โ๐๐ฆ๐ด๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ฏ 10% ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ด๐ข๐ญ๐ฆ๐ด ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด ๐ข๐ค๐ต๐ถ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ข๐ค๐ฉ. ๐๐ฉ๐ข๐ต'๐ด ๐ข ๐ฃ๐ช๐จ ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฃ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฎ.
Watch a sales leader run a "coaching session" with one of their producers. Most of the time, here's what you'll see: a pipeline review wearing the costume of coaching.
"Where does this deal stand? When does it close? What's the next step? Who else is involved?" Maybe a few corrective notes on what could have gone differently in the last call.
It's useful work. It's necessary work. It's not coaching.
CEB and Gartner research keeps finding the same pattern: less than 10% of frontline sales managers' time is actually spent coaching. Fewer than half feel confident enough to do it. And the producers who get great coaching outperform their peers by 19%.
The math is brutal. Most sales orgs are running quality control and calling it development.
It examines the work after the fact, flags where it fell short, and moves on. That's quality control. It's necessary. It's not the same thing as building a producer's skill.
In Issue #3 of ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐, I lay out The Coaching Conversation Map โ a 2ร2 framework that sorts every producer conversation by two axes: Past vs. Future, and Outcome vs. Behavior.
Four quadrants emerge:
โ Past + Outcome = Inspection ("Where does the deal stand?")
โ Past + Behavior = Performance Review ("You only asked one discovery question on that call.")
โ Future + Outcome = Forecasting ("Will you hit your number?")
โ Future + Behavior = Coaching ("How will you build the muscle to multi-thread next quarter?")
Three of those quadrants are valuable management work. Only one is coaching โ and it's the one that builds skill. Future-focused. Behavior-focused. Forward-building.
The shift isn't more conversations. It's better-categorized ones.
If you can't name what % of your week sits in the coaching quadrant, the answer is almost certainly less than you think.
Access Issue #3 + the field tool here:https://lnkd.in/evwp82G8
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The Convert is a monthly newsletter for sales leaders. 500 words, one field tool per issue, no theory that doesn't convert.