In the Spotlight - Graham Broughton (Kinnarps UK)

What’s your role at Kinnarps?

I’m Sales Coach. I’m responsible for improvement - i.e. the way we develop our business, how we interact with and deliver value to our customers and, of course, the way the sales team performs.

What do you do on a day to day basis?

I meet with sales people on a one-to-one basis all the time, discussing areas that can be improved and developing programmes to help the team improve as a whole. In addition my brief includes personal and career development. My counterpart is our Sales Director, whose focus is more quantitative – so if you like she is interested in how many meetings someone schedules and the value of business potential discovered or developed while I’m interested in the behaviours they exhibit in those meetings and their effectiveness.

Would it be fair to say you’re a shoulder to cry on?

Actually, no. There are three people supporting the sales team. Me, the Sales Director and the third is a mentor, who is there as a personal support. As a coach, I’m there to draw out development needs and focus on how I can help them bring in more business.

So how do you deal with those who are less proactive? It must be tempting to adopt a ‘tell’ approach.

No, I try never to be prescriptive. If someone purports to have no requirement to improve, I can always take the conversation to an account level. I have been in sales long enough to have a menu of questions which will always reach a ‘don’t know’... And of course we should know!

What’s the most challenging part of your role?

The number of people I’m coaching. I’d like to spend more time with each individual.

And how do you deal with that?

I set priorities and work on those with the greatest need. Having said that, there’s an old adage that getting an over-performer to improve by a further 5% adds a lot more to the bottom line than helping an under-performer improve by 5%.

How do you reconcile that?

That’s central. I focus on identifying ‘the gaps’ in competencies and prioritise accordingly. I’m also involved with the recruitment process and we are very clear as to where the levels should be when people join the team.

How did you get to become a Sales Coach?

I’m a career sales person. I was lucky enough to be trained by some of the best sales organisations in the world, among them Rank Xerox and Kodak. Arguably the toughest standards were at Memorex-Telex who competed in the IBM market place – so everything we did had to be better, smarter, more professional than Big Blue. That became a crusade – almost obsessive and fantastic fun. I was actually at Kinnarps when the role of Sales Coach was first suggested as part of a restructure. The new MD at the time wanted Kinnarps to be inclusive and contacted the sales team and asked, if they could have a Sales Coach who would it be? All bar one put my name.

What makes you a good Sales Coach?

Good training and a track record of ‘having done it’, a passion for being the best and a range of ideas as to how to achieve that. It’s also about how you are with people. I’ve always believed you should treat people with respect, and that as long as they are working towards ‘being the best’ themselves, then we can have fun along the way.

You do acting in your spare time. Does it help you in your job?

Yes, immensely. On an individual level, it gives me the confidence to speak to groups of people. People know I enjoy acting, and I find it gives me an automatic perceived credential as a communicator.

Why is it people have that preconception?

Rightly or wrongly, people think to get on a stage and perform in front of lots of people and remember lots of lines is mind-bogglingly frightening. I can confirm that they are right!

You would expect most sales people to be extroverts, wouldn’t you? Many do get their energy from the external world – the people around them and they do exhibit ‘bottle’ every time they risk rejection when pitching for new business - so by many commonly understood definitions they are ‘extrovert’. In reality though, many salespeople do a great deal of internalising. Most prefer one-to-one dialogues or small groups rather than speaking to larger audiences.

And what does make a good sales person?

Those who investigate thoroughly, apply a structured questioning process to ensure that a comprehensive picture is always received, know how to ask about a customer’s problems and listen to and are interested in the answers. They then need a combination of creativity and organisation to manage the development of a solution to fit, and that often includes leadership of a pitch team, briefing, delegation and presentation skills.

You approached CentreStage recently to support your team’s development. What did roleplay add to it?

When the sales people realised they would be applying their questioning skills with a stranger, the ante was raised immediately. Here was someone who was essentially a customer they were meeting for the first time. The seriousness of the exercise was underpinned by that. It was as close to reality as you can get in a training environment. And as a result delegates thought the exercise was useful, realistic and an extremely effective forum to practise in.

Visit Kinnarps online at www.kinnarps.co.uk