Few of us will dispute the importance of coaching in boosting seller performance. Indeed, our analysis finds that high-quality coaching can improve seller performance by up to 19%. It’s no wonder sales organizations continue to spend significant time and resources in improving manager coaching skills. And while you can get advice on how to coach from all quarters, we thought we should list down advice on how NOT to coach. Keep these five signs in mind to avoid falling in the trap of bad coaching:

Telling More Than Asking: Managers often tend to spend too much time “telling”, delivering one-way feedback. Coaches should target to speak only 30% of the time, and the best way to stick to this balance is to use open-ended, probing questions to help sellers self-discover.
Focusing on the “Why” and not the “How”: The difference between a good and an average manager is not the amount of time spent coaching but their focus on different aspects of coaching. While good managers spend most of their coaching time guiding reps on “how” to improve on identified skill gaps, average managers focus their time on telling them “why”.
Coaching all Sellers Equally: Most managers believe that all reps should be coached equally. However, not all reps who receive coaching, even from good managers, necessarily perform better through sustained coaching. Coaches must target the core (i.e., the middle 60% of the sales force) to drive performance and stars for retention. Managers should also identify and tailor their coaching approach to reps’ learning preferences.
Relying Solely on Scheduled Coaching Sessions: Star managers integrate coaching in regular conversations and interactions with sellers, helping sellers absorb coaching lessons faster.
Coaching Based on Manager’s Own Experience as a Seller: Managers are often guilty of prescribing their own approach instead of allowing reps to arrive on a solution on their own. Worse is when managers get down to resolving the challenge themselves, not allowing reps to handle the issue.

What other signs would you include in this list?

CEB Sales members, sign up for our upcoming webinar on Driving Manager Effectiveness where our team of in house experts – Brent Adamson, Nick Toman, and Jessica Cash – will answer questions related to building a world-class manager development eco-system within your organization.

Related Blog Posts:

Coaching for Challenger Skills
Should You Videotape Coaching Sessions?
4 Ways to Measure Coaching Effectiveness

Related CEB Sales Resources:

Sales Coaching Topic Center
The Anatomy of World-Class Sales Coaching Practices (4.0)
Sales Coaching & Manager Effectiveness Benchmarking Tool