Mike Kunkle

Start by removing the word "objection" from your vocabulary. Then, set aside all the manipulative advice that generally hovers around this topic. Your buyer has a concern. It's hard to tell, sometimes, whether their concern is a smokescreen, designed to put off salespeople (based on our reputation) or whether it's a valid concern, but treat all as valid to start. The process we teach is: Acknowledge Clarify Categorize Respond Confirm Acknowledge with empathy (not agreement) to validate your buyer's feelings and perspective. Try using "You Statements" instead of "I Statement." Clarify with questions to ensure you truly understand the concern and can categorize it. I'm out of room here, so see: https://bit.ly/MSF-ACCRC for more detail.

Again, an oddly worded question. The bulk of coaching a rep receives should be delivered or orchestrated by their sales manager. We teach managers to use diagnostics/analytics to identify areas for skill growth, and to engage the rep to do the same, culminating in a meeting to discuss the results. When a root cause analysis is complete, the manager can decide whether training, coaching, feedback, or something else is the right solution. When it's training or coaching, there are models that can assist both in making the most out of their time together. They key is to engage the rep in their development and to stick with it until the targeted area improves, which should lift results. See: https://bit.ly/SalesCoaching-MKDSG for more

Feedback is common in Sales. Managers fire off feedback to their reps and mistake what they're doing as coaching. Feedback is great when an outside perspective is needed, or if someone thinks they're doing something, but aren't. When someone doesn't know what, why, or how to do something, they need training first, and practice with feedback. If they know, but just need to do it better, they need coaching. Feedback can be part of both training and coaching, but engaging the rep, facilitating, and pulling things out of them, is far more effective than simply providing feedback. Great sales managers know how to do all three, and when to use each. See: https://sparxiq.com/difference-between-training-coaching-and-feedback/ for more.

I suppose not everyone can do what we did with our Modern Sales Foundations course, but we combined high-quality film production like a Netflix show, featuring professional actors and an episodic storyline. It’s entertaining as well as instructional. The bite-sized modules (two 15-minute videos per module) are accompanied by Show Notes (content summary), an application Worksheet (to prepare to use what was learned), and for managers, a Manager Support Guide, with instructions to facilitate reinforcement meetings to engage the salespeople in discussion, activities, Worksheet reviews, and practice sessions. This engages students to learn, remember, practice, and apply what they’ve learned on the job, to foster adoption and encourage mastery.

Most CRMs provide good data for understanding overall sales health. Few provide data that help sellers (which is why adoption is low). Even fewer provide insights to help managers know where their reps have developmental needs and what to coach. I create a historical look-back pipeline report, usually 2-3X the average sales cycle. I include the opportunities in each stage of the pipeline with conversation ratios between stages. I put the data for a group of top performers on top, with the average performers next. Then I put a manager's team averages, and finally, the individual data for team members. The comparisons are very telling. See: https://sparxiq.com/analyze-historical-data-to-improve-future-sales-performance/ for more.

Sales coaching will not hinder growth. It's more likely that the LACK of coaching will. That said, I see several common issues: 1) Managers fire off feedback, instead of engaging sellers in true coaching sessions 2) There is little diagnostic effort to uncover a skills gap worth closing or to do root cause analysis 3) There is little logic in designing a solution to close the identified skill gap (ex: does it require simple feedback, or training, or coaching, or something else?) 4) Understanding checks are not utilized at each stage of the coaching process, to ensure communication has occurred. To help front-line sales managers address these issues and learn to coach, see: https://modernsalesfoundations.com/sales-coaching-excellence/