All teams face a times of struggle and this includes sales teams. When a team is struggling to win, it is up to the manager and the coach to pull the team through to become a success once again. To do this in sports you need a great team coach. To do this in sales, you need a great sales coach.

It is important to remember that not every sales manager is going to be a great sales coach. If you are being asked to manage and coach your team, there are some important keys and behaviors that you must have in order to help your team achieve success.

Understand your role. 

A great sales coach must understand that their role is two fold. They must manage the resources of the team while at the same time instruct and prepare the team members. In order to do this, you must:

• Establish a rapport with each team member
• Understand the motivation of every individual on the team
• Be consistent
• Be a good resource for all team members

A great sales coach needs to provide guidance to all team members. 

You need to constantly aware of what each member of your team is doing. When you see them succeed, you need to work with the team to build on the success. When you see the team is struggling, you need to get to the root and the cause of the problem and then work with the team to turn the struggle into a success.

A great sales coach needs to learn assessment techniques.

Part of the process of coaching is learning what skills each team member has and continually developing that skill. In order to do this you must develop assessment techniques to measure their skill level. This will help you to learn the teams’ areas of weakness and put plans into place to correct and strengthen those weaknesses. You must provide regular performance reviews for your team, and you must offer them opportunities for professional development. You want to use the assessment tools to help your team develop to its full potential.

A great sales coach is a teacher.

There are many ways of teaching people. When you have a good sales team, you need to determine the learning style for each person. When you provide regular instruction, trainings and sales meetings, you need to incorporate the different styles of learning to make sure that you are reaching everyone on your team. Once you have assessed the skill level of each person on your team, while also taking into consideration the experience level of each team member, you can determine how you can facilitate their ongoing development.

A great sales coach is a motivator. 

There are many ways to motivate people. As a sales coach you need to look past the monetary rewards for meeting sales quotas and look at other ways to motivate your team to success. It is up to you to determine what motivates your sales team. There are many ways to motivate in addition to money:

• Public praise
• Offering thanks
• Contests
• Inclusion in meetings
• Asking for input

The person in the position of sales coach or sales manager can make or break a sales team. The best team with a mediocre coach will never reach its full potential for success. The mediocre team who has the benefit of a great sales coach will always find success.  As a great sales coach you need to understand the part you play in the success of the team. You need to assess the skills and deficiencies of your team and provide training and guidance to help them develop. Most importantly, to be a great sales coach you need to find ways to motivate your team to achieve the most sales success.