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Most frontline sales managers get promoted into the role on the back of being superstar salespeople. So why do so many struggle to succeed in a management role? Well, it turns out that being a top sales manager takes a completely different set of skills to being a top salesperson, not least the ability to be an effective coach.
Common wisdom says that it takes years of experience to become a great coach, as you need to have seen a wide range of scenarios before you can start dishing out advice. However, frontline sales managers don’t have the luxury of time as they are expected to deliver results instantly.
What if there was a way to accelerate the learning process? Well, there just might be.
Matt Benelli is at the forefront of solving this problem as co-founder of Coachem and shares his wisdom in this week’s podcast. From how to step back from trying to do it all yourself, to how to personalize your coaching approach for each of your direct reports, to what data to use to identify coaching opportunities, there’s a ton of actionable advice in here. It’s a must listen for anyone who is a new frontline sales manager, anyone who is managing a frontline sales manager and anyone eyeing sales management as the next step in their career.
Podcast contents
0:30 Can you tell us about Coachem and the problem you’re solving?
3:50 What are the top skills gaps that you see in frontline sales managers?
6:30 Why do frontline sales managers need to step back and not try to do everything themselves?
7:30 What would you do differently if you treated each of your salespeople like the biggest deals you’ve ever closed in your career?
8:55 The 6 elements of a coaching framework: Trust, Personalized Focus, Role Modeling, Deliberate Practice, Immediate Feedback, Consistency.
12:30 Why “do it like me” is the death knell for performance.
14:00 The importance of personalized focus.
15:30 What does deliberate practice entail?
19:30 The dangers of asking too many questions without first establishing trust and credibility.
22:30 Balancing short term performance pressures with long term coaching by using data.
29:00 How to drive immediacy of feedback.
32:30 How preparation and practice improves objection handling.
If you enjoyed listening to my conversation with Matt, you’ll love listening to this one from the archives with Bernadette, who recently went through the transition from AE to sales manager and shares what she learned.
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How to coach your frontline sales managers to get the best out of your salespeople - a convo with Matt Benelli, CRO of Coachem.