Students of the Sales Training Institute will learn to:

• Generate increased top line sales training revenue through sales skills development
• Learn to close more sales in a sales consultative approach by becoming business consultants
• Create better margins for sales training efforts while learning effective probing, supporting and closing skills
• Lower sales operating costs by increasing effective sales interviewing skills by quickly following up on sales leads
• Develop stronger telephone and face to face selling skills through high impact sales training seminars based on extensive in class practice
• Strengthen company’s identification of their strategic sales opportunities
• Design and optimize sales strategies for selling and winning business
• Become more productive at their sales jobs through pre-call planning and better handling
• Implement more effective sales communication skills through effective and efficient time usage in our sales training seminars
• Generate and practice more powerful customer sales presentations training
• Increase sales force training skills and become immediately more productive on their sales jobs
• Be more effective in their sales communications with their internal and external customers
• Apply the skills learned in our sales training seminars while energizing their fellow sales force members  

As part of the coaching process I ask for feedback from sales managers. I question how well they apply the concepts that they had learned and if they are seeing the benefits of the sales training.

Based on their feedback I was feeling really good. I gave myself a high five and a couple pats on the back. Way to go dude you are really making impact with these guys!

We were working through real life examples when Joe gave a recount of one of his successful coaching sessions.

It went something like this: "In my last field visit with one of my sales reps, I gave her feedback on her closing skills. I then began to give her a couple things she should work on and noted it on her field visit sales report".

Ok, so far so good. There is verbal and written feedback... but what else?

The group thought that Joe did all the right things, he observed, asked questions and gave written and verbal feedback to close off the day with his sales rep. As I reflected on Joe's example, I thought to myself... what is the likelihood that the next time Joe works with this sales rep that she would have taken this coaching session to heart and diligently worked on her closing skills?

Based on my son's grade four understanding of probability...he would say to me, "highly unlikely dad".

The reason why I say that is that Joe needs to make a fundamental mindset shift in his coaching to become a great coach. That mindset shift relates to the fundamental management rule below:

Rule #1: Unless there is self awareness and recognition that there is a need to change... the likelihood of change is remote.

Dear Joe,
I think you did a wonderful job on your last field visit. However, your sales rep did not have the guts to tell you that she didn't buy in to what you were saying. You would have been much more impactful if you asked her to determine what area she needed to work on and let her tell you what she intends to do between now and your next field visit.
Don't expect to see any improvement in her closing skills on your next field visit.