If you owned a professional sports franchise, you would hire the best coach you could find. You would want someone to tweak, fine-tune, teach, motivate – and then monitor the skills and performance of your players.
The same thing applies to your team of sales staff. A coach will help them reach their peak performance levels AND help you reach your peak profit potential. Who is that coach? It’s you!
The basic profit equation is simple: Sales less Expenses = Profits. How does coaching affect these profits? Read on for ways to Increase Sales and decrease Expenses.
Coaching Increases Sales
Think about the difference between the average daily sales generated by your best salesperson and the average daily sales of everyone else. The gap between those 2 numbers is lost money.
Work to get the rest of your staff closer to the level of your best salesperson. Coach a few basic sales techniques. Pass on a little more product knowledge. Encourage your sales staff to approach just one more customer a day.
Coaching Lowers Expenses by Reducing Staff Turnover
For every salesperson lost, you will have the costs of finding, hiring and training a replacement. These are mostly upfront expenses. But there are also hidden costs that have a very real impact on your business and your profits.
– If you’re time is used for the interviewing/hiring cycle then it can’t be spent in revenue-generating activities.
– Training new hires takes a lot of every one’s time that could be better spent on selling or giving great customer service.
– You lose sales while the new employee develops as a sales person.
Other Coaching Benefits
Turnover is reduced when you give your staff the tools they need to succeed. Few people want to leave a job where they are doing well and feel successful.
Spending time coaching your staff allows the opportunity for regular open communications. This gives you lots of chances to praise people for the things they do well. It’s the easiest cheapest way to keep your best people.
When you think you don’t have time for coaching, just remember that everything you do in this area will increase sales and decrease expenses – and hopefully will make for a happy and loyal staff.
Contact me to discuss this and other ideas in more detail….Norma