What is Coaching?

Coaching is a form of professional development whereby a partnership is formed between a trained coach (the person doing the coaching) and an individual seeking coaching (i.e. you). Coaching is conducted in a 1:1 setting and each session is unique because you set the agenda by defining a topic to discuss or a specific future goal you want help with.

How can it help me?

We all have goals in our professional life and there are always obstacles to achieving these goals. Coaching helps you find the answers to overcome the obstacles and carve a path to achieve the goals. Coaching is non-instructive - it assumes that potential comes from within and seeks to enable you to tap into the knowledge, creativity, focus and competencies you have and can develop. The role of the coach is to expand awareness; of the goal or challenge, of the options available and the path to identifying solutions. Insights are gained through the coaching process that lead to transformative change and development. Coaching is widely recognised as a highly effective discipline for rapid development and performance improvement in the professional context.

How does it differ from Mentoring?

Mentoring, on the other hand, is where a subject matter / domain “expert” provides you with more direct help - advice, information and a guiding hand to help you develop a better understanding of something, solve a problem or make progress toward achieving an objective. Where coaching is non-instructive and focuses on how to enable you to develop to your full potential, mentoring acknowledges that context matters and that focused advice / knowledge sharing around best practice (for example, a new sales manager looking for ways to improve forecast accuracy) can sometimes enhance and accelerate the development process.

But at The Sales Coach - you do both?

Yes. Our programs (High Performance Selling and High Performance Sales Leadership) combine coaching and mentoring together with straightforward training & advisory depending on the circumstances.

At the heart of each program lies coaching. Coaching is a developmental process that can help you build your core competencies and create new habits. But because we are specifically focused on sales, we can go deeper. In selling, expertise matters. There are core foundational skills for AEs and Leaders, as well as tools / techniques / methods that help stimulate performance and are best delivered through mentorship combined with observation / experience. However, where coaching is pro-active learning, mentoring is passive and the impact of the learning can be reduced. We tend to keep mentoring to a minimum and we don’t mix them - we agree up-front whether a session is coaching or mentoring.

During our preliminary discussions, expectations and aspirations are discussed and desired outcomes are agreed. We look at the key priorities and focus areas and we collaboratively build the program agenda so it hits the topics we want to address and has a sensible sequence and an appropriate coaching / mentoring mix. The program agenda is reviewed and adjusted on an ongoing basis (there is also a program mid-point review where we evaluate progress and course correct).

In combining coaching & mentoring & teaching together in this way, you get the best of all worlds. You get the core coaching which allows you to focus on what you need to develop and unlock your potential. But you also get specific guidance & competency development for your role via our best practice mentoring sessions.

Do you only work with sales people?

No. We do coach individual salespeople and sales leaders but we also coach founders, C level executives and line managers - especially anyone engaged in and responsible for revenue and growth in a business. This may mean account / client executives, marketeers, business development specialists and general management.

Whilst it is not strictly necessary for a coach to have direct experience in a specific field (like sales), we have found that a track record in sales & leadership creates a level of understanding & empathy which blends well to address client requirements in a field with very particular coaching needs. This is also the reason we provide a combination of coaching & mentoring in our 2 core programs.

What are your values and ethics?

Our purpose is to Help our Clients Tap into their Potential to do Something Big. We believe everyone has the potential to do big important things in life. How you define “big and important” is up to you. Our job is to help you get there.

The values we live by, as we pursue this vision, are:

• Integrity - Our clients can trust us to do what we say

• Excellence - Every aspect of our business is infused with the highest level of professionalism

• Learning - To reach our potential, every day is a school day

• Grit - Attitude is everything. At The Sales Coach, we value determination, belief and hard work

There is a link to our code of ethics at the bottom of the page.

Can I claim this against my employer’s Education Reimbursement Scheme?

In all likelihood, yes you can. In situations where your employer offers an Education Reimbursement Scheme or where your employer will fund professional development & training, there is a strong likelihood you can claim back the cost of our programs. Every reimbursement scheme is specific to the employer and has certain requirements to be met before a given program is eligible for reimbursement, so please contact us for more information.

When you complete the program, you receive a completion certificate. This is of course something that can be added to your CV, but will also be required as evidence of completion for your employer’s Education Reimbursement Program.

If you have a question, just email us info@thesalescoach.ie