Resolution Systems, Inc. Challenges Sales Manager to Coach Their Team to Success

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At a recent entrepreneurial roundtable hosted by Resolution Systems, Inc., CEO, Barrett Riddleberger, challenged leaders to change their traditional management style to a coaching style. Riddleberger highlighted strategies utilized in this method of management that better place a manager to coax peak performance from their teams.

Resolution Systems, Inc.

What do sales managers and head coaches in the NFL have in common? Probably more than most sales professionals realize. Resolution Systems, Inc. has noted and successfully applied many of the techniques utilized by coaching staffs in the NFL to their training methodology to help their clients improve and increase their business. In fact, sales training could be called “coaching the coaches.”    

Consider the similarities between professional sales and the NFL: Medium and large organizations typically have two or more “layers” of management—comparable to coaches and assistant coaches in the National Football League. Sales enterprises are led by a CEO or VP (head coach), who is supported by several sales managers and account managers (assistant coaches), each with their own “players” and zones of responsibility.

The sales manager’s primary task is not unlike that of a head coach in the NFL: to draw forth from every team member the talents and skills those individuals are capable of contributing to the team. A coach must assess his players, just as a sales manager must assess her reps. Do they have the skills prerequisite to and compatible with the job?

Once the sales director has determined the strengths and weaknesses of her players, she can inform them of the areas in which they excel, and the areas in which they may need to improve. The sales “coach” will then transition to training and development, which might include role-playing, observation, and feedback. NFL coaches also conduct training and development (workouts, drills, and scrimmages), but they call it “practice.”

Resolution Systems, Inc. provides sales assessments and training, as well as sales management training and coaching. RSI has helped hundreds of clients increase sales, improve team performance, and hire salespeople more effectively.

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JoAnna Conlon
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