Background:
The CEO invited Angus McLeod to coach their Sales Manager (SM) following earlier consulting work. The SM was effective with SMEs but failing to take progress or win business within larger prospective customers. It was agreed to commence with a single two and a half hour session of coaching and review needs after that.
Challenge:
The root cause was the SM’s self-limiting beliefs when approaching senior, challenging people in a highly competitive and aggressive sector. The issue had become compounded, leading to patterns of behaviour that were sabotaging the SM’s obvious effectiveness.
Solution:
The CEO committed to the initial coaching and review. Angus encouraged the SM to gain perspective around the issues. Further, to establish a rational and pragmatic strategy to suit the SM’s own experience and strengths. The SM was also introduced to ‘positive anchoring’ – enabling the SM to ignite a powerful, ‘selling mindset’ prior to meeting ‘difficult’ clients. To check the new thinking, the SM walked through a possible scenario with one of these clients, having set up the positive, selling mindset.
Outcomes:
The SM required no further coaching intervention, visited a number of ‘difficult’ clients with significant impact and orders. The SM and the CEO were delighted.