Connor’s talent & organisation development practice works with businesses to improve their performance. This month, we gave about 100 sales people from industrial manufacturer Atlas Copco an introduction to the practices’ services. Atlas Copco employees learned about coaching, communication & influencing skills plus how to build resilience and the right mindset for selling.
“It was interesting to understand how coaching can help you uncover where people need assistance, rather than just telling them and expecting results from them.”
Delegate, Atlas Copco
On the day, Atlas employees had the choice of learning more about topics including:
- coaching
- communication & influencing skills
- resilience and mindset.
Atlas Copco competence & development manager Heather Gallagher commented: “Our sales people are based all over the UK and Ireland and many of them manage individuals who work from home. This can be tricky for managers and their people so we want to provide them with as much support as is necessary. We want to have an employee driven learning culture and invited Connor to provide an overview of their services. This means our sales community can make informed choices about what training and development they require for their teams and themselves. As HR leaders we’ve all trained ‘hostages’ and it is a lot easier to provide people with training they are asking for.
We have an internal promotion rate of 84% and we focus on leadership training because it’s in our interest to do so. We do this at all levels rather than just when someone becomes a manager. We like Connor’s modular approach to development – this allows individuals to understand why being successful is often about resilience and having the right mindset to overcome typical business challenges.
At Atlas Copco, our training is largely technical and skills based. Connor had a difficult challenge to introduce and share the principles of behavioural based learning to our people in the form of taster sessions. They did a fine job and my team told me they found the sessions incredibly engaging and left them wanting more.”
“You coach someone when you want to accelerate their development.”
Kate Keaney, head of talent & organisation development, Connor
Coaching for sales people – what are the benefits?
Kate Keaney, head of talent & organisation development at Connor commented: “All sessions were well received and coaching was of particular interest. Senior sales people often have a challenging commercial target that they will only meet with the support of their sales team. Coaching can help to deliver this in two ways.
You coach someone when you want to accelerate their development. We coach people to address any gaps that exist in their sales repertoire. The second practical coaching intervention we give is to provide coaching skills for leaders & line managers. This means they can provide the right support for their sales people – ultimately creating the best environment for them to be commercially successful.”
Coaching doesn’t have to take months to establish within an organisation. Connor delivers better performance and behavioural change through coaching quickly. Asking sensible, open questions means that managers can instantly change the way they interact with their team.
Heather agrees stating: “our values are: interaction, innovation and commitment and Connor’s approach to coaching and leadership development in general means they are a good partner for us.”
Sales training next steps
Connor has an experienced team of talented coaches who can cover all styles and development needs from junior people to senior executives. Talk to me to find out what we can do for you and your organisation.
