Ownership in sales coaching
Ownership over any aspect of work can be a powerful tool to give your salespeople. It allows freedom to be creative, explore, learn, practice and develop within an environment where the person can truly love what they do. Embedding ownership deeply into your sales coaching with reps has been shown to produce higher motivation and better outcomes - here's why.
Ownership is ‘the act, state, or right of possessing something’.
It means taking responsibility, and not leaving it to someone else. You care about the outcome the same way you would care as an owner of the organization.
Encouraging ownership is a great time saver and empowers the individual to lead and build what they want to get from their sales performance.
Promoting trust and responsibility in their own development by choosing where they want to be coached makes them more accountable and challenges them to meet their objectives.
When staff have a sense of ownership this improves both their productivity and their performance, as the practice becomes incredibly motivating for reps.
A good coach wants their coachee to feel good about themselves. They want them to achieve a sense of pride in their achievements and learn from each session. It's not the coaches job to preach what each person should be doing, it's more the job of a coach to guide people in the right direction and allow them to control their own fate.
Why does ownership matter in sales coaching?
When we have a strong sense of ownership, we get a higher level of self-motivation. This is fundamental to doing well in sales.
Ownership motivates our drive to succeed.
It gives us energy to pick ourselves up.
Self-motivated individuals are more productive at work, and therefore likely to be more successful.
When we “own it” we are more emotionally attached to the outcome and to the result. We care more about where we end up and because of this, we make decisions more thoroughly and responsibly.
When your reps care about their outcomes, they are then more likely to take the initiative to self-coach and peer-to-peer coach, compounding the benefits of coaching and maximising your time as a leader.
3 tips for sales coaches to encourage ownership
- Involve the rep with decision-making related to their performance and work with them to define sales coaching outcomes. Make it clear to them why their performance is important and where it fits into the bigger picture. Understanding why something is important leads to people doing a better job.
- Create an environment where they feel comfortable to be creative and use their initiative. When they can share their ideas without fear or anxiety this will enable them to take responsibility and have more control.
- Ask what tools they need support with to do their job during your sales team training. Knowing they have had input into the process makes them more accountable to their own targets.
Things to avoid when coaching ownership
- Don’t dictate or solve your rep’s problems for them. This will make them rely on you too much and discourages confidence in solving problems for themselves.
- Don’t micromanage your rep. Instead provide them with time and space to creatively discover answers for themselves. Make sure you factor in time spent on self-investment where they can learn new skills and reflect on things they have done (both well and poor). This can give them a new perspective and energy.
Finally, If you make ownership a core value at your workplace you will see successful sales results with deals that win. You will also be promoting a happy caring team workforce. These people will behave responsibly and work to a high standard that you can all be proud of.
If you’d like to know how to launch sales coaching software for your team, watch our video below or start with the fundamental guide to sales performance coaching.
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