"Coaching is the universal language of learning, development, and change."
Imagine a workplace without fear, stress, or worry. Instead, you're acknowledged as a valued, contributing team player who doesn't sacrifice priorities, values, happiness, or your life for your job. Sound ludicrous? Consider this is a reality in many thriving organizations.
Most leadership books don't apply to sales leadership. Sales leaders are uniquely and indispensably special and need to be coached in a way that's aligned with their role, core competencies, and individuality to achieve their personal goals and company objectives.
What if you can successfully coach anyone in 15, 5, or even 60 seconds using one question? Sales Leadership makes delivering consistent, high-impact coaching easy. For busy, caring managers, this removes the pressure and misconception that, "Coaching is difficult, doesn't work, and I don't have time to coach."
Since most managers don't know how to coach, they become part of the non-stop, problem-solving legion of frustrated Chief Problem Solvers who habitually do others' work, create dependency, and nourish the seed of mediocrity.
Great business leaders shift from doing people's jobs to developing them by learning the language of leadership coaching.
In its powerful simplicity, Sales Leadership delivers a chronological path to develop a thriving coaching culture and coaching leaders who develop top performing teams and sales champions.
Using Keith's intuitive LEADS Coaching Framework™, the coaching talk tracks for critical conversations, and his Enrollment strategy to create loyal, unified teams, you will inspire immediate change. Now, coaching is easily woven into your daily conversations and rhythm of business so that it becomes a natural, healthy habit.
In his award-winning book, Coaching Salespeople Into Sales Champions, Keith was the first Master Certified Coach to share his personal coaching playbook that is now the standard for coaching excellence. Ten years later, and one million miles traveled, he reveals the evolution of sales leadership and coaching mastery through his experiences working with Fortune 5000 companies and small businesses worldwide.
In the first book ever titled Sales Leadership, you'll master the ability to:
- Ask more questions, give less advice, and build trust and accountability to rely on people to do their job.
- Reduce your workload and save 20 hours a week on unproductive and wasteful activities.
- Shatter the toxic myths around coaching to eliminate generational gaps and departmental silos.
- Achieve business objectives, boost sales faster, and retain more customers.
- Create buy-in around strategic change and improve daily performance metrics.
- Assess company readiness and ensure implementation of a successful and sustainable coaching initiative and create a healthy, happy workplace.
Table of Contents
Preface The Power of Why xix
CHAPTER ONE Preparing for the Cultural Evolution 1
What’s Your Business DNA? 1
Burn the Bridge of Mediocrity 2
Boardroom or Bored Room: Defining Corporate Culture 4
The Company Ecosystem 4
You’re Not Coaching Effectively 5
A 10-Year Coaching Study 7
Assessing Your Culture and the ROI of Coaching 8
34 Characteristics of a Coaching Culture 11
Preparing for Your Cultural Evolution 12
Preparing for Your Cultural Journey 14
Can’t Change Your Company’s Culture?
Create a Subculture Instead 19
Stop Selling, Start Coaching 23
CHAPTER TWO L.E.A.D.S.: Your Guiding Framework for Transformational Coaching 27
Questions Are the Universal Language 29
A Universal Definition of Coaching 30
The Revised L.E.A.D.S. Model for Masterful Coaching 31
24 Types of Questions in the L.E.A.D.S. Coaching Framework 38
How to Coach in 10 Minutes or Less 45
Coaching Simplified: The Only Three Coaching Gaps You’ll Ever Uncover 47
CHAPTER THREE The L.E.A.D.S. Coaching Model at Work 51
Directive Coaching Is Not a Thing 51
Using the L.E.A.D.S. Coaching Model 53
Ten-Minute Coaching Moments 53
The Cost of Not Coaching 57
Justifying Your Role as the Super Salesperson 58
Coaching versus Training: What’s the Difference? 61
CHAPTER FOUR How to Coach in 10 Minutes or Less 65
“Coaching Takes Too Long” 66
The Five Parts of the 60-Second Coaching Question 69
Ask for an Opinion, Not a Solution 71
Impromptu Situational Coaching - the ABCs of Leadership 72
Team Coaching or Team Meetings? 75
Your Meetings Suck: How Managers
Facilitate Influential, Productive Meetings 76
Lead with Questions, Not Answers 78
Abandon Absolute Thinking and Embrace Dualities 82
CHAPTER FIVE Tools to Manage the Coaching Process and Assess Results 85
The Revised Coaching Prep Form 86
Capturing the Measurable Impact of Coaching 87
Are You Reviewing Results or Performance? 92
Enter the Coaching Action Plan 93
CHAPTER SIX Transforming Critical Conversations into Positive Change and Measurable Results 97
The Hard Truth 97
Coach and Be Happy 98
Resign as Chief Problem Solver 99
Control Freak? A Case for Letting Go 102
Performance Coach or Chief Problem Solver? You Decide 103
An Eight-Minute Coaching Conversation 105
CHAPTER SEVEN Creating Unity, Trust, and Buy-In: The Art of Enrollment 113
What Is Enrollment? 114
Everyone Loves Confrontation 117
There’s No Such Thing as a Difficult Conversation 118
The Six Steps of Enrollment 120
Coaching versus Enrollment: The Difference and Synergy 123
How to Destroy Trust and Isolate Your Team 127
The Cost of Not Enrolling 129
Manage Expectations with Precision: A Different Kind of Conversation 131
CHAPTER EIGHT Seven Essential Enrollment Conversations That Create Companywide Alignment 133
Prepare Your People for Change 134
A Subtle Distinction 150
CHAPTER NINE Coach Tracks: Turn Difficult Situations into Coaching Wins 151
Conversation #1: Eliminating Departmental and Interpersonal Silos 151
Conversation #2: Inheriting an Existing Team 155
Conversation #3: Peer Yesterday, Boss Today: Changing Roles from Peer to Boss 158
Conversation #4: The Revised 30-Day Turnaround Strategy for Underperformers 158
Conversation #5: The Evolution of the 30-Day Turnaround Strategy: The Success Acceleration Program 161
CHAPTER TEN Mindful Coaching: The Inner Game of Coaching Champions 163
Assumptions in Communication 164
Coach the Written Message 174
Coaching the Elusive Topic of Time Management and Personal Productivity 177
Coaching a Top Producer to Change Their Toxic Attitude and Behavior 180
Can You Coach Fear and Confidence? 184
CHAPTER ELEVEN Know Your Players: Transforming Talent Through Observation and Feedback 185
Three Ways to Uncover the Gap 186
Coach the Person, Not the Spreadsheet 188
Sharing an Observation versus Developing Someone: What’s the Difference? 197
CHAPTER TWELVE 15 Common Coaching Killers That Sabotage Coaching Success 201
Toxic Tactic #1: Nine Painfully Stupid, Disempowering Words to Stop Using 201
Toxic Tactic #2: Are You Coaching People or Closing Them? 203
Toxic Tactic #3: Coaching in Your Own Image 209
Toxic Tactic #4: Living Everywhere but Now 211
Toxic Tactic #5: Coaching Multiple Gaps at a Time 217
Toxic Tactic #6: Double-Dipping on Questions 219
Toxic Tactic #7: Coaching Is for Losers 220
Toxic Tactic #8: In Search of the Perfect Coaching Question 221
Toxic Tactic #9: Caring Too Much 222
Toxic Tactic #10: Is Everyone Truly Coachable? 222
Toxic Tactic #11: The Coachee Answers the Question - Not You! 223
Toxic Tactic #12: Getting Suckered by These Two Common Phrases 223
Toxic Tactic #13: Thinking You’re Super Coach 225
Toxic Tactic #14: Losing Patience in Coaching 226
A GPS for Your Patience 226
Toxic Tactic #15: Dishonoring the ABCs of Leadership 228
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Culture-Shift: Sustaining The Habit of Coaching 231
Six Strategies to Build and Maintain Your Coaching Culture 232
1. Peer-to-Peer Coaching 232
2. Cross-Team Coaching and Observation 234
3. Monthly Coaching Mindshare Sessions 234
4. Get Your Own Coach 235
5. Create Coaching Evangelists 235
6. Leverage Technology or Build Reciprocated Accountability 235
PART I YOUR JOURNEY BEGINS HERE 237
CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Final Transformation 239
16 Final Guidance Principles to Become a Coaching Prodigy 243
Appendix Seven Steps to Creating a Top Performing Coaching Culture 247
Become the Model of Exemplary Sales Leadership 251
Bring This Coaching Code into Your Company 251
Acknowledgments 253
About the Author 255
Index 257
