Making the Goal Real

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything” (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

It was one of the “big birthdays” and my adult children had just told me that my gift was a week with all of them and the grandkids in the Florida Keys. Of course, the idea of a full week time with kids and grandkids was appealing. I had a vague idea, a pleasant notion, in my head about what it would mean. Soon however, dates of arrival and departure had to be decided. Airplane tickets and rental cars had to be arranged. Which fishing rods would I need? As I began to ask and answer that next level of questions, the pleasant notion became much more specific and compelling.

I was now thinking about a specific fishing trip with my seven-year-old grandson. What would I do on a beach to entertain a three-year-old granddaughter? The sharpened focus and level of detail of the new plan charged up my excitement with the trip and my commitment to what I needed to do to make it successful. My pleasant notion now had become detailed movies playing in my head about activities, results, and how they supported the objective (a great time with my grandkids).

The goal was real for me now, because I had engaged with it as I planned.

Such it is with sales planning. Every New Year starts with a new quota (always unattainable…) and a fuzzy notion of going to President’s Club, or buying a new car with the commission accelerators. Sales managers are hammering away at the need for a new account or territory sales plan, and the sales team is figuring how to accomplish that with the smallest outlay of energy possible. Because, after all, aren’t sales plans just a necessary evil, to be dispatched as quickly as possible so that the real selling can begin?

The sales wise manager-coach knows that detailed plans drive progress. Which discrete selling actions will lead to the sales results which will retire that annual goal? The mental act of defining the steps between what the situation is now and what it will be in the future is what makes the goal real and creates the commitment to achieving it. Everyone knows they have to make quota. (pleasant notion) But how are they going to do it? What elements of the overall bag of products and solutions are going to gain traction this quarter, with this set of target customers, with their own set of business goals? (Committed business plan)

The coach frames planning as the heart of every dialogue. Where do we want to be? (Clarity around the goal) What did we learn getting to where we are now? (Greater definition around environment and obstacles encountered) What’s the plan? (Actions) When we will do it? How will we know if we’re on track? (Measurement and accountability)

Done well, planning becomes the lifeblood of the selling. It flexes as it encounters reality and the environment changes. (Competitors plan, too.) It is so tightly woven into the selling and coaching that no one can question its value. It’s not a dusty document, written once a year to an unwieldy template designed by marketing people and stuffed into a drawer. It’s the way sales professionals grow their business and it changes every day, every week. It’s the enabler that gets them to President’s Club. (And you with them…)

You Don't Have to Tell Them How

I was facilitating a workshop this week which included a significant amount of sales coaching content and practice coaching within it. At one point, I broke the participants into small groups and sent them off to coach each other on the pursuit of one of their key opportunities. When they returned, I queried each of the teams on how their sessions had gone. Two of the teams reported sharply different outcomes of their coaching process. In one group, the participant who had received the sales coaching reported back strong success from the exercise. She and her coach had creatively explored the sales situation, and she reported some significant and real insights into the best approach to winning the opportunity. She was energized by the process and ready to go try the actions they had defined together. In the other group, the result was not so positive. After a little prodding, the person receiving the coaching painted a much different picture. He reported being discouraged by the lack of accomplishment and he reported no meaningful progress. Worse yet, he said he felt disrespected by the coach, and reported going along with the heavy handed solutions doled out just to get the exercise over with. All of these participants were successful sales reps and sales managers. What happened in these two sessions and why were the results so different?

In the successful session, the coach respected the front line knowledge of the rep, and listened with an attitude of curiosity as the rep laid out the story. They did not leap to a personal agenda of what the rep should do or how the deal should play out. They used their knowledge and experience to ask open ended and powerful questions that let the rep expand the level of detail of the story. Throughout, the rep was doing most of the talking. The coach fed back what they were hearing in a way that enabled the rep to see issues and gaps in their strategy that hadn’t to that point become evident. The discussion was producing clarity and awareness for the rep which enabled them to build on their own detailed situational knowledge to building a new and powerful plan that was theirs. Together they detailed out what the rep would do to take advantage of the new clarity. The rep’s personal ownership of the plan directly drove their commitment (and excitement) to play it out in their live sales situation.

The less successful coach made it about them. They listened just long enough to trigger a memory of how they had done it in the glory days. They went into telling mode - how they would attack the opportunity. They were teaching. The more successful coach made it about the rep. They let the rep explore the landscape and the options. They let them formulate their own strategy with the knowledge and skills they already largely possessed.

In that difference is the key to successful coaching. The successful coach believes (even if the rep doesn’t quite yet) that most if not all of the ingredients for success are there before the coaching begins. They understand that the coaching agenda starts with the rep and what they want to accomplish. They understand that effective coaching is all about helping the rep learn, and not about teaching them. The trick is for the coach and sales rep to work together to release the power that is already there and put it to work in the hands of the rep to create success.