Coach yourself to success

Salespeople spend 95% of their time alone, on the road, or on the floor. During the remaining 5%, they can improve through coaching by their sales manager. Although enabling coaching from a great sales manager is likely more effective than self-coaching, exploring how to improve the remaining 95% makes sense, too. How does this apply to you?

The Challenge

Selling with the Buyer’s perspective is THE new way of selling. It is modern and aligned with the buyer’s expectations. But it is not easy, meaning salespeople often fall back to old behaviours (read: solution selling), and opportunities are missed. Self-coaching may help you understand why you don’t progress with your opportunity and give yourself specific instructions on how to avoid mistakes and instead advance further.

How does it work?

Self-coaching consists of core components such as self-reflection and inner dialogue, constructive thinking, and using a self-coaching model with powerful coaching questions. What does that mean in practice? Let’s review this exciting opportunity and how to apply it when Selling with the Buyer’s Perspective.

Structured Reflection

The GROW model is one of the most popular coaching frameworks. GROW is an acronym for the following components:

• Goal – Explores the ultimate outcome concerning the current challenge.
• Reality – Explores what is happening in relation to the desired outcome
• Options – Explores the different actions you could take to pursue the desired outcome
• Way forward – Explores specific action steps going forward

Preparing a call or meeting using this model helps you to have a structured inner dialogue and, through constructive thinking, be optimally prepared before picking up the phone or walking into the customer’s office.

GROW questions to reflect on

Let’s imagine you are preparing for a meeting with a prospect. You have never met with the stakeholders other than when you made the appointment over the phone. They are willing to meet with you, meaning that they are most likely in Why Change? or Change to What? buying phase Preparing for the meeting your objective is to decide what you want your stakeholders to discover. Here are GROW questions to help you with this:

Goal:

• What business idea do you want the stakeholders to discover?
• How will that idea help grow their business?
• What change of perspective would you like them to experience during the meeting?

Reality:

• What are their company’s goals?
• Where can you find more information?
• What is their strategy to achieve those objectives?
• What is their current growth?
• What are their business challenges?
• What indicates that their strategy is working? Or, not?
• What is their market share?
• Who are their competitors?
• What is the role of the stakeholders you will meet?
• What organizational level do they represent (Operations, Management, Executive)?
• What is their organizational culture (bureaucratic, collaborative, entrepreneurial)?
• How does that influence their willingness to change?
• Who else do you suspect will be in the bigger buying room?

Options:

• How will you start the meeting?
• What will you “show”, – “verify”, and “ask”?
• What is your question that builds the bridge to the insight you want to share?
• What research backs up your insight and business idea?
• What hyperlink(s) will you share to enable them and influence other stakeholders?
• What stories do you have of how you have helped other customers in similar situations?
• What impact are you looking for after sharing your business idea and research insights?

Way Forward:

• What would you like the stakeholders to commit to?
• What would you like them to do after the meeting?
• Who else should be at the next meeting, and why?
• Who would you like them to influence and change their perspective?

Self-Coaching Outcome

What is in it for you when applying self-coaching on a regular basis? Does it really work? Don’t believe me, instead, believe the research done on self-coaching. Studies show a strong relationship between self-confidence and positive mental health (hapiness), and that is what you need when applying a new sales mindset and new skills. You need to feel good about yourself. The success of salespeople with high self-esteem lies in these five attributes:

1. A greater sense of self-worth
2. Freedom from self-doubt
3. Freedom from fear and anxiety, freedom from social anxiety, and less stress
4. More enjoyable time interacting with customers
5. More energy and motivation to act

I leave you with one powerful motivational statement encouraging you to start improving the 95%:

Happiness does not simply happen to us. It’s something that we make happen and it comes from doing our best.”

Mihali Csikszentmihalyi

Wishing you Happy Self-Coaching!