Why doesn't my sales team do what I tell them to do?

In this final episode before the holiday season, Steve, Jonathan and Pascal discuss the challenges sales managers face in getting their teams to follow directives. They explore the importance of trust, situational leadership, and the shift from directing to coaching. The conversation emphasizes the need for active listening and understanding individual team members' needs, especially under pressure. The hosts share insights on how to foster a supportive environment that encourages autonomy and self-discovery among team members, ultimately leading to better performance and team dynamics.

Steve Vaughan, Jonathan Cooper, Pru Layton, Christian Walter, Pascal le Floche,  Jayne Green  and Jonathan Slasinski are Sales Trainers from george james ltd.  You can email the show at:  Podcast@georgejames-training.com

 The trainers on LinkedIn:

 Steve Vaughan https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-vaughan-salestrainer/
Jonathan Cooper https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cooper-18716b1/
Pru Layton https://www.linkedin.com/in/pru-layton-b46a3528/
Christian Walter https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-walter-a1857b1/
Jayne Green https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayne-green-salestrainer/
Pascal Le Floch-Riche https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascal-le-floch-220ba46/

Jonathan Slasinski https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-slasinski-449a655/

george james training website https://georgejames-training.com/

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:02)
Hello again and welcome to the Luxury Choice, a B2B sales and business podcast brought to you by the training team of George James Limited. My name is Steve Vaughan. I'm a senior sales trainer with George James and I'm also the host and producer of this podcast. And this is our last podcast of 2024. It doesn't seem possible that we're sitting here the week before Christmas and the year has just flown by. And I'm joined here today with my colleagues, Jonathan and Pascal. Guys, can you believe that it's nearly Christmas? Where's the year gone to?

Jonathan (00:22)
You

Steve Vaughan (00:31)
It's flown by.

Jonathan (00:33)
That's right. My granddad always said to me, the older you get, the faster time goes. it's just a blink. I really don't know where the year's gone. And here we are, nearly 2025. Sounds a good year, 2025, all nice and tidy. So yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (00:38)
My mother said the same thing. Yeah.

Yeah, it's to be. So

Pascal Le Floch (00:49)
Please.

Steve Vaughan (00:51)
how are you Pascal? You getting ready for the big Christmas break in France?

Pascal Le Floch (00:56)
yes, yes, and I like to say that this is when time stops. Just going back to what Jonathan said, I prefer not to count the number of years we celebrated Christmas, but it's a great opportunity to be with family and friends and really spend quality time and recover also from all the efforts and let's say what we did during 2024.

Steve Vaughan (01:00)
Yeah.

No, no, let's not do that.

Yeah, good point. Yeah. One of the benefits of working in Europe, I guess, is that we do need to get quite a long break between Christmas and New Year. So, yeah, good chance to recharge the batteries, spend some time with family. Not always a good thing, but hopefully for most people it is. And get some exercise, get out with the dogs. In our case, we're going to do a lot of walking and all that kind of stuff. And then before we know where we are, we're back in the start of the year. My birthday is on the 4th of January. So throughout my corporate career, my birthday present was always a new sales target.

Jonathan (01:42)
Sounds perfect.

Pascal Le Floch (01:51)
Good?

Steve Vaughan (01:51)
You

Jonathan (01:52)
Hey, what could be better than that, Steve?

GIF wrapped as well, I hope. Not just in plain brown paper.

Steve Vaughan (01:58)
Yeah, absolutely. Happy birthday, Steve. Happy birthday, Steve. Here's your new number. it's bigger than last year. Anyway, let's not explore. So it should be, absolutely. So the topic today, gentlemen, really, and it's another one for you, the listener. It's another one where we're positioning this more at sales managers, but as we always say, you know...

Jonathan (02:06)
Perfect. And so it should be.

Steve Vaughan (02:19)
We love you to listen to all the episodes and find whatever works for you and is of interest to you and hopefully of entertainment to you as well. But what we're to look at today is why aren't my team doing what I tell them to do or why are some of them doing what I tell them to do and perhaps some of them not? Or why don't I get everybody doing things the way I want them to do? You know, this is me as the manager now. I don't mean you guys. I mean, if I'm the manager of the sales team now and you know, I've got people reporting to me, sales people, applications people.

Why don't they always do what I tell them to do? So that's quite a big topic for a, for today. And I'm going to start with you Pascal, because I think this is very much in your core area. So as a starting point, why do you think that managers and I've been in situation myself, why do you think managers face this? The team on doing, or some of the team at least on doing what we tell them to do? What are your thoughts?

Pascal Le Floch (03:14)
Hmm, yeah, so quite a wide question, would say. Yeah, broad one. probably, yeah, maybe let's start with the trickiest part. So, one of the fundamental reasons that the team will not follow what you say or what you ask is probably a trust question. So, if they don't trust you, there is no reason that they will follow what you ask them to do.

Steve Vaughan (03:17)
Yeah, absolutely.

okay, interesting.

Pascal Le Floch (03:43)
Hopefully, know, not so many managers are in this situation because if there is a trust question, then you have to really reconsider what you deliver for your team, how you support them, what sort of help and understanding you have about their needs and their customer needs as well. But fundamentally, you know, how you support your team to...

let's say move on and to succeed. So to me that's the first big big thing.

Steve Vaughan (04:12)
Interesting.

So they don't trust you because I guess if you're a new manager, perhaps, you know, they don't know you, they haven't worked with you before or, or, you know, why, do think they might not trust the manager?

Pascal Le Floch (04:27)
Couple of reasons for sure. one of them, if you start as a manager with a new team, you have to build trust. And this is a mutual need. How to build trust? It probably it could be a podcast theme itself. yeah. First of all, you have to listen to them. So make sure that you understand why.

Steve Vaughan (04:38)
Yeah, good point.

Hmm. I'll make a note of it.

Jonathan (04:45)
Yeah, definitely.

Pascal Le Floch (04:56)
let's say where they stand and what happened to them before, what the team needs to really deliver. And the parties as a leader, you have to show them that they can trust you. So you do what you say and you say what you do. That's a basic foundation to build trust with people.

Steve Vaughan (05:16)
Great point.

Pascal Le Floch (05:24)
And yeah, more to add on this, but at least if you achieve this, you're in a good position.

Steve Vaughan (05:26)
Hmm. Yeah, that's a super point.

Jonathan (05:28)
Yeah, yeah. And I think

what you describe Pascal there as well is taking time to really understand people, actively listen, something that hands up, I probably could have done a lot more of during my life. I've been practicing it for way too many years. I think I'm a little bit better than I was, but it's, when you're passionate and...

Steve Vaughan (05:45)
Me too.

Jonathan (05:53)
passionate about something, enthusiastic about something, it's very easy not to spend enough time listening and really understanding people. And that's a fundamental to trust and this topic today. yeah, loved your points here. Just a nice little review there, Pascal, of what trust's about. That ability to empathize and put yourself in other people's shoes as well, I think is also a very important aspect of it. And again, it underpins what we're just about to talk about, I'm sure.

Steve Vaughan (06:07)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

And I think it's Stephen Covey's written a book, hasn't he, about the importance of trust. I can't remember the exact quote, but it's along the lines of it's the big different business differentiator in the 21st century or something along those lines anyway. It's that important in having trust and trust isn't something that you instantly get you have to earn, don't you really? And you can also destroy in a second, of course, by doing the wrong things and saying the wrong things. So, okay, so they don't trust you. We're perhaps not good listeners, perhaps we're not good communicators.

Jonathan (06:24)
Yep.

Yep, yep.

Steve Vaughan (06:50)
as well. Why else might the team not be doing what we want them to do, Jonathan?

Jonathan (06:55)
well, I, I think I was, you know, let's, let's, you know, I think just before I move into that, for any salespeople listening to this, I just say that I think there's that some of the things we're almost certain to talk about today could also be applied in the relationships we have with customers. Because sometimes doesn't it appear that the customers don't actually do what we want them to do either. And I wonder why that is, you know, that barrier is

Pascal Le Floch (07:15)
Hmm.

Jonathan (07:24)
Pascal's talked about, you know, it could be trust, but maybe, you know, and, you know, I'm desperate to get into it. So, you know, it's, you know, it's just at that moment in time, you know, it's the wrong approach to take. So something I was taught a long time ago, like many other people was, you know, the concept of situational leadership. I think what a fantastic model. I know it's widely used.

And it's long lived as well and I can understand why because it's actually relatively straight, simple, you know, to understand but also implement models that are desperately difficult to implement, never survive long. That is relatively straightforward. And of course, you know, in understanding situational leadership, you know, that helps us understand why, you know, sometimes, you know, telling people to do something, you know, and giving close

Steve Vaughan (08:10)
Yeah, I it.

Jonathan (08:22)
you know, instructions and giving very detailed direction is fine. It's absolutely the right leadership style. But of course, it all comes back to that situational leadership model and understanding for a given moment in time for a specific task or activity, you know, as a manager relative to the individual in front of you, you know, what is the best leadership style to adopt?

Sometimes it might be, you know, the tell. But of course, as we know, in many occasions, it's not.

Steve Vaughan (08:59)
And if you're not familiar, dear listener with the situation leadership model, very, very, very quickly, it's basically adapted in your leadership style for the person that you're working with. So, for instance, if you've got a new salesperson who's just joy, never sold before, you clearly wouldn't say, to the company. Here's the key to your car. Here's your laptop off you go. I'll see you in 12 months time. Good luck. It does happen. Yeah. And the flip side, if you've got somebody who's done the job,

Jonathan (09:21)
Well it happens!

Steve Vaughan (09:28)
for years, clearly very competent, knows what they're doing. If you were to use the phrase micromanage that person, that clearly is gonna be a mismatch and a disconnect. So that's really what we mean by situation leadership, and I'm sure we can look at that for another topic as well.

Jonathan (09:35)
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, indeed, but just so

that the listeners clear and so that, we've made our point as well. It is as situ, as the word suggests, it is task or activity dependent. You know, you may have a rookie salesperson who's brand, you know, completely new to selling. However, they might be fantastic.

Steve Vaughan (09:49)
Mm.

Yes. Good point.

Jonathan (10:04)
in terms of using social media and building networks or entering networks. They may be fantastic at that. So for that individual, depending on the task or activity, or whatever they're expected to do or whatever we're asking them to do, it can change dramatically how we actually lead them. So it is task or activity dependent and that's something we miss.

Steve Vaughan (10:08)
Mmm.

super point.

Hmm. So Pascal is, you know, going back to the points you were making is one of the problems here is that what we're doing is telling people what to do. You know, actually the question that we've asked to start with is, is the wrong thing. We're telling people what to do all the time instead of actually helping them find their own ways of getting to the solution. And I know this is subject, which is close to your heart. So what are your thoughts on that?

Pascal Le Floch (10:57)
Yeah, indeed, and I totally agree with Jonathan.

knew Steve about this situational leadership because I've been exposed to this many years ago, like the three of us, and it helped a lot to adjust my, let's say, leadership style, but also to the situations, as Jonathan said. Just to add a few cents on this, sometimes people are bit confused because they think they adjust their style depending on the type of people or the, let's say, how senior their sales team members are.

Steve Vaughan (11:16)
Mm.

Hmm.

Pascal Le Floch (11:32)
and they stick to a mode, leadership mode, like delegating with very senior salespeople. And it could be a mistake, as just Jonathan pointed out. It depends also what happens to this person. And it could sometimes, you know, due to private life issues...

someone with very strong experience as a salesperson becomes more fragile and in that case the fully delegating style doesn't apply anymore. just to mention this to sales managers who listen to us that you have again to be an active listener and be close to your team members not sticking on the job aspect only but also listening what could happen around.

Steve Vaughan (12:02)
Mm.

Yeah, good point. No, thanks for making that point. Yeah. Yeah, great.

Jonathan (12:08)
Yep.

Pascal Le Floch (12:22)
So yeah, having said that, back to your question Steve, yes, for sure. Listening people and helping them to become more autonomous and bringing the solution instead of you telling them what the solution could be is much more powerful.

First of all, because you give them the responsibility and let's say the ability to provide the solution, it shows also that you trust them.

Steve Vaughan (12:55)
Yeah,

that's that word again.

Pascal Le Floch (12:56)
That's a good sign, right?

Second, that you should be aware, we should all be aware as a sales leader that we don't get always the good ideas. Quite often we have the bad ideas. So yeah, it's good to rely on team members to bring many more options that we could think about.

Steve Vaughan (13:10)
No. Yeah, you better believe it. Yeah.

Jonathan (13:13)
Yeah.

Pascal Le Floch (13:22)
but not least it helps also for the dialogue and the dynamics within the team. So yeah I'm sure that Jonathan may have some additional insights on this.

Steve Vaughan (13:32)
So

Jonathan (13:34)
Hahaha

Steve Vaughan (13:34)
what

we're describing and the reason I went to Pascal on this is that you've got a lot of qualifications in this area. This is coaching as opposed to telling. Yeah, you know, so what we find in our sales leadership training that we do is that we have a lot of sales leaders who are great at telling people what to do, possibly less good at helping people find their way forward themselves really. Is that what we're saying here, Jonathan?

Pascal Le Floch (13:41)
Yes.

Jonathan (13:59)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. yeah, we see, you know, and it's interesting one for me, we see the vast, you know, I would say, you know, well over 50%, we perhaps should measure it. But well over 50 % of the sales managers, sales leaders that we work with, you know, don't really understand, you know, what coaching is, or actually how to coach. And

You know, but it's, you know, it's interesting as soon as you start to give them the insight into that and they start to practice it, they find strange things start to happen. In fact, sometimes some remarkable things start to happen as you know, people do start to change their behavior, right? People do start to develop and you know, and I know there's lots of definitions of coaching out there. You know, a few that have stuck in my mind over the years of, you know, been helping people be the very best they can.

But one of the best ones I was given, I may or may not have read it in a book, but I remember the gentleman, thank you, Andreas, I won't say his surname, who gave me this one. He said, Jonathan, one of the best definitions of coaching I heard was taking people on a journey of self discovery. And I just love that, right? And I always think as a manager, keep definitions of critical topics.

Steve Vaughan (15:16)
I love that.

Jonathan (15:26)
and critical capabilities in your head. Keep them simple. And I think that's why I loved it. And I've never forgotten, I never forget that day. I can remember where I was. I can remember where I was stood and having that conversation, drinking an appalling cup of coffee, I seem to recall as well. But what a brilliant definition because there is a significant change as you go from being very

Steve Vaughan (15:47)
Don't need the customer.

Jonathan (15:56)
you know, being a directing leader. And if you are conscious of situational leadership, know, you'll know what that means. Hey, if you're not, go look it up. But as you move from being a directing leader to a coaching leader, it's a huge change. You know, that ability, you know, to take people on that journey of self discovery. And as, you know, as most coaching, most, most, there was lots of coaching models out there. Most of them are underpinned by the ability to...

ask great questions and actively listen. It's a questions led exercise and for a lot of sales managers that's a big shift. If your natural style or your tendency is to tell and hey we've all done it, you're in a hurry, you're under pressure, there's all sorts of reasons why we do it. So yeah, it's an important consideration.

Steve Vaughan (16:26)
Mm.

It is.

That's a key point, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember doing something in one of my jobs many years ago where you look at your leadership style in terms of colors. Do you be familiar with that one? can't remember who ran it and if it's somebody's, know, an idea. Thank you for giving me the idea. But basically what the main colors I wore was yellow, which is my coaching style and red, which is my directing style.

Jonathan (17:00)
Yep. Yes.

Steve Vaughan (17:16)
Most of the time I was quite yellow, but at the end of the quarter or the end of the year, I was so far red, was infrared. It was like, just go do it. So it was just go do it, just get it done. So is there a thing here, Pascal, I'm not trying to be sort of smart here, but is there a thing where this is all good in theory?

Jonathan (17:24)
Hey, I'm a chromatographer, not a spectroscopist, so don't get technical with me. Yeah, that's right.

Pascal Le Floch (17:25)
No.

Steve Vaughan (17:41)
But actually when we get into the real world and we're all under pressure and we're chasing business and it's the end of the quarter and we're behind targets, that we haven't got time to do this kind of stuff. We've just got to say, just go and just do it. Or do we still have to resist that temptation?

Pascal Le Floch (17:56)
Yeah, very good question. mean, of course, know, the tendency would be, the natural tendency would be, let's close the quarter. You know, let's go back to the orders and go, go, go. So you go back to a directive style. But again, as you said, you should look at what is appropriate to each of your team members. And if you put pressure or too much pressure on some people who have

Steve Vaughan (17:59)
I'm out.

Self, self, self, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Pascal Le Floch (18:26)
some

empathetic characteristics or style.

probably you will just block them. So in that case, instead of this, if you take care of this person and ask, okay, how do you feel and so on and what do you think would be needed for you to be in a position to close, to fill the gap and close the orders. In that case, with this type of person, you have a higher chance to succeed for her or him and you on the numbers.

Steve Vaughan (18:52)
Mm.

Pascal Le Floch (19:02)
So, yeah again, please resist. Because when the end of the quarter comes, stress is increasing. It's increasing for everyone. And one of the things you learn in coaching is that stress leads to different types of behaviors. And you have to listen to signs. And as a sales manager or as a manager in general, if you can identify the signs, then you can work on them.

Steve Vaughan (19:11)
Absolutely.

Pascal Le Floch (19:32)
and you can avoid that not only you team members, but yourself, you go under stress and then you behave in the wrong way or you communicate in the wrong way. And wrong communication leads to wrong results or bad results.

Steve Vaughan (19:46)
Guilty as charged. I've done all those kind of things certainly. Yeah. What are your thoughts on this Jonathan?

Jonathan (19:49)
Yeah,

yeah, I mean, I think it's a fascinating topic because, mean, I don't laugh. I always love the end of quarter, okay? I love the end of the half year and I love the end of the full year. I just love the excitement of it all, the cut and thrust. I know not everybody, you know, perhaps gets that same level of enjoyment. I mean, I used to, I know it's sad. I'd wake up in the morning, you know, excited about it, okay? Even if I was behind the number, right?

Steve Vaughan (20:03)
Me too. Yeah.

Jonathan (20:19)
because there's a job to be done. But Pascal, I think you've raised a fantastic point there of being considerate and certainly something that, again, I could have definitely improved through my life. What is the difference between telling somebody something and actually taking some time to coach them? It's not a massive difference in terms of time, but of course, the result that you get looks really different.

Because you get to the end of the next quarter, because there always is the end of the next quarter, right? And you're in exactly the same position again, having to just tell people to do this, do that, instead of, hey, there's a great chance if you've coached them through something, that actually they're better equipped at the end of the next quarter to be able to handle these things for themselves. Of course, you know, we still of course need to be conscious of just telling when it's almost certainly not appropriate to do so.

Steve Vaughan (20:53)
Yeah.

Jonathan (21:17)
I understand why it happens. And look, sometimes, you know, I have to defend some sales managers, probably because I'm trying to make an excuse for myself and defend myself here, that look, some things are just not negotiable and some things just need to get done, right? So we need to go do them, okay? Because if we do those things, we'll be successful. I think the important thing is to actually then reflect on what's happened and perhaps you can go back to do some coaching.

Steve Vaughan (21:32)
Yes.

Jonathan (21:46)
around some of those things that actually happened at the end of quarter. it is, yeah, it's a very exciting time, as I said, but perhaps not for everybody. And yeah, it does cause stresses and strains, in people, teams, et cetera. But coaching is still something as a tool we should be still using right through that end of quarter because...

you know, for a lot of salespeople, they're transitioning, you know, they're transacting so many deals that what a great time to do some coaching, right? For them to develop their capabilities, to get more efficient at it, to do it in a better way, know, efficiency, effectiveness, yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, we must keep, we must be conscious of it. If you aren't conscious and you end up, you know, doing it, you miss that opportunity to then coach, you know, following that, you know.

Steve Vaughan (22:39)
Absolutely.

Jonathan (22:40)
You have that short lull,

don't you, at the beginning of the next quarter? What, for a couple of days before we're on it again? But yeah, just, I think, just being conscious of your own self-awareness.

Steve Vaughan (22:49)
I used to love this time of year as well.

I'm, and he's just, he's a jerk. He would take me sort of three or four days to come down after Christmas from all the buzz of it all. yeah, he got the, they didn't get the cold at you. know, and sure, sure. Sure. My age now, the excitement of sitting by the fax machine and waiting for the orders to come in, you know, that was, that was.

Jonathan (23:01)
Yeah, then I'd be ill. Getting cold, that's right. I don't know where from, but yeah, that's right.

Steve,

Steve Vaughan (23:13)
I know, I know. It was a fax

Jonathan (23:13)
dear dear.

Steve Vaughan (23:16)
machine. It wasn't a Telex. It was a fax machine. But Pascal, I'm just thinking about conversation. So we're recording this literally the week before Christmas, but conversations that are probably happening right now between sales managers and sales people. We've got this situation. We can do this deal. Tell me what to do, boss.

You know, I think we can get this deal. Tell me what to do. What do I need to do to get the order? How do we then make that into a coaching discussion as opposed to the boss saying, well, I think you need to go and talk to purchasing and so on and so on. So how do we make that a coaching conversation?

Pascal Le Floch (23:49)
Yeah, let's say first of all, you know, it would be about reversing the question, you know, as easy as it is, you know, so what do you think you would have to do to win the deal? So and then, you know, the salesperson would say, yeah, but I'm lost. I don't know how to do it. And then as a sales manager, you could fool in, let's say,

Steve Vaughan (23:54)
All right, love it.

Pascal Le Floch (24:12)
just go into the trap and say okay let me help you. No it's too early to say this. You can for sure ask your salesperson okay please remember the deal where you were in a tricky situation and you finally won it. What did you do to make it happen?

Steve Vaughan (24:34)
Super.

Pascal Le Floch (24:37)
Doing so, not only you ask persons to remember what happened, what they did, but you show them that you remember what they did so well, that you trust them to catch one of their resources and to use them for an existing deal or whatever. So that would be the type of question I would ask. And then things come.

So you can have a conversation around this and you can guide the person. And if there is still some hesitation or the sales people is not fully sure what to do, then you can adjust with mentoring. It reminds me of a deal like this one, blah, blah. And then you say what we did in that case, just to inspire people, but again, not to tell them what to do.

Jonathan (25:24)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (25:27)
Okay.

So you brought another wording we haven't used yet and we don't have time to go into all that today but I want to just very quickly come back to that. So you've talked about mentoring and we've been talking a little bit about coaching and often those two words are used interchangeably but my understanding is that they are different things so could you just give a brief definition of the two and what the differences are do think?

Pascal Le Floch (25:54)
Yeah, I can quickly give mine. So coaching is the heart of asking questions so that people in front of you, they get or they deliver the answers themselves. They bring the solutions themselves. The mentoring is a bit different. It's that you refer to some experience you had.

Steve Vaughan (25:56)
you

Pascal Le Floch (26:17)
and situations you were exposed to, you share this and thanks to this the other person can understand what they could do then or how they could do differently so it's source of inspiration. So again you don't tell them that this is the best thing to do but it's a way to achieve things.

Jonathan (26:29)
Yep.

Steve Vaughan (26:32)
to.

Jonathan (26:34)
Nice.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (26:39)
So you're

effectively saying, you know, it's up to you which way we go forward, but in my career, I had this example. This is what worked for me. This is that what, this is what didn't work. Yeah. Good point. Yeah.

Pascal Le Floch (26:48)
Yeah. Yes.

Jonathan (26:48)
Yeah, or this is what didn't work. This is how I lost the order. Yeah, I've got loads of those examples. But I think think Pascal,

Pascal Le Floch (26:55)
Yeah.

Jonathan (26:57)
great, know, it's, you know, this for me is and your question, Steve was a great one. Okay. How do I how do I win this? Okay, I don't know how to do it. Okay. Words to that effect. Experience tells me that most salespeople actually have got the answer to this question. And they are the best ones to answer it. Why? Because they are closest to the customer.

Steve Vaughan (27:18)
Absolutely.

Jonathan (27:19)
Now look,

there'll always be some deals that, you know, as the sales leader, you roll your sleeves up, you get involved with your team and your team member, you you either go to the customer or you help the salesperson get it over the line. Look, that needs to be done sometimes. But you can't do that with all of them. And that's, hey, not why you're employed. But I always say, remember, it's almost certain that the salesperson can probably answer this question. They probably, and that's where, you know, having a coaching model, I think is so powerful.

and you know my passion for the grow model because it's what I learnt. And that reality step for me is just so powerful. Getting them to give you feedback on, what is this current situation? This is where your wisdom as a sales manager, sales leader comes in because I think this is where the quality of the questions becomes so important. You've seen lots of orders won, you've seen lots of orders lost.

Steve Vaughan (27:52)
Thanks

Jonathan (28:15)
You've seen, unfortunately, orders not optimized or deals not optimized. You kind of know where to look and that helps shape your questions. You know, a classic one is, you know, understanding the strategic investment priority of a particular deal, whether it's a big consumables deal, services deal, or a major piece of capital. You know, where does it sit on the priority list for investment? Hey, I think we've talked about this before.

passionate scientists very easily will convince you that their project is the only thing that counts and hey, that's why they're brilliant at what they do and why they invent amazing things. But we need to know from a doing the deal perspective. there's an example of a question. Another one might relate to where are you in the buying process at the moment or what is the buying process? And they may only have, the salesperson may just have snippets of pieces.

Steve Vaughan (28:40)
Yeah.

Jonathan (29:08)
of information, just small pieces. But you actually, I think through that coaching session, and this is again, Steve, great question, great example, you help them join those pieces of information together so that they've got a clear review of actually where they are today. And this is all them giving you feedback, which is perfect, right? Great questions, they give feedback, they work out where they are today. Yes, we could give feedback on the situation and move into a, perhaps as you said, Pascal, more of a mentoring type role.

momentarily, but then I think, know, asking them, so how do you see it? You know, how do you think you could win it from here? You know, with everything we've discussed with the information you've got, what could you do or what could you do differently? So, so some fantastic coaching questions, you know, come come through as a result of that. And that's just, you you'd call that's unplanned coaching, isn't it? We never plan to sit down and have this discussion.

Pascal Le Floch (29:43)
Yeah.

Jonathan (30:04)
Dare I say it, we've both parked at the car somewhere and we're having this conversation at seven o'clock at night as we're making our way home or early morning. We've all been there and done it. But that's been a great sales leader to me, been available and helping people find these answers for themselves. Because once they've gone through that scenario, as soon as they see something similar in the future, they've got some answers. They've got a way forward. They just become more capable. And isn't that what coaching about?

Steve Vaughan (30:16)
Absolutely.

Mm.

So this is what I call windscreen

time, when we sit and stare at the windscreen in the car. So Pascal, there's always an opportunity to coach then, I think is what Jonathan's saying. It doesn't have to be a scheduled, let's sit down, we're going to do some coaching. We can take any opportunity we can really as leaders to provide some coaching when the situation arises.

Jonathan (30:34)
Yeah, absolutely Steve, yeah, yeah.

Pascal Le Floch (30:52)
Yes, and actually I would see the coaching approach as a manager more like mindset, know, so be ready to apply common sense and ask questions. So what is the reality as Jonathan said and what could be the next steps?

Steve Vaughan (31:00)
All right.

Pascal Le Floch (31:11)
who you need to talk to progress and win, who else must be involved and so on. So the usual questions, but quite often we are so deeply involved into a given deal. And as a manager, we have so many things to go through that, yeah, we want to get the answer and we just want to get the numbers. Yeah, but to get the numbers, we know that there is...

Steve Vaughan (31:35)
Yeah, funny, yeah, yeah.

Pascal Le Floch (31:41)
Just little things to be done in the meantime.

Jonathan (31:45)
Yeah, there's some capabilities, skills and behaviors, isn't there? yeah, that we

Steve Vaughan (31:49)
Yeah.

Jonathan (31:50)
need, yeah. They're just in the way.

Pascal Le Floch (31:53)
Yeah. And maybe one last thing I would like to add here is when there is this type of conversation is to make sure that you renew the trust you have in your team members and you tell them, you know, there are things you have not to tell, but there are things you have to tell and telling them that I trust you, that you can make it. And based on what we just discussed, you are in a position to close the deal. I'm with you on this.

and I'm very confident based on what you say that you'll make it happen. But if you need help, you know that I'm here. telling that you trust them and repeating that you are here to support them if there is any extra help required.

Steve Vaughan (32:24)
Super.

Yeah, I that. You're nodding, Jonathan,

Jonathan (32:46)
Yes. And I'd

always say, you know, whatever the outcome of that specific deal that you've coached them around, you know, have a follow-up coaching session as well. Okay. So if they win, fantastic. They've got to make sure they're extraordinarily conscious of what they did, you know, to win that deal. We all see it, don't we? We sometimes watch somebody do something exceptional and they never do it again. You know, coaching actually makes people much more self-aware. It doesn't just build confidence and self-belief.

and empowers people, it actually makes them much more self-aware. So have those follow-up coaching conversations as well. you know, as I was always taught, know, coaching should be a positive, uplifting experience. So even if the deal's been lost, you know, this isn't a blame game. This is just, you know, figuring out, you know, what we can do differently next time, you know, let's learn from it. We don't win them all, okay? We just need to win enough that we exceed our number at the end of the day. You know, so one of the other things that...

I'm always very conscious of is, you know, let's make sure we create a safe environment, you know, for this coaching. I think sometimes coaching gets a bad name because actually it isn't coaching. goes back to the, you know, it's telling sometimes in, I would suggest too much of an assertive way. It's almost aggressive, dare I say it, okay? Yes, correct. And I've seen it happen, unfortunately. And yeah, I probably have too, but I...

Steve Vaughan (33:59)
Thank you.

This is what you did wrong. This is what you should have done. This is how you, yeah, yeah, completely. Yeah. I've done it myself.

Yeah.

Jonathan (34:15)
Fortunately, I'm struggling to remember the last time I did it, is a good sign. But that could be because of my age and my memory fading. And it goes back to our question, think, which was, think if you coach well, people tell themselves what to do, don't they? They come up with a solution. It's their ideas. There's greater ownership. They tell themselves what to do. It's not coming from their manager. They tell themselves. And can you imagine? Because I just imagine.

Steve Vaughan (34:17)
Me too.

you

Jonathan (34:43)
some of the first coaching sessions I ever had as a salesperson. I was really lucky. I had a great coach. I didn't realize it was coaching until I left, okay, until I didn't get it. And then I realized, wow, that was powerful. It was tough, but extraordinarily fair. But goodness me, you know, I just, it gave me a great, you know, a view of this is what actually this is, and this is what great looks like from a coaching perspective. You know, really good.

Steve Vaughan (34:57)
Hmm.

Absolutely.

Jonathan (35:12)
Guy's long retired now, thank you Brian.

Steve Vaughan (35:16)
Guys, it's a fascinating topic and we could talk about this for hours and we are going to come back to coaching in episodes in the new year. But just to sort of wrap things up for today, sort of one last thought from you, Pascal, for a manager that's sort of struggling to move away from a telling mentality to a more of a coaching mentality. Any hints and tips?

Pascal Le Floch (35:39)
Yeah, again, the self-awareness is critical here. Giving people the possibility to become more self-aware of their own capabilities, that's great. But as a sales manager, as a sales leader, you have to be also self-aware. You who you are, how you behave, how you communicate, to be able to adjust your style.

Steve Vaughan (35:59)
Absolutely.

Pascal Le Floch (36:08)
So especially in the of quarter or let's say half of the year, anyone may be under stress. And stress is good, know, so that there is no negative or positive aspect of it is there. So how you manage it, that's a different question. And it could be a topic. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (36:23)
Mm.

It is. At another podcast. Series 48 of

Jonathan (36:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, thank you guys.

Steve Vaughan (36:34)
the podcast.

Pascal Le Floch (36:35)
As a

Jonathan (36:35)
Yes, yes, yes.

Pascal Le Floch (36:37)
sales

manager, being self-aware of where you stand and when you discuss, what is the message you deliver.

And are you clear the way you deliver a message? Because sometimes you can complain that the team will not follow what you ask them to do, but okay, were you clear? Did you check that they understood what your message was? And did you individually check that everyone got the message as you wanted it to be received? So that's so important because let's say one message, different people, different interpretations. know, that's something I learned many years ago.

Steve Vaughan (36:45)
super.

Great point.

Hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Pascal Le Floch (37:15)
So

it's quite good to double check this. So that could be another aspect that I would propose sales leaders to keep in mind. The clarity and checking the communication, the messages they deliver if they have been not only received, well received, but well understood.

Steve Vaughan (37:33)
Love that. And Jonathan, one final thought from you?

Jonathan (37:36)
a selfish one here for the sales managers, okay, because ultimately you won't be selfish. But one of the things that most sales managers will talk about and I did is having enough time to do the job, right, with everything we're expected to do. All I would say to anybody listening who perhaps, you know, hasn't yet mastered coaching or is still practicing or is yet to begin but wants to, there's a great phrase, isn't there? Invest time to save time. And this is a classic, okay?

Steve Vaughan (37:49)
Yeah, completely.

Jonathan (38:06)
You'll find yourself telling people things over and over and the same thing over and over again. Okay. and actually that probably applies in quite a lot of scenarios, but you'll find people, you tell people the same thing over and over as opposed to if you just take, take a bit more time to coach somebody around it. The chances of you having to do it again are a lot lower. And remember sales leaders, sales managers, as I was taught as well, the ultimate, the ultimate reason we coach.

Steve Vaughan (38:17)
Hahaha.

What a great point.

Jonathan (38:35)
is that so ultimately we can delegate. There's another podcast episode. it is, yes, I should have taken more note of the schedule. Absolutely, thank you, Steve, thanks.

Steve Vaughan (38:39)
It's coming up.

Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you, Pascal. Thank you. listen, if you found this an interesting topic, we will be covering more in 2025 around the areas of coaching in various episodes. Of course, you can find out more on our website. Pascal is a fully qualified coach in

Jonathan (38:50)
Thank you as well.

Steve Vaughan (39:06)
France and I you've got lots of plans for 2025 in terms of what you'll be offering out there as well. If you have enjoyed the show, folks, then please subscribe in your favourite podcast app. That way you'll get it coming into your inbox straight away. And please do give us a review as well. It does help us in lots of weird and mysterious ways. If you do have a chance to leave us a nice review ideally. We'll be having a little Christmas break. So we'll be back in mid January with our next episode.

On behalf of all of us at Joy James, can we wish you, if you do celebrate Christmas, a happy Christmas, regardless a happy holiday period, a really successful 2025, and we'll be coming back to you again soon in 2025 with another episode. Until then, happy selling and we'll talk soon.