Article – Are you at peak BD performance? Don’t hit snooze on your professional development. - Shipley Asia Pacific

So why have a coach if you are head and shoulders above your opponents? Because you can always get better.

Coaches provide athletes, even the best in the world, with many benefits, including:

• Deeper learning through improved personal awareness

• Solutions to technical errors by providing an alternate perspective

• Trackable improvement achieved by goal setting and monitoring

• Greater accountability as a result of defined structures

So, if the best athletes can benefit from coaches, surely business development and sales professionals can too. Like athletes, BD and sales professionals work in a competitive environment where wins and losses are the metrics that define success.

Deeper learning through improved personal awareness

“Self-awareness involves deep personal honesty. It comes from asking and answering hard questions” – Stephen Covey

We tend to focus on the things we are good at and ignore our faults. Most people don’t like to acknowledge their weaknesses as they are uncomfortable to discuss and hard to resolve. The problem with that approach is we end up slightly improving what we already do well, and not improving our major deficiencies at all.

The best athletes have a well-rounded set of skills. Serena Williams hasn’t won 23 Grand Slams by having a really good serve, or a brilliant forehand. She has won 23 Grand Slams by having no weaknesses that her opponents can exploit.

Coaches help athletes and professionals to identify their weaknesses and develop a more complete skill set. That is where personal development has its greatest benefit.

Solutions to technical errors by providing an alternate perspective

Tiger Woods can’t see his own swing. He can feel it, but his perspective is very limited. Tiger has the benefit of being able to record himself, or play back footage from TV coverage. Despite this, he still has a swing coach.

BD and sales professionals need to be organised and effective communicators (both written and verbal). There are many technical components to these skillsets, for example, non-verbal communication. It is very difficult to assess your own body language and demeanour. Coaches can offer feedback in a safe environment.

Once the errors are identified in a safe and constructive environment, processes can be put in place to find solutions.

Trackable improvement achieved by goal setting and monitoring

Feedback we receive from Shipley clients often identifies that staff adopt better practices after training but can slip back into bad habits over time. Training followed by coaching embeds learned skills though monitored implementation, maintenance and improvement over time, providing a significantly better return on the initial training investment.

BD coaches work with their clients to develop realistic goals and track progress the same way a sports coach would. It’s done on an individual basis to ensure that the goals are appropriate for the person’s experience level and responsibilities.

Greater accountability as a result of defined structures

Many people have used the services of a Personal Trainer at some stage in their life. One of the key benefits of using a PT is the discipline created by having a commitment to go to the gym that is greater than just your self-motivation. Many (this author included) would much prefer to stay in bed for another 90 minutes rather than get up and train. A PT provides just enough additional motivation to avoid hitting the snooze button.

Coaches achieve the same result in a professional environment. Once you’ve identified your deficiencies, weaknesses and technical errors, and put in place goals to track improvement, the added discipline of regular coaching sessions can be the little bit of motivation required to avoid hitting the snooze button on your professional development.