Sharpen Your Sales Skills Through A Mentor

Sharpen sales skills through Mentoring and Coaching program

When I had my first mentoring assignment, it was during the first few weeks after I got promoted as the new Area Business Manager (ABM) for a Pharma company. 

It was stated in my job description (JD), so I just do it for the sake of compliance. 

This is, probably, an excellent example of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

It does not turn out well - not up to my personal standard anyway.

Imagine mentoring, plus coaching, those whom you used to call by nicknames, but since I was assigned as the manager, I was their mentor and a coach. 

It was probably hard for them to swallow at that time, and I totally understood. 

If I had time on my side, it might produce a different outcome. 

Time was not a luxury, even back then.

Many companies, like Pharma companies, for example, had implemented a mentoring and coaching program. 

Would that make a difference? 

Does it matter? 

What is the ROI (return on investment) thus far?

To answer the last question, the ROI question here's what a company needs to think about:

"How do a company Coach or Mentor a salesperson?"

And again, the answer is not in the 'How' - it's in 'When':

"When do companies implement coaching and mentoring for their sales team?"

The question of 'When' is a question of timing. 

Timing is like dialing a phone number. 

If the company dials the right combination, it gets to the right person. 

If it dials the wrong one, it gets to the wrong person, and everything stops right there.

And that leads to the next question:

"How can a company tell when the timing is right?"

That's a key question, right? 

If a company can answer this, it can unlock the winning combination for a sales team. 

Many things just fall into their rightful places, if a company can get the right answer. 

Many big companies got the 'wrong timing' most of the time, despite having a dedicated training department and sales trainers, then imagine how smaller companies, with kinds of stuff running 'multi-tasking' roles, can do any better?

There's an ongoing debate about salespeople sells and marketing people market, and this debate got mixed up quickly. 

What naturally follows is the blame game. 

'Sales are bad because of marketing flops!' 

or 

'Sales are bad because salespeople don't know how to sell!'.

And the same thing happens to coach and mentor...

"Coaching fails because training fails!"

"Mentoring fails because training fails!"

"Mentoring and coaching tanked because there's not enough training!"

So, which is which - Coaching or Mentoring?

The short answer is: It depends.

It depends from which angle a company approaches this issue.

 As 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' whose eyes are looking at training, coaching, and mentoring?

A simple way to go is to blame the Mentor, and it feels 'good' to blame somebody. 

When I first got my assignment for both coaching and mentoring, my Mentor let the Training Department handled the classroom theory, and worst - the field-work too!

Trainers train. 

That's what they do best. 

But managers, like my previous Mentor, supposed to mentor. 

When you leave something to chances, you get opportunities result. 

That's just the fact.

For example, it's known that SL1 (taken from Situational Leadership Model), calls for 'high support and a high directive.' 

Other combinations will just frustrate the Salesperson, just like trying to teach a pig to sing - it annoys the pig, and it sounds terrible!

But in big companies, this happens frequently.

The reason?

Not enough time.

"Why not enough time?"

"Well, we have to do coaching, mentoring, strategic planning, sales monitoring, training, attend management meetings, and on, and on, and on ..."

If, for example, when a Sales Rep is not performing, or when a member of a Sales Team runs into trouble, poof! The blame was shifted to the Team Leader or the Sales Manager.

Looking at this issue from another perspective

I notice that many successful Sales Reps here, are those who like to give something back, 'unconditionally,' to others, be it their colleagues, customers, or companies. 

They perform a deed without thinking, or should I say, less focus on 'What's in it for me.' 

They get remembered years after they left the industry and they get all the compliments which they deserve.

A similar observation was also well documented in writing, like what was written by the late Zig Ziglar, Dr. David J. Schwartz, and Dale Carnegie. 

They call this 'Attitude of Gratitude,' and it conveys the message: 

There's enough for everyone to go around.

On the other side of gratitude ...

Some of the Sales Reps I knew are reaping the 'reward' for such attitude - depression, stress, and tension - the feeling of 'Things are NOT enough to circulate.' 

I remember the things I previously did with a few of my Team Members. 

I always think that the relationship we had back then was more than just 'work-related.'

But I was wrong!

Some of them 'define' the relationship just as a 'professional' and 'objective' kind of link. 

It's all business, and that's it. 

No more. 

No less. 

Or in my own interpretation - a non-gratitude relationship. 

But that is just me, and I'm supposed to focus, solely, on staying on the side of my job description.

Find a Mentor and start sharpening your sales skills

If you've reached this far, and if you're clueless to the take-home message from this article, then, it is this: 

Coaching and Mentoring help sharpen your sales skills, provided the company has evaluated the right timing to put you through them. 

Timing, in this case, is crucial and makes all the difference to the effectiveness of both. 

It's highly likely that you can't decide on a mentor, who would then coach you, because a company chooses to that for you, but you can decide how you're going to follow along once that decision is made.

That's the take-home message from this.