What's the difference between sales training and sales coaching?

Do you think sales training and sales coaching are the same or different? What's the difference?

IMO....

Training is the communication of the sales process that takes place in the classroom or via computer training or other delivery method.

Coaching is the field work done to help the trainee apply the classroom training to actual sales situations. It may involve ride alongs or it may be a review of customer contacts with the intent of offering suggestions on how to handle different situations.

Good Selling!

Sell4alivn

Bulldog,
That is a great question and one I get very often.

A trainer is someone who is instructing from a predetermined text or system. The trainer's objective is to give out the information and then allow the trainee to use it at a later time.

The coach's function is quite different. The coach takes your situation and gets to know your goals and help you become better at what you do. That may involve the trainer sharing with you the ideas he/she has picked up or it may involve working with you to come up with your own solution that you can own and truly believe in.

If you have for example a closing coach. That coach is going to give you some ideas on closing and then should ask you for your examples and roll play with you on how to overcome objections or work through situations to move the prospect through the process.

Your sales career needs more than training it needs coaching. Think of any professional or Olympic athlete. They all have had training, but they also have had a coach most of their lives. Even Tiger Woods has a full time coach.

Bill

I like the definitions I see so far - they tie in together.

I've never worked with a sales organization as most here. I've been with my company twelve years which is direct selling and network marketing and I can't compare to other sales situations as I've never been in one.

FYI we have company calls Monday night we call Business Building Calls which include all kinds of marketing and sales tips and some distributors telling their stories.

Also, we have localized trainings on Saturday mornings.

Besides that we work ear-to-ear and eye-to-eye with distributors locally and around the USA/world coaching and mentoring and training and teaching.

We also do training/mentoring calls which can be lots of topics.

That's what we do.

MitchM

In my opinion:

Sales training is the development of sales personnel in a group setting (seminar, class, webinar, teleseminar, etc.)

Sales coaching is the development personnel in an individual setting (individual coaching sessions, ride-a-longs, post-mortems, pre-call planning, etc.).

Skip Anderson

The coaches I have used, have all become
very good friends as well. The same goes for the
students who have used my coaching services.

When you hire a coach, the relationship is much more
personal and the coach cares more about your success
on an individual basis.

Bill

What's the difference between sales training and sales coaching?

Sales Forum