There’s no activity that will drive more sales and produce better results that would be considered more important than effective coaching. As such, it’s the most important priority for every manager.

So, why should coaching be a priority? In the spirit of efficiency, here are just a few reasons why. If you are coaching your people correctly, the majority of the problems that most managers experience go away or dramatically decrease. When managers coach effectively:

• Your sales increase and your people are selling more
• Performance and productivity improve
• Underperformers get turned around or handled quickly and appropriately
• A deeper sense of loyalty, trust and commitment is established between management and salespeople
• Performance issues decrease
• Communication breakdowns are practically eliminated
• The overall culture of the company is dramatically improved
• There’s greater alignment around goals with less pushback
• You attract better talent to your organization
• Top performers are happier
• You retain your best people
• Your team becomes more accountable and self reliant
• You find your job more fulfilling and satisfying

These are just a few of the top benefits you can realize when a manager is authentically coaching their sales team.

Moreover, I haven’t even mentioned how managers can then coach up to their manager and how it affects interactions amongst the leadership team which ultimately affects the sales team. Avalanches, of course, roll down hill.

Alternatively, there are still those managers who think they are coaching but are still experiencing problems and are not realizing these measurable benefits. If that’s the case, then simply put, these managers are not coaching, not coaching consistently or there are some gaps in their thinking, approach or skill set as a coach which they are not aware of or simply don’t want to change which is diluting the effectiveness of their coaching. For some managers, while contrary to their belief, coaching is more about changing your title and then continuing to manage your people the way you did yesterday.

For those coaches or managers out there who are coaching effectively, even those managers who are running into some challenges, I’d love to hear from you, feel free to send in your comments as well as your challenges so that I can address them here for you.

Photo Credit: Addison Berry