How do some sales leaders consistently crush it at 200%+ Quarter-after-Quarter—while most sales managers struggle to keep up? This graphic and quick backstory pretty much sums it up. . .
I recently spoke to a GTM leader of a large legacy software company planning a large-scale transformation initiative whereby they were pivoting to a SaaS model and completely changing their sales motion.
She told me that some other folks on the Sr. Leadership team didn’t believe that coaching was important; they didn’t see it as a core part of a manager’s job.
For them it was all about the #s.
My response: “Interesting. . .”
Then I went up to the whiteboard and draw something that looked kind of like this chart as I explained. . .
Let’s juxtapose two Frontline Managers:
MANAGER A: TRADITIONALIST
He doesn’t believe coaching is part of his job—so he doesn’t do it.
Consequently, he’s perpetually stuck at PHASE 1—yelling at the scoreboard TELLING his people what to do.
(We need 3-4x pipe – more Pipeline Generation!)
However, he never invests the time to SHOW his people how to execute those critical skills/behaviors and there’s definitely no. . .
◆ OBSERVATION
◆ FEEDBACK
◆ POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT
From Performance Management we know without feedback, it’s impossible to improve performance, right?
And we know without Positive Reinforcement (R+) it’s impossible to keep a behavior going. (R+ is the “Consequence” in the A-B-C Model of Behavior Change.)
Mistakes are called out through Negative Reinforcement (R-), which only elicits minimal compliance and negative environment.
Consequently, retention becomes a serious issue and hundreds of
opportunities for incremental performance improvement pass by unnoticed.
The result: Sub-optimal, inconsistent performance and stalled careers for everyone involved.
MANAGER B: WORLD-CLASS COACH
She doesn’t just believe coaching is important. She literally sees herself as a coach. It’s a core part of her identity—who she is as a person.
The foundation of her new “coach approach” is built on Positive Reinforcement (R+) and integrating consistent execution and continuous improvement into her operational rhythm, cadence, workflow, and DNA of her sales team.
Mistakes are viewed as a natural byproduct of learning and coachable opportunities to incrementally improve her team’s performance.
Pretty soon all of these marginal gains start to compound creating massive momentum—completely transforming her people and their performance.
The result: Through systematically coaching her team, she has helped condition her people develop the habits of elite achievers.
Their new self-image is that of a corporate athletes and their short-term performance and continuous improvement becomes self-reinforcing.
THIS is how you sustain world-class, top-tier performance…
And this is why coaching is so important.
