Sales Coaching: Mistakes to Avoid

With 62% of French people wanting an ‘ideal’ manager who can motivate and coach their employees, management must now reinvent itself to combine the listening and benevolence of a coach with the raw performance evaluation of a traditional manager.

Sales coaching is now essential for talent development and retention. Furthermore, it’s a key method to support your employees in continuous learning in their role, serving individual and collective performance.

What are the pitfalls to avoid for coaching to be successful?

1. Do not confuse coaching with account review

Coaching should be a privileged moment between manager and salesperson to review the latter’s development. It’s an opportunity to identify the salesperson’s progress and areas for improvement, and to renew their objectives. It is by no means a discussion focused on operational matters and the employee’s numerical results.

2. Don’t be afraid to dedicate time to sales coaching

Don’t rush. Each coaching session has its own pace; you will gradually observe the positive consequences on growth. It’s not about rushing your employees to find their solutions or giving them the same preconceived framework of objectives they should impose on themselves, but rather respecting their individual development paces.

3. Beware of overestimating your expertise as a manager

A manager-coach must adopt a ‘connector-manager’ stance, meaning they should encourage their coachees to open internal discussions and learn to coach each other. If a coachee’s blockages or areas for improvement fall outside the manager-coach’s area of expertise, the latter must also know how to redirect their employees to other experts who would be better able to address their issues. It is crucial to limit oneself to one’s area of expertise and not hesitate to pass the torch if necessary.

4. Beware of the ‘high posture’ in coaching

To avoid a large number of tensions, or even conflicts, favor a balance between a ‘low posture’ and a ‘high posture’: the manager positions themselves as an expert but must leave the coachee responsible for defining their objective, action plan, and mobilizing their resources. The manager-coach is a guide, not a dictator!

Find some tips, presented by the Orygin website, on how to communicate effectively with your coachee below:

5. Do not mix personal and professional topics during a coaching session

Conversations about intimate or personal life topics of the employee have no place during a coaching session. It is essential to limit discussions to professional subjects.

Download our white paper and learn how to allocate your coaching budget for maximum impact.

6. Avoid a piecemeal approach

To be effective, coaching must be structured around regular meetings framed by management. The methodology can be adapted according to profiles, but a guideline must be clearly defined and respected by the coaches.

7. Do not force coaching

If an employee refuses to be coached, respect their decision. However, it can be interesting to understand the cause of resistance (e.g., a bad experience with a previous manager).

Similarly, the manager is entitled to cancel a coaching session if they feel their mood is likely to negatively influence their demeanor during a 1:1 with an employee.

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