On Track Retail Coaching offers sustainable solutions, for coaching your brick & mortar, customer engaging sales Teams. These time-tested best practices are more than training sales techniques, they are coaching the collective talents of your existing Team. Highly focused on the ”WOW” Customer Experience, Driving Top-Line Revenue, Profits and EBITDA. Additionally, this process maximizes job satisfaction. Empower your Sales Teams to Deliver the “ WOW” Customer Experience promoting success, and prosperity.
Good People…
… with training and coaching... become exceptional Team Members, with staying power.
Staying power, meaning they will drive your "WOW" Customer Experience, that keeps your customers coming back for more.
Additionally, this will help your business retain top talent as well.
Unless you plan on doing all the sales yourself... you need a Team!
Let's make it an Exceptional Team, and keep them On Track!
Managers As Coaches
Managers and Team Members are busier than ever with the evolving landscape of retail. Every moment a Manager spends with their Team must be motivating, encouraging, and productive! To keep things in perspective, 60% of what Leaders say needs to resonate with their Team to see more within themselves. This way, when the time comes, and you need to coach them… you will have their full attention.
Every opportunity to coach a Team Member must be acted upon as soon as possible to keep the learning and, more importantly, the “job engagement” process moving forward and positive. This ongoing process must be a priority to every Sales Leader, Manager and Supervisor. You cannot let things go, simply to make your day easier. Otherwise… as a consequence new negative standards may be developed, and your coaching will not stick. Performance may also stagnate.
Fundamentally, the term “management” means getting things done through others. The job of the Sales Leader, Manager or Supervisor is to work through the valuable people on their Team. Too often Managers spend time on things that other people should do. You need your Team Members more than they need you! The only way you will get the results expected is through your Team's efforts. The only way to get these results is to effectively manage your Team. Daily Coaching is KEY!
Coaching focuses on future possibilities and utilizes what was learned from training, and past experiences. Coaching is more about how things are done, rather than what things are done. It is about unlocking a Manager or Supervisors potential, maximizing their performance, and job satisfaction. It is about helping Team Members discover answers for themselves rather than giving them the answers and making life easier for you. Coaching is about empowering and motivating individuals to find the solutions within themselves.
As Sales Managers, your job exists to help your Teams succeed.
Coaching encourages Managers to adopt their coaching style, with their unique Team Members communication.
This will build a coaching culture, within your Team.
Coaching Characteristics
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Managers coach all their Team Members… as a required part of the job
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Coaching takes place within Manager-to-employee relationships
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Focus on developing individuals within their current jobs, to enhance future opportunities
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Enabling Team Members to perform tasks to the best of their abilities
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An elevated level of Manager trust, and communication must be in place with any high performing sales Team
Benefits of Coaching
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Empowers individuals and encourages them to take responsibility for their behaviors and results
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Provides them with a tool kit to make their own decisions to act
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Leads to improved job performance, motivation, and job satisfaction
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Provides significant business results
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Develops encouraging communication with Team Members
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Reduces Team Member turnover
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Helps envision a career path
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Delegate more to get more accomplished
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Reduces personal stress level
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Avoids surprises in mediocre performance
When Should Coaching be Used?
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To motivate the Team
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Performance enhancement
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Building work relationships
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Reduce top-talent turnover
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Developing individuals for future positions
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Enhancing learning
What Coaching Is Not
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Telling Team Members what to do
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Mentoring. Mentoring is “relational”, while coaching is “functional”
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A counseling session
Coaching
Coaching is a form of employee training, and development, planned or impromptu. It is a Managers and Supervisors responsibility to coach daily. It may be as simple as a 30-seconds to 3-minute conversation every day, with every Team Member. Byproduct of this daily coaching is enhanced engagement, communication development, and relationship building with Team Members.
Things To Keep In Mind
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Communication: Managers or Supervisors must have established a unique method of communication with all their Team Members for any coaching to be effective. This is a foundational step in effective coaching for top sales performance.
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Trust: If not present, coaching may not stick. The Team must trust that they are being coached for the right reasons and that the Manager is sincere.
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Put the Team Member at ease: This step is important when the coaching session is based on new Team Members, and or poor sales performance. Tell the Team Member what they are good at to open conversation, always encouraging them.
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Find out what they already know: There may be wasted words, and time if you are coaching the Team Member on what they already know. Hold them accountable for their own knowledge. You want to link the "coaching" to what they already know and correct any misconceptions that could get in the way of learning. Ask questions to find out what they know and fill in the gaps. Start questions with the same words used to qualify a Customer, who, how, what, where, when, and tell me. This will lead to conversation.
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Present information or demonstrate expectations: This is the point where you deliver the content of the training/coaching.
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Evaluate learning: Test whether the Team Member understands the information or can perform the skill. Ask them to “Show you” they understand. Or have them explain the coached information, to your satisfaction before ending the conversation. This is a key component! There needs to be an understanding conclusion to the coaching conversation.
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Provide feedback: Let the Team Member know what they have successfully learned and what they still need to learn. Encourage successful behaviors at every step. Team Member results will guide your coaching efforts and intensity.
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Evaluate performance on the job: On occasion check to see whether the Team Member is using the knowledge or skills for positive results. Gradually increase the interval you check in with the Team Member. The Team Member should eventually take responsibility for their performance or skills.
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Repeat: Repetition enhances understanding and retention.
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Reward: Provide praise or other rewards for successful use of the knowledge or skill behavior on a regular basis. This can be as easy as acknowledging them within the Team.
Managers and Supervisors can set expectations more clearly… through coaching. Sales Management today is about enabling people to succeed, and that means providing them with the guidance, resources, feedback, and support they need to do their jobs well! Managers and Supervisors must be the example for coaching to be respected, and successful by your Team.
4-Essential Parts of Sales Coaching “Performance” is… Communication
Managers who coach Team Members for sales or metrics performance must be a good example of the coached information. This is the only way a Team Member would take it to heart and the coaching sticks. Remember, the entire Team may be watching. Being a good Customer Experience and Sales example, is a behavioral means of communicating to the Team. This is the most effective example of expertise. Remember… behaviors do not lie… words may mask the truth.
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Affirm Value
Ensure the Team Member understands that they are a valued part of the Team. If you want to open the door to meaningful conversation, tell the Team Member about the good things and behaviors they are doing, and what they bring to the Team. Opening with critical comments can cause individuals to become defensive and, when that happens, little conversation will happen. The conversation door will become heavy.
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Listen for Understanding
Get the Team Member’s point of view on a topic. With your assessment of the situation, you need to keep in mind their perspective. If their perspective is not discovered by the Manager or Supervisor, the behavioral changes might not be to your expectations. Asking questions will help to gain more information on how the coaching is going to take place. Do not force a Team Member to jump to your side of the fence. Help them understand why your way is going to benefit them personally.
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Focus on Issues
Address the situation. Do not make it a personal attack. Talk about what behaviors the Team Member needs to exhibit to improve performance in detail. Ensure the Communication Preference Worksheet is utilized by all your Team Members, so they hear what is being coached, and take it seriously.
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Gain Agreement
Discuss the plan for improvement. Prompt the Team Member to tell you what the expectations are and how they are going to achieve them. When the Team Members tell you about the expectations in their own words, there is a much higher likelihood it will stick. People are naturally inclined to do what they say, when it is their own words. Be specific as possible. Talk about what must be improved and give a firm timeline they agree to achieve the objectives. Specifically, give the Team Member the direction they need to focus on, and have them follow up with you. They must believe this is their plan as well for success.
Store Managers must develop coaching skills to achieve greater levels of responsibility to direct their Team to higher levels of performance, job satisfaction, and advancement.
Coaching is a duty to perform every day. It may not even be recognized as coaching by the Team. It may seem and feel like an organic, casual conversation, which is how you know it is going to be productive. Be patient however, it may take time for the process to generate results. Practice makes perfect, be persistent and watch behaviors improve.
All your Team Members are working partners, and you must treat them with dignity, respect, and as the most valuable resource they are. Coaching is a process that, when performed daily, you will become very skilled at. At the same time, you will learn more about the abilities of your Team, learn how to stretch their abilities, and have them become a larger contributor to their personal and business success.
