Does anyone have experience hiring a sales coach for their sales force?

searcher profile

January 25, 2021

by a searcher from Hamilton College in Pardubice, Czechia

I have some really motivated, young salespeople who need some help and structure to their client engagement - in light of COVID we've radically change our product offerings from physical tradeshow booths to virtual space marketing products.

Has anyone had a good experience with a company or person that does this? Looking more for tailored 1:1 coaching, not a plug and play sales improvement solution.

4
15
136
Replies
15
commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from The University of Michigan in Las Vegas, NV, USA
^redacted‌ Nice post here… I’ve been on both sides of the Coaching-equation as both Coachee and Coach. Here’s my recommendation when searching for a Coach:
- Establish your budget for the initiative.
- Interview no less than 3 (I recently conducted a search and went through 10!)
- Make it a situational interview (Coach me like this is a coaching conversation with a client, then answer a series of interview questions about you/your methodology)
- If you can, have multiple team members/stakeholders also interview the candidate
- Establish a grid for your interview questions, as well as a ranking matrix for the skills/abilities you’d like to see present during the mock-coaching portion of the interview)
- Rank each candidate, and coordinate all rankings from other interviewers (if appropriate)
- Call back and re-interview the Coach no less than 2 more times (Some will get frustrated… Others will be flexible. In a COVID world, no one is traveling, and everything is virtual, right? If they won’t fire-up their webcam at 0700 it’s a sign!)
- Select one that best fits your criteria. Look to provide compensation in addition to budget on a % improvement in the operation (Show me you have skin in the game!)
Hope this helps… Let me know if you’d like to discuss off the platform.
Sam P.
commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from London Business School in London, UK
A client used a Sandler franchise as part of a project (sandler.com). Sandler is a company that has developed a standardised sales training which they then franchise out. You can get a very good idea if the business process is correct for you looking at their materials. It would, for example, be excellent for a call centre. It probably wouldn't be the right method for developing a dental practice. Once you feel comfortable with the model there will be an implementor in your area & you can reach out to this person to see if they are a fit. The nice part is the model reduces variablity a bit. I cannot say I loved the implementor we needed to use, but I do believe the process had merits for the correct goal.
commentor profile
+13 more replies.
Join the discussion