Do You Have An Effective Sales Coaching Culture?

Sales management is so last century. Stop telling and start asking.

Telling your reports what to do means you lose valuable learning opportunities.

The whole point of leader is to create more leaders who can then lead themselves and others.

The whole point of why sales coaching is important for your sales team is to get them to think for themselves so you don’t create a dependence – or become an annoying, egotistical bottle neck.

Yet so much sales management is still one-way, out-dated and antiquated.

Autocratic even. Bottom not top of cliff type stuff.

Sales managers then wonder why their reports keep coming to them with “problems instead of solutions”.

So it’s simple: instead of telling, start asking.

Here are a few coaching questions you can use in the context of sub-par performance (hint: we cover a ton of these tools in our Rural Sales Manager Mastery™ Programme):

• “On a scale of accountability from 1-10 where would you rate yourself this week?”

• “What is it going to cost you continue to doing it the way you are doing it?”

• “Are you ready to abandon some self-defeating behaviours that are preventing you from further success?”

• “What do you think you might be getting from continuing with this pattern of behaviour?”

The purpose of these questions is to create self-awareness that will transform your team in the realms of performance and accountability.

If you tell them, you’ll get their backs up via reactance.

No one – not even you – likes to be told what to do.

If you ask thew you stand a much better chance of getting them to their special “aha” moment (it’s a joyful coaching moment btw too : )

We want it to land for them and cognitively click.

However people are often loyal to things that stop them from what they need to be loyal to now.

We call it a hidden commitment.

In behavioural psychology terms think of it like an iceberg.

Behind these unknown below the water line commitments are self-limiting beliefs or assumptions.

These might have come from childhood, parents, trauma or a bad previous boss.

It’s your job as a sales manager, or better still coach to tease these out gently using the right questions.

Telling may only make them and the problem worse.

Making it safe for them to express themselves is far more beneficial and rewarding.

So next time don’t be an advice monster.

Be an asker instead.

You might be surprised how well this works.

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Ready to Improve Your Rural Sales Results?

Listen and subscribe to the Rural Sales Show Podcast, where St John interviews world-leading experts in mindset, leadership, sports psychology, and sales. Turn truck time into valuable up-skilling time and learn practical strategies you can apply immediately.

Join the Rural Sales Syndicate™ for affordable ongoing coaching and support, or apply for the Rural Sales Success™ Programme to help your team become rural sales legends.

We also run the Rural Sales Manager Mastery™ Programme for new and existing Sales Managers who want to become exceptional sales coaches and leaders. Think of it as a “train the trainer” programme that helps you build internal capability and reduce reliance on external support.

And if budget is tight, explore FieldCoach IO™; your AI-powered rural sales coach that gives you instant access to practical answers, tools, and strategies for every sales scenario you face.