Training, Mentoring, or Coaching—Understand the Difference for Sales Success

I often see sales leaders use the terms “training,” “mentoring,” and “coaching” interchangeably. To achieve high performance, though, it’s important to understand their differences and how they co-exist to support skill, talent, wisdom, knowledge, ability, and experience.

For instance, how does a sales organization share its knowledge with inexperienced sales reps or experienced reps new to the sales culture—with the efforts hopefully translating into skill development and increased sales?

Training

Sales skills can develop through a variety of training approaches, such as blended learning approach consisting of virtual and classroom sessions. Management observation, pre-testing, and post-session follow-up activities are just several ways that sales leaders can determine whether the training has been successful and the desired skills have “stuck” and turned into behavior change. Likewise, organizations can tap into off-the-shelf training courses and programs for general knowledge and best practices resident within the sales profession.

Mentoring

Both formal and informal mentoring programs are an excellent way to share the wisdom of an experienced sales manager to accelerate the sales development in others. Mentoring includes teaching, advising, and consulting, many times on a one-to-one basis. Successful mentoring relationships, whether for skill development or career progress—should begin with thoughtful “contracting” between mentor and mentee to ensure that mutual expectations are properly framed for best results. 

Coaching

So, if training is using knowledge to transfer sales skills and mentoring is applying experience to develop wisdom, what is coaching?

John Whitmore writes in Coaching for Performance, coaching is “unlocking a person’s potential to maximize his/her performance.”  In other words, sales coaching is taking a sales professional’s ability, no matter the level, and applying fundamentally sound coaching techniques to help accelerate talent development. 

• Coaching is not yelling, telling, or selling. 

• Coaching is developmental. 

• Coaching is using observation, motivation, and developmental feedback as “anchor points” for a firm foundation of coaching the sales professional.

• Coaching is about helping a sales rep take his or her knowledge, experience, and ability through the resources of training and mentoring, to enhance that person’s skill, wisdom, and talent.  

  ASTD’s Sales Coaching for Business Impact Certificate devotes its entire two days to teaching participants the best practices (ASTD’s World-Class Selling Model), concepts, and most recent intellectual capital residing under the roof of Sales Coaching. Effective sales coaching can become the skill differentiator accelerating the development of a high performance sales culture. Here's a figure we use in the certificate to start the discussion: 

You can explore these topics further during ASTD's upcoming offering of the Sales Coaching for Business Impact Certificate****