Are you Teaching your Reps to Fish?

Most managers know they should coach their reps rather than simply tell them what to do. The problem is that coaching takes longer in the moment, and the ROI isn't immediately visible.

When time is tight and there's a live deal on the line, it's much easier to solve the deal yourself.

That's a rational decision in isolation. Do it often enough, though, and you slowly build a sales team that can't function without you.

The difference between deal management and coaching

The easiest place to see this is in a deal review.

"Who's the Economic Buyer?"

"What's the timeline?"

"What's the competitive threat?"

These are useful questions, but they're primarily gap-spotting questions. They help the manager understand what's missing from the deal and what needs to happen next.

They don't necessarily help the rep understand why the gap exists in the first place.

A manager focuses on what's missing. A coach goes one level deeper and focuses on the behaviour that caused it.

Don't just solve the gap

Imagine you've spotted two problems in a deal: there's no Economic Buyer access and the rep hasn't established meaningful business pain.

The quickest response is to tell the rep what needs to happen.

"You need to get to the Economic Buyer."

"Go back and quantify the pain."

That might improve the opportunity. But the next time the rep finds themselves in exactly the same situation, there's a good chance they'll need their manager again.

The coaching opportunity is to help the rep diagnose how they got there and work out what they should do differently.

A simple coaching framework: CIA

We teach managers a simple structure called CIA: Current, Ideal, Action. It gives managers a repeatable way to coach inside a live deal conversation without turning the conversation into a list of instructions.

Current: What's the situation right now?

For example: What do we currently know about the signatory or senior buyer? What have we already tried? What happened?

Ideal: What should the situation look like, and why?

For example: ideally, we'd have Economic Buyer access and their sign-off before the opportunity reaches a late stage.

Action: What's the next move, and who owns it?

For example: the rep might ask their champion to bring the Economic Buyer into the next call. If that doesn't work, they could agree that their VP sends a personalised message directly to the buyer.

The important part is that the rep gets there themselves rather than waiting for the manager to prescribe the next move.

What coaching the Economic Buyer gap sounds like

The instinct when a deal has no senior buyer access is to say: "Go find the Economic Buyer."

A coaching conversation sounds different:

"Where are we at right now with the Economic Buyer?"

"How have you tried to get access so far?"

"What stopped you?"

"What would best case look like by our next deal review?"

"What could you try differently this time?"

"What does your next move look like?"

Both conversations might end with exactly the same action. The difference is what the rep learns along the way.

One solves the immediate deal. The other improves the rep's ability to solve the next one themselves.

A coaching exercise for this week

Listen closely to your next few deal reviews and separate your questions into two categories: questions that diagnose the opportunity and questions that diagnose the rep's behaviour.

If most of the conversation is about missing information, next steps and deal gaps, you're probably managing the opportunity more than you're coaching the person.

When you identify a gap, resist solving it immediately. Run through Current, Ideal, Action and make the rep do the thinking first.

The goal of coaching is less dependency, not more

Deal reviews are already happening every week. That makes them one of the best opportunities managers have to build capability without adding another coaching meeting to the calendar.

The question is whether you're using those conversations to make better deals or better reps.

Ideally, you're doing both.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is the difference between deal management and sales coaching?

Deal management focuses on identifying what is missing from a specific opportunity and deciding what should happen next. Sales coaching goes deeper by helping the rep understand the behaviour or thinking that created the gap in the first place.

How can managers coach during a deal review without slowing everything down?

Instead of immediately prescribing a next step, use a few questions to understand what the rep has already tried, what blocked them, what the ideal outcome should be and what they think the next move is. This keeps the coaching practical and tied directly to the live opportunity.

How do you know if a deal review is actually coaching?

Look at the questions being asked. If the conversation only focuses on missing information, risks and next steps, it is mostly deal management. If it also explores the rep's decisions, behaviour and reasoning, coaching is happening too.