In order to be a great sales trainer, you have to understand the mechanics behind creating great sales professionals. A great trainer knows that sales coaching is incredibly important to the success of any sales training program, but so few trainers actually seek to become good coaches. What is the difference between a sales trainer and a coach and why do the great trainers also decide to become coaches?
Coaching Versus Training
According to Forbes.com, 87 percent of all sales training lessons are forgotten without follow-up coaching. Sales training is the process of delivering new information and making it understandable to the trainees. Coaching is the process of developing that information through work in the field and constant affirmation of how good sales lessons lead to more revenue. Without good coaching, it is extremely difficult to have a strong sales training process.
Coaching Benefits Industries Such As Pharmaceutical Sales Training
When you think about sales training for pharma reps, you may picture a lot of confused people in a large classroom listening to lectures about medications that they have to sell. But according to the Huffington Post, good coaching can play a vital role in the learning process and it can benefit industries like the pharmaceutical sales industry because of its one-on-one nature.
Sales trainers that can translate their message in the classroom to revenue in the field are also great coaches. The two concepts go hand-in-hand and that is why great sales trainers offer such benefits to industries such as pharmaceutical sales. In order to make a real impact on the bottom line, the sales staff has to have a working understanding of the sales training material. Great trainers who are also excellent coaches can translate the training material to revenue and that is what helps companies the most.
Coaches Help Professionals Find The Answers
The Harvard Business Review did a survey asking managers whether they see themselves as corporate leaders, or as coaches to their employees. It turns out that good managers who want to be coaches understand that giving sales professionals the answers is not always the best way to go. Coaches want to help their subordinates understand the process involved in discovering an answer and then learning how many different ways that answer can be applied to real work situations.
This would indicate another important difference between trainers and coaches. Trainers give the answers, while coaches help associates to apply what they have learned to find the answers. The data indicates that helping to find the answers is a much more effective way to get employees to retain important information for the long term.
