The real value underlying coaching others, especially your sales teams, is the fact that while you are helping, guiding and nurturing others into being their own best and unleashing personal resources for personal success, is that you as a coach, as a leader learn thrice as much. These are just three of the things that happen to YOU when you coach others:
- Your own insights into the finer nuances of selling skills multiply exponentially.
- You become a more cautious and a careful person and develop an uncanny ability into seeing what others need, what others say and how others express themselves.
- You also learn to assimilate information in a dynamic and a holistic way.
I spent decades selling across the world and how I wish I had learned the power behind building and coaching much earlier than I did. I’d probably be having Buffet for breakfast. (Pun, intended.)
Today, in my much loved profession as a learning facilitator and a consultant, I must confess that every time I conduct training, facilitate a small session, coach an executive or interview thought leaders on television, I, usually, walk away with tons of new ideas and learning for myself. It’s like the more I fly into the sun, the more power I gain. It’s an amazing journey and a blessing at the same time. That is why I have no regrets for not having Buffet for breakfast. I am a learning roll.
Managers and leaders from all business disciplines must place the goal of learning to coach others on top of their list of goals to achieve. There is, trust me, nothing like it. Not only does it make you a better business leader but also unleashes the astounding power to make a difference in this fast-changing, fast-moving world.
Peter F. Drucker did claim that “No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.” I’d like to add to this that, thankfully, coaching others and Sales Coaching is not forced upon us…it is a Sales Leader’s calling.