Coaching, An essential ingredient to success? Or just the latest fad?

If you are anything like me, the first time you heard about personal coaching you probably cringed, I know I did, I was attending a sales convention in California in the summer of 1994, and during the breaks I would wonder around the exhibitor’s stands and that is where I first saw life coaches looking for clients.

I immediately dismissed the idea as laughable and compared it in my mind to an alternative to having your own therapist and dismissed it as a typical north American fad, However it wasn’t until I returned to the states for another convention that I realised that I had been personally involved both in coaching and in being coached but I just hadn’t thought about it in that manner.

It was in the early nineties when I was enjoying success in the sales world, that I was first coached although as stated, I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, I was on fire with ambition, full of dreams and hopes of all the great things that I wanted to achieve for my young family and yearning for recognition from my peers.

In those days I sought out the very best salespeople in the world at the time to help me become the very best I could be, The first person I contacted was a man by the name of Joe Gandolfo, Joe was an Italian immigrant who arrived in the States as a teenager and fell into the life insurance industry, the truly fascinating thing about Joe was not so much that he went on to be the highest paid salesman in the world, but the mind blowing amount of business he generated for the insurance company he worked for.

You see Joe didn’t just set sales records, he annihilated them, in the 70s Joe sold more life insurance by himself than 1500 of the 1800 insurance companies in the whole of North America, with that in mind I thought that this was the guy to learn from.

After a painstaking couple of days, I traced Joe to his address in Florida and called him, and to my surprise he took my call, I told him all about my dreams of sales success and I think he must have seen something of himself in me because he offered to mentor me by telephone once a month.

We would talk for an hour on the phone and I would tell him all about the sales I had lost and won and he would give me advice on techniques and approaches and within a very short space of time my income would double and it was all because I was being coached.

The second person I was coached by was a gentleman by the name of Ben Feldman, Ben was also one of the top life insurance salesmen in the world and he was also very keen to help, one thing I had learned which took me by surprise was the fact that the best in the business are normally the first to help people who want to get on in life and normally are the most humble.

Another thing that became obvious to me very quickly was that both of my coaches had very different approaches, one would have a more aggressive outlook whilst the other would put you so at ease you were in danger of falling asleep in his company!

The main point is that both men shared absolutely invaluable information with me, and without doubt I have to say that without the coaching and the guidance that I received from these two individuals, I would never have enjoyed the success I enjoyed as a salesman period.

It wasn’t until I started to enjoy sales success in my own right that the tables turned and salespeople would seek me out to coach them, and there was nothing more rewarding for me than playing a part in another individuals success.

As I was a full time salesman the constant stream of individuals looking for support soon started to have an impact on my income and it was time to make some serious decisions, I either had to withdraw from coaching people on how to succeed in sales or I had to make it my full time career.

It wasn’t really that difficult a decision to make, I obtained so much personal satisfaction from coaching executives and sales people that I decided to make it my full time career and the rest as they say, is history.

So what do I really think of coaching, Well over many years I have seen countless individuals double and even triple their incomes, while taking twice as much time off as they did previously and it was all because of effective coaching, obviously you expect me to be biased but I would never have achieved the success I enjoyed as a salesman myself, had it not been for Joe Gandolfo and Ben Feldman, it really would not have happened for me.

So who makes the best coaches, well this is where I become quite frustrated with the whole thing, because there are hundreds upon hundreds of life, executive and sales coaches who have done no more than attended a two day seminar which proclaims to make them a coach after forty eight hours, when they have never been an executive, a salesman or even in many cases had any experiences in which they really learned from.

The woman who had been divorced six times and decided to be a relationship coach for example, I am quite sure however, that if you were to ask her she would say that the fact that she had been divorced six times made her the perfect relationship coach, who am I to judge!

My advice is to pick your coach with care, although it isn’t essential that they were successful in their field, as I am sure Tiger Woods coach was never a better golfer than tiger, a sales coach I believe should have been successful as a salesman.

It used to be a major source of frustration when I would listen to speakers who espoused these fantastic ideas that didn’t work! And the reason they didn’t work was because they read them in a book and weren’t borne out of experience.

Also resist the temptation to be coached by friends and family members as this will seldom work for a multitude of reasons.

Family members seldom make good coaches because they are obviously biased and find it very difficult to be impartial, and even when they don’t mean to, they are influenced subconsciously by their opinions and beliefs about what’s possible for you and all of the limitations that they perceive you have.

Family members are also very protective of you and do not want you to be hurt, disappointed or rejected, again this can lead to subconsciously steering you away from situations where this could happen.

Friends are a different entity altogether, although many of us have nurturing and supportive friends who sincerely have your best interests at heart, they are also influenced subconsciously the way family members are, but there can also be other factors at play here.

Friends may subconsciously hinder your success and there can be many reasons for this, some will be afraid that you will change and that they will lose you, others do not want you to succeed because it highlights their own failures and lack of achievement, and some just don’t want you to move ahead of them in life, cynical but true!

I hope that this article sets out the case for getting yourself an independent coach, because in all sincerity, I could never have made it without mine and the family coaching I received when I became a salesman was this….”When are you going to get a proper job”

Mark Baker is a world renowned sales coach and personal development expert; he delivers one to one and group coaching to sales people and entrepreneurs worldwide as well as keynote speeches, seminars and bootcamps on sales and peak performance.

He can be contacted at (0) 1534 486550 e info@markbakerint.com w www.markbakerint.com