into all of them but. We can certainly talk about a few.

[KP]: Yah, I prefer not going though all of them because, I want everyone to go over there to Houstonbusinessdaily.com, our sister website, and look at that article. I am sure it is phenomenal, like everything else you have done. I have been boasting about the fact that you are building a book there. I look forward to seeing that book and looking forward to that happening. So go right ahead, jump right in.

[WR]: So here is just a handful, help me go through these. A typical manager is going to answer a question when a sales rep asks him a question and sometimes that’s what you need to do. “How much am I going to get paid?” “Well you are going to get paid X.” But in other cases simply giving an answer isn’t really helping that sales rep develop any critical thinking skills on their own. So, a coach handles that a little bit differently. A coach would ask some additional questions to help that rep really better understand his own options and strategies. Because Kevin, isn’t it better to come up with your own answer than to be given an answer?

[KP]: Right. Exactly. Then you own it, if you came up with the answer it’s your answer, it’s not someone answering for you.

[WR]: Exactly right. You own it and then of course as coach you can help shape what the answers are that that sales professional is giving you to guide him and steer him in the right direction. But at least that person has a vested interest in what those answers are and you own those answers.

[KP]: Right. Very good.

[WR]: Another example is managers are great at describing what excellence is to a team.

[KP]: Okay

[WR]: However, they don’t necessarily model that excellence. “It’s do as a say not as I do.” A coach is really going to model the excellence and works with the team members, they’re monitors, coaches and mentors; is what excellence really means. So there is a difference between asking for a specific behavior and exhibiting that behavior themselves.

[KP]: Very good. Very good. Let me ask you, and I know you want to cover, and I am looking at the article, we are only going to scratch the surface, you know that, but why is it that the manager tends to play that role verses the role that the coach plays?

[WR]: It’s easier. First of all, most managers have been promoted, that were sales reps at one point in time, and they have been promoted to sales managers or sales directors and goes up the food chain. The easiest thing for a sales rep to do when they are promoted to a sales management position is to do the work on behalf of his sales team. Because that is what got them promoted to begin with, they are very good at what they do. They are very good sales people and it is hard to stop that because it is ingrained inside of you, it’s what you have been built to do. So that is one reason.

[KP]: I think another big reason is the relationship. Coaches are, in a sense, employees of the ones they are coaching; whereas, that is not the case, obviously, with managers.

[WR]: That’s exactly right, you have to be much more empathetic, you have to almost be a sounding board and you are all about serving the requirements of somebody else instead of telling somebody what to do.

[KP]: Yah

[WR]: It is easy to tell, it is much harder to guide.

[KP]: Yah. Very good. Sorry, you know me I chase rabbits and I thought that was an important one though. I think those are the questions that a business has to ask in order to overcome those kinds of problems. Your thought?

[WR]: I couldn’t agree with you more. I don’t mind chasing these rabbits at all with you Kevin, they are always valuable. One of the other reasons that managers have a tendency of not coaching it’s really easy to manage the numbers because they are black and white and they are on a spreadsheet, you can ask questions about the numbers. When you start to talk about coaching, it gets a little bit messy because, now you are dealing with people issues and people are not black and white, they are shades of grey.

[KP]: Yah. Hey as always, you know, Walter my segments with you are among my shortest segments. You do a phenomenal job. I really want to encourage people to go to bakercommunications.com. Don’t wait go now. Bakercommunications.com. The phone number real quick?

[WR]: (713) 627-7700

[KP]: Phenomenal stuff. Do it again.

[WR]: (713)0627-7700

[KP]: You got to look at this article; tips for delivering coaching feedback. Great information and so much more. I am Kevin Price and this is The Price of Business on CNN650