Continuing on the theme of Deal Coaching from my previous post, one of the key responsibilities of a manager should be to actively coach his or her team on their respective important deals. To be effective, coaching needs to done on a regular basis. Deal Coaching accelerates preparedness for the business negotiation and we know how important it is to be fully prepared to negotiate. As always discussed in our Strategic Negotiation workshops, the best time to start planning for the negotiation – is as early in the lifecycle of the deal as possible, when the focus is on sharing and validating information.

One of the key responsibilities of a manager should be to actively coach his or her team on important deals, on a regular basis. Deal coaching starts with an assessment of knowledge and position in the deal in order to build the insight required to negotiate a deal that both sides would be willing to accept. This assessment needs to highlight what is known and what is not known about the deal, and should help to formulate the questions to be asked to uncover the information that is still needed.

We all know deal coaching is important and we all know it doesn't happen (at least to the degree it needs to). This is another subject we've talked about for years and is now time to fix. We have a compelling reason. CSO Insights reports that the odds at vegas craps tables are better than average forecast accuracy (less than 50%).  What if I told you win rates for forecasted deals could increase by 19.6% without making any significant investments? Well, it can be done and I have one word for you, COACHING! 

I know, I know… the sales / marketing disconnect has been talked and written about for years. The problem now is that we need to fix it. With the rapid market shifts in competitive advantage and strategy, the new oil for salespeople is knowledge. Marketing (and to a degree, product management) has been unfairly tasked with providing this knowledge to sales. I say unfairly tasked because the role of marketing and the agencies that support them is not the granular level of knowledge, in real time, that sales needs to compete and win. Their role is higher level branding and perhaps lead generation. 

One of my partners, Dave Knopfler, is fond of saying "CRM is a tax on salespeople." Really, who likes taxes? I think he's absolutely right. Technology was supposed to help salespeople compete, however, it never fulfilled that promise which is why 74% of organizations report low adoption. For sure it's added some value for management in terms of pipeline management and forecasting (even though average forecast accuracy is still below 50% and the odds at a Vegas craps table are better).  

Put yourself in this scenario – you wake up every day for a week feeling unwell, well below par.  You don’t have any broken bones, or spots, or bruises;   you have no visible signs of an illness or injury.  You just don’t feel well.  Eventually you go to the doctor, wait patiently in the doctor’s waiting area, and when it is your turn, take a seat in the doctor’s consulting room.

How would you then feel if the doctor does not talk to you about the reason for your visit?  She (or he) just immediately starts to write a prescription for you.  Rationally we know that this is not the right way to proceed.