.png)
Glenn Mattson
The content of this recording is copyrighted by Sandler Systems LLC. All rights reserved.
Glenn Mattson
Hey everybody. Welcome back to Building Blocks of Success. We are in season six, episode two. Today we're going to be taking a look at what I consider expert versus the coaches, a player-coach. It kind of makes sense that you have an individual who is successful at what they do, they are bringing in the bacon, right? They're seeing people, they're doing all the right stuff, and then you either have a new division, have an open spot, and or bring in young people and you're saying to yourself, “Hey, we need some way to actually show them the ropes.” Yet one of the ideas, obviously, is to take a look at someone who's high performing already and have them quote unquote, share what they do. So, today's episode is not necessarily talking about the strategy of being a player-coach and why, unfortunately, 90% of the time they don't work out, and they don't work well, mostly it's a disaster. Today's session, I want to stay focused on those that are a player-coach, those that are in the role of being a coach and being someone who has to produce. Based on history, normally, if you are coaching, supervising, training, mentoring, or selling, and you had to pick one of those that had to be done during the day, the selling typically wins.
Glenn Mattson
Now, when we look at a player-coach, it can work and it can work really, really well, but unfortunately, the majority of the times that I see it happening is the poor player-coach has really never been trained on how to be a good coach, never been trained on how to pre-brief debrief. Never been trained on really the skills that they need to have to be a good coach. It's almost as if whoever was ever asking them just to say, “Hey, just share your brilliance”, and sooner or later, the young guy or young woman will figure it out. That's not really the case. But for those of you who are in that top performer and you're being asked to coach, again it's common sense, it makes sense.
Glenn Mattson
I just had an RIA the other day, a guy's doing roughly about 1.8 billion in his own personal practice, and they have four or five other teams that are not doing quote unquote as well. So, the mothership said, “You know what? We're going to make you a regional. We expect you still to produce at what level that you are”. Now to add to that, “we would like you to mentor, coach, train, supervise a whole bunch of different titles with different responsibilities to the others that are not doing as well as you, period”. So, for those individuals out there that are in that position, let's talk about it, right? Because the research shows that 77% of all player-coaches really deep down inside have never, ever been trained on how to be a coach and how to be a good coach. So, I want to share with you just a few things that may be helpful for you. By no means is it all encompassing. The first thing I want to share with you in the list of those who are player-coaches that I've seen in 30 years of helping individuals on that side, what some of the roadblocks are. So, this is going to be kind of short and sweet and to the point and really it’s for those individuals who are a player-coach that have either been volunteered to do it or have offered to do it, and they're looking at, “How do I get better at my craft?” Now, there are many more ideas to share with you. I'm just doing a brief overview right now, and depending on the feedback we get, we'll take a deeper dive. We’ve got a ton of feedback on the excusing one that we did, so thanks for all those who reached out.
Glenn Mattson
The first thing I want to talk to those who are in a player-coach mindset, is time. Time can never change. It is always the same. So, to have more time, you have to give up what you do and or give up time someplace else. So, when we take a look at time, don't assume that you're going to have a 50 or 60 hour work week being a great salesperson, and then find yourself having the ability to just to farm out another 10, 12, 15 hours that you're going to need from a coaching standpoint, or even five hours per week.
Glenn Mattson
So, the first thing I would have you take a look at is time. What I've done with all my clients that are in this position, that really hits home with them, is the following process. Number one is, we do a cookbook with them with regards to their sales goals. If none of you know what a cookbook is, look at other podcasts that we've done. A cookbook is the behavioral mapping of taking a look at your financial objectives and breaking them down to daily behaviors. Based on your daily behaviors, you understand the activities that you need to do to get to where you want to go. But in addition to that, you're also fundamentally aware of how many types of meetings you need to have. You may need to have five first meetings, three middle meetings, two closing meetings and three reviews, for instance. By doing your cookbook, you have an idea of what your ideal work week looks like. You have an idea of, based on how you do it now, based on the processes you have now, what does your work week look like and what type of time do you have? I would highly suggest that you get a good cookbook done, create your ideal work week, and then ask yourself, how do we become more efficient without losing effectiveness? Let me tell you that again, it's an E for an E. So, when you finally get your cookbook done, and that is literally breaking down the four or five key behaviors you have to do every single day to make sure your calendar is full and what does full look like and what does full mean for you and your staff?
Glenn Mattson
Then take a look at, now that I have it in play, how to become more efficient? Meaning if something takes five meetings to do, how do we get it down to three? Then within that efficiency, you don't want to lose effectiveness. So, the first thing I would tell you to look at is don't let time get the best of you. You’ve got to understand there's always a plan in place. If you don't have a plan, you'll become part of someone else's or by default, whoever has the stronger plan will always win. So, take a look at time so that you manage your time. You still have the ability to hit your personal financial goals while still having the ability to put the right time aside for being a good player-coach.
Glenn Mattson
So that's a big one, I think for an awful lot of people, is really just making sure that they have the time. Okay. Second thing I would tell you is this, if it's possible, one of the things I find from player-coaches is they're typically told by the home office, “This is what I would like you to do” or, “Hey, just help them out.” So, one of the things that I would share with you, again, this is super easy, much more to talk about with each of these, but I wanted to share them with you, is purpose. Let me tell you what I mean by purpose; I would have a very specific ability to sit down and identify from where you sit; is it a bravery issue, is it a behavioral issue, or is it a lack of technique issue? I have found that most of the individuals will find themselves not understanding the purpose, so they just give out tactics. So, when I talk about purpose, either you're going to have to figure this out or, the two of you will have to figure this out relatively quickly, but what is the overall purpose and outcome that you're looking for from coaching? Is it helping someone become braver to use the tactics? Is it having someone overcome their fear of rejection? Is it someone learning to have a financial conversation at a much higher level so that they're not uncomfortable or nervous? Is it about creating EBS, right? Equal Business Stature? Is it about showing them the strategies along with tactics? Be really specific on what you're trying to coach. I can't tell you how many player-coaches, when I sit down with them they say, “Yeah, now I’ve got to take care of these three people or these three offices.” I say, “All right, well, what's the main purpose? What are you trying to accomplish with each office?” He goes, “I don't know. I'm supposed to coach them.” So please make sure, and if you don't have an idea of how to figure out what gaps they have, feel free to zip me an email and be more than happy to figure that out. But purpose is important, because you’ve got to realize, for those that want to hit quota, a 27% increase happens when you actually have a formal coaching process in place.
Glenn Mattson
So, when people get coached and they get coached consistently and they get coached the right way, they will outperform their peers by close to 20%. So, there's some big stuff when it comes to coaching. The next thing I want to share with you is something I see all the time, which is, you lead. What I mean by that is, is that you tell versus ask, and it's a big issue. The big issue is that you do very little discovery and because you do very little discovery, which is a play by play of a sales call, what you do is you just say, “Okay, this is what you should have said.” “Let me tell you how you should have said it, now, go on”, right? Good coaching is not telling versus asking. So, we have to realize that coaching is 80% listening, and 20% talking. In that 20%, by the way, is almost always questioning, right? What questions are you asking? So, when we look at tell versus ask, you don't want to be the expert. You don't say things like, “You should have done this”. “That was the wrong thing to do.” “Why didn't you do this?” “How many times have I told you this is what you have to say?” “Wouldn't it have been better if you said this?” “Aren't you supposed to?” “Hey, what made you think that you could?” “Why would you do?” “Hey, that's never going to work, what you’ve got to say is this.” So, what happens is, an expert tells people what to do. A coach helps them discover what they were supposed to have done. So, “Hey, would it have helped if you did this?” “What are the things you think you could have done besides saying that?” “So, tell me a little bit about what you were thinking or what was the strategy behind those tactics?” “Hey, when you thought about, or you asked this, what happened?” So, being a coach is very different than being an expert. An expert is someone that does all the talking. So, imagine if you're doing too much talking during your one-on-ones, you're not coaching, you're telling, and if you're telling, then you're being an expert, not a coach.
Glenn Mattson
The next item I'd like to share with you real quick is, when we look at it, the cause versus the ripple. So, if someone's having a conversation with somebody, it's an EVP, and they chose not to ask something, majority of time the expert will go to, “This is what you should have said, now let's role play it.” I want you to realize that the individual did know what to say, they just wimped out. They wimped out because they were terrified of who they were talking to. So, when I talk about cause and effect, many experts focus in on the tactic, and what they don't do is discover what the cause is. For many player coaches, it's difficult for some of them to have this thing called fear of rejection because they've overcome it to be in the position that they're in. You can't have a high need for approval with prospects and be really successful at sales, it's just not going to work out. So, a lot of times your coaches, your player coaches are individuals that have overcome those mental roadblocks that many people in the beginning of their career are still into. So, cause and effect is; if you play golf and you hit it in the water and it causes ripples, your expert will focus on the ripples, but the good coach will uncover the cause. So, make sure you're not chasing ripples. You’ll know you're chasing ripples if your one-on-one sessions seem to be Groundhog Day and you keep doing the same thing over and over and over.
Glenn Mattson
Next thing I would share with you if you're trying to be a better coach, is the last piece, which is having a consistent debriefing process. I think this is one of the things that people really miss out, and miss out quite a bit on, is that if you really want to have an ability to identify what are the blind spots, what are the gaps, for instance, that people see? Well, if it's a gap that they see, that's great for debriefing. If it's a blind spot, which they don't see, then that's you seeing patterns in their debriefing sheets. If you're looking for a debriefing sheet that's super easy and is incredibly powerful, by all means, feel free to reach out to us. As always, you can get me at GlennM@Sandler.com anytime. When you look at the time and purpose, and don't know how to do a cookbook, feel free to reach out and we'll send you the Leader's Guide.
Glenn Mattson
From a standpoint of the cause and effect, you want a really good debriefing sheet that's the same one that people you're coaching will use on every sales call. By having them use it on every sales call, you can see their strengths and their weaknesses before you have your one-on-one, which will help you understand the difference between cause and effect. One of the tips I gave to one of my clients like six years ago, who's still a great client of mine as he was entering the player-coach field, and he was getting very frustrated with some of the individuals that he had to coach, I just turned around and I said to him, “Blaine, if you really look at each of these individuals as if they had, and in this case it was financial planning, if they had a $15 million account that you were looking to move over, they're going to buy $3 million of whole life policy. How would you act? What questions would you ask? How much time would you spend with them?” He turned around and goes, “It'd be very, very different.” I said, “Right, as a salesperson, you know exactly what to do and how to do it. That's why you got successful.” As a coach, you're not transferring those same skills over to your coaching. You're doing no discovery. You're going right to solution mode. You're spilling your candy in the lobby, right? You're going to solve before they even figured out if they have a problem or they're committed to solving the problem. So, taking a look at those individuals that are experts, those that are just amazing at what they do. I love the fact that you're sometimes asked to be a player coach. I'm just sharing with you; there's some very big pitfalls to that. So those of you who are a player-coach, get a grip on your time as soon as humanly possible so you will not impact your sales results by being a coach to others.
Glenn Mattson
Number two is make sure you have purpose, be sure you're abundantly clear on what you're working on. If you don't know what to work on or what the blind spots are, again, feel free to reach out to us, we have a little thing that we can do. Third one is you better be really good at asking questions. A coach, one mouth, two ears. Try that ratio for a little while. Be a master at asking questions. Be a master at uncovering what's behind the real reason. The next one is making sure that you focus on the cause, not the ripples. The cause, not the ripples. So, stop chasing stuff that is the outcome of the problem versus fixing the problem itself. For those of you who are out there having dual role roles and are expected to be super successful on both of those, those are just five easy tips I wanted to share with you right away. I've gotten four or five coaching calls and three or four phone calls just this week on the topic. So, I thought I'd put together a quick podcast on it. So again, those of you who are an expert and you are a coach, meaning that you're probably the founder or you're the best in class or the home office or the office comes in and says, “Can you help others be just like you?”, realize a lot of what you do is not transferable. A lot of what you do is because you've already progressed mentally, you progressed with your emotions to get to where you are. It's good to remember back when you first got started. It's good to remember back when you first got started and had nerves and were uncomfortable and wimping out. Those are good things to remember but it doesn't mean that you have to allow that and have people not be as strong as they can.
Glenn Mattson
So again, I think it's a great idea. Love the people who are super successful at sales. Hope these are some good tips to help you become a better expert coach moving forward. Here we are at Building Blocks of Success. Look forward to talking to you soon, and enjoy as always.
Connect with Sandler
.0000000000000.png)