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The dangers of a land and expand sales coaching strategy

Posted by Carole Mahoney on 1/17/17 8:29 AM

When my children were first born, my Nana would often give me advice on things like discipline. The one phrase she would often say is, “Spank them up until they are 6- never out of anger, but to teach them consequences. If that stove is hot, they won’t understand ‘Don’t touch’ but smack their hand and say it- they’ll get it pretty quick. And if they do touch the stove anyway, they’ll listen to you first more often.” She was very specific about how and when to discipline, and how and when to teach because if you get them wrong, it can do more harm than good.

In many ways, those lessons have stayed with me as I work with clients. The earlier we work with the founders and CEOs (think solopreneurs, startups and small businesses) who want growth then the greater the impact we can have on their sales culture, coaching systems, eventual managers and frontline salespeople (the lifeblood of a business). 

“Start them off right, the better the chances of them making good decisions later on!” as my Nana would say. Can you see how this would apply to the culture of a company and how that impacts sales and therefore growth?

Over the past few weeks, three CEOs of start up companies like the ones I mentioned contacted us hoping to “scale and accelerate sales” or Find a scalable sales model that aligns with our optimum buyer." and wanted to talk about coaching. All three are SaaS technology models, are based outside the US but want to sell more in the US, and have less than ten salespeople in various business development roles.  

One in particular didn’t work out, because as I said in my final email it’s, even more important to do this right if we are trying to prove something to investors. I would rather walk away than do what I know to be wrong.”

Here’s why I said that:

It does seem like a great idea right? Let’s prove this works to investors by working with just one of the salespeople who we know ‘wants to improve’ and use that model to have it include the whole team.

And it is a good idea, if done right- we’ve done it before. Salesperson comes to us, invests in themselves, others at the company notice and want to do the same thing and now you have the beginnings of a company wide buy in. The key here is that individual makes the investment however, not the company.

Here’s why; at the moment the company pays for sales coaching for one individual- the company becomes the client, not the salesperson. If they want to do more and their company is unable to continue to challenge and coach them, they will probably leave for a company that does because as the saying goes ‘A players don’t want to play for B managers’. Now the company has wasted time and money. If a land and expand coaching strategy is to work where the company is paying, you must include the manager and direct report (in these cases the CEO) to ensure there is an actual opportunity to expand.

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If that doesn't happen and the coached rockstar salesperson stays, one of two things can happen. One-the salesperson slips back to their previous state. If their leadership has unproductive and negative sales mindsets and behaviors they become barriers to their salespeople improving because their bad habits and beliefs are being passed down to them. Coaches who aren't skilled but coach frequently have a negative impact on sales performance.

It’s as if you were to walk into the doctor and say, "Look, I want to get better and improve my health, and my spouse wants me to as well- he/she is so supportive they’re even willing to pay for me to go to fat camp and get surgery. No- they’re not going to stop making cakes or binge watching Game of Thrones for me."

Do you think that doctor would be a good doctor if they ignored your everyday environment to make permanent improvements and just took your spouse's fat camp money? And who are you going to blame if fat camp doesn't transform you into a lean, active and healthy person? Your spouse with their cakes, the doctor and the fat camp, or yourself? 

Or two- the salesperson does become the lean, active and healthy salesperson and stays but becomes miserable and makes everyone else miserable until they becomes such a thorn in the the side of leadership- = they give up and leave or are asked to leave and the whole experience leaves a wake of damaged relationships behind it.

Those aren’t the only ways this strategy can go wrong. Imagine that you are a salesperson at that company and you discover that your peer has gotten his coaching paid for, but nothing was mentioned or offered to you. How would you feel about that? A little resentful? More damaged relationships...

Do you believe that it all starts with you and that for your company to succeed you have to be at your best? Check out the eGuide "Is sales coaching right for you?" and discover the questions you should be asking yourself to grow your young company up the right way.

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Topics: sales strategy, sales coaching