LEAP™ Sales Coaching Program for Sales Managers – FAQ
What are some of the essential themes and principles of the LEAP™ program?
The LEAP™ (Leadership, Empowerment, Accountability, and Performance™) process is built on several key themes and principles designed to ensure effective sales coaching. Here’s an overview:
- Healthy Balance of Accountability and Support: Accountability alone isn’t enough, and neither is support. A healthy balance between the two is essential for effective coaching, though this balance doesn’t come naturally to most people. The LEAP™ program emphasizes setting clear expectations while providing genuine support and empathy.
- Carefrontation: Our approach integrates “carefrontation” – a blend of caring confrontation. This means using gentle guidance and occasional firm direction when necessary. It’s about knowing when to pull back and when to push forward based on instinct and individual needs.
- Belief in Your Team: Believing in your team’s potential is a cornerstone of the LEAP™ program. This belief transcends any criticism, which should always be constructive and aimed at fostering growth.
- Constructive Feedback: The LEAP™ program teaches you to pair criticism with actionable advice and positive reinforcement, ensuring your team feels valued and motivated to improve.
- Subject Matter Expertise: What sets the LEAP™ program apart is our inclusion of subject matter experts who provide advanced techniques and insights that aren’t commonly taught. This ensures your team receives cutting-edge knowledge to enhance their skills.
- Tailored Approach: Recognizing that each team member is unique, the LEAP™ program guides you in identifying when someone needs a different approach. This tailored coaching helps in addressing individual needs effectively.
- Consistent Communication: Regular and open communication is key. The LEAP™ program encourages frequent check-ins to build rapport and make it easier to address both praise and areas for improvement.
How do you ensure coaching is tailored to each individual’s needs and values?
At the LEAP™ program, we understand that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. Each person is coached based on their unique persona and values. Here’s how we achieve this:
- Personalized Coaching: We assess each team member’s individual needs, values, and personality to tailor our coaching methods accordingly. This personalized approach ensures that each person receives the support and guidance they need to succeed.
Just Enough Anxiety: We introduce the concept of “just enough anxiety” to keep individuals motivated without overwhelming them. This means finding the right balance of challenge and support for each person.
How do you manage arousal levels in high performers?
Similar to elite athletes, high performers need to manage their arousal levels to maintain peak performance. The LEAP™ program provides strategies for this:
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- Breathing and Centering: When arousal levels are too high, we teach techniques such as deep breathing and centering to help individuals calm down and regain focus.
- Arousal and Motivation: When arousal levels are too low, we help individuals re-engage with their goals and find motivation to elevate their performance. This can involve setting new challenges or reconnecting with their purpose.
What about contests and incentives? Do you help us with that?
Yes, we can help you design effective contests and incentives. We understand that traditional contests often fail because everyone knows who the winner will be from the outset, which can demotivate the rest of the team. Our approach includes:
- Inclusive Reward Structures: While it’s important to reward top performers, we also ensure that other team members have a fighting chance. Properly constructed programs can motivate everyone by recognizing different achievements and progress.
- Competing with Your Best Self: We encourage designs that focus on competing with one’s best self rather than against others. This approach fosters continuous personal improvement and ensures that everyone has an opportunity to win.
Balanced Recognition: We believe in rewarding incremental improvements and individual milestones, not just the top sales figures. This helps maintain motivation across the entire team.
How do you keep salespeople motivated when they are off to a good start?
Keeping salespeople motivated after a good start involves focusing on activity metrics and ratios rather than just absolute numbers. Here’s how the LEAP™ program addresses this:
- Measuring Ratios: We teach salespeople to measure their performance through ratios, such as calls to appointments, rather than just absolute numbers. This approach ensures continuous improvement. For example, if the goal is to book at least two appointments a day and a salesperson achieves this by 12 PM, they have met their day’s goal. However, by focusing on improving their ratio, they remain motivated to keep making calls and increasing their success rate.
- Continuous Improvement: Just like elite athletes track their stats, salespeople should continuously aim to improve their performance metrics. By encouraging them to compete with their best self, they always have something to strive for, ensuring sustained motivation.
- Incentives for Ratios: We design incentive programs that reward improvements in performance ratios, not just end results. This approach motivates salespeople to keep enhancing their skills and productivity throughout the day.
How much time is involved in the LEAP™ program?
We believe that effective sales coaching requires time for concepts to be understood and for accountability to be established. Unlike intensive 3- or 4-day programs, the LEAP™ program is structured to allow participants to apply the strategies in their work. Here’s how we do it:
- Initial Training: We start with an initial 1 to 1.5-day intensive training session to introduce key concepts and strategies.
- Follow-Ups: Follow-up sessions are spaced out to ensure ongoing support and accountability. This allows participants to implement what they’ve learned and receive feedback on their progress.
- Virtual Option: The program can also be conducted virtually, providing flexibility for remote teams.
For more details or to discuss how the LEAP™ program can be tailored to your team’s needs, please call us.
Selling the Seven C’s™ – FAQ
What is the Seven C’s and how does it differ from traditional sales courses?
The Seven C’s—Create, Connect, Confirm, Confer, (handle) Concerns, Complete, and Continue—represent a comprehensive, client-centered approach that goes beyond traditional sales techniques. Unlike other programs that use terms like “pitch” or “close,” the Seven C’s focus on building genuine relationships and trust. “Concerns” are addressed throughout the process, ensuring ethical handling of issues at any stage.
How does the Selling the Seven C’s™ course ensure ethical and truthful selling practices?
The course prioritizes ethics and truth, guiding sales professionals to be honest and transparent. It emphasizes understanding clients’ needs and providing genuine solutions, fostering long-term relationships built on trust.
What innovative and disruptive ideas does the Selling the Seven C’s™ course introduce?
The course challenges traditional sales assumptions, such as needing multiple touches to secure a decision-maker. It teaches principles like “The best appointment is the one booked today for today” and uses pattern interrupts to ethically engage clients and help them think through their decisions more clearly. The course also promotes the use of “client” over “customer” to signify long-term, professional relationships.
Who teaches the Selling the Seven C’s™ course, and why is it unique?
Dennis, the course’s creator, is the sole instructor and certifier, ensuring participants receive expert training directly from the source. This exclusivity guarantees consistency and depth in learning.
How does the role-playing methodology in Selling the Seven C’s™ differ from traditional methods?
Participants use real-world client lists and scenarios, practicing immediately what they learn. Weekly follow-ups ensure continuous improvement through spaced repetition. The role-play method, similar to top sports coaching, involves repeated practice with different partners, focusing on constructive feedback.
How does the course structure help in building long-term client relationships?
The “Continue” phase emphasizes ongoing engagement, nurturing relationships beyond the sale. It also teaches salespeople how to ethically ask for and receive introductions and referrals from satisfied and loyal clients, turning them into advocates. We have a dedicated course, “Mastering Introductions and Referrals™,” to leverage this factor effectively.
Is the training event-driven or does it involve continuous learning?
While Dennis is often invited to deliver keynotes and intensive half-day and full-day programs, these are initial engagements. The course is designed for sustainable behavior change, with long-term programs that include weekly practice and reflection, building on each week’s learnings. This method promotes well-being and reduces burnout among salespeople.
Do participants receive any certification upon completing the course?
Yes, participants receive a hand-calligraphed certificate signed by Dennis. There are also opportunities for special awards and honors, based on performance and contributions during the course.
Can the Selling the Seven C’s™ course be customized for our industry?
Absolutely. The course has been tailored to various industries, including financial services, insurance, pest control, and many others. This customization ensures that the training is relevant and applicable to your specific market needs.
How are your other sales courses in comparison?
Most sales courses include an intensive half-day or full-day live workshop followed by weekly follow-up sessions. A unique offering is the Mastering the Telephone: Booking Appointments that Stick!™ course, where Dennis can provide real-time coaching with live calls. Dennis is actively practicing the skills and art he imparts to others, staying in touch with the current sales landscape. This hands-on approach sets the course apart, offering invaluable insights and real-world application.
This concise FAQ highlights the key aspects of the Selling the 7 Cs™ course, emphasizing its unique approach, ethical focus, innovative training methods, and adaptability across different industries.
What is CareFrontation and how is it used in the course?
CareFrontation is a technique used in the course to provide constructive, compassionate feedback to individuals. It’s about delivering observations and suggestions with empathy and respect, focusing on helping participants improve without feeling attacked. This approach fosters a supportive environment where feedback is given with the intent to uplift and support growth, rather than criticize. It’s a key element in our 1-on-1 coaching and other coaching programs, ensuring that feedback is both effective and considerate.
Don’t let another day pass by watching your sales objectives slip away. Act now to secure a free consultation with Dennis. Who better than the author to answer your questions?