The Coaching & Counseling Workshop

This workshop is an unusual, and unusually effective, program for district sales managers. Participants in the original sessions, first presented in 1996, continue to come forward years later to comment on the realism and effectiveness of the program. It is continually ranked among the very best training they have received as managers.

Program Format

This workshop focuses on the role of the Sales Manager as coach and counselor to their sales representatives. It affords the participating managers a unique opportunity to practice coaching of representatives on their performance and to counsel them in sensitive areas. It is equally beneficial to the veteran manager and the individual new to this important responsibility.

Included in our faculty is a representative of our client's Human Resources department, who comments on and advises the participants about company policy and legal issues as they relate to the coaching and counseling situations under examination.

The participants engage in a variety of realistic and challenging coaching and counseling scenarios. Each individual is given an opportunity to enhance their skills in face-to-face interactions. The situations are drawn from real life and are typical of those the district managers face in their own jobs. Key issues are identified and related behavioral techniques are practiced using simulated representatives. The Simulations facilitators who lead the program now act as practice partners. They are prepared to improvise on a number of issues and scenarios, and exhibit appropriate behaviors, providing realistic simulations of the company's sales representatives.

The Coaching & Counseling Workshop is as far from an "off the shelf _ one size fits all" program as can be imagined. In consultation with our client, the Simulations staff reviews the strengths and areas for growth of each manager prior to the program, so that the scenario selected will be the most appropriate for a given participant.

Participant Evaluations

This workshop has been receiving overwhelmingly positive evaluations from the participants and their directors alike. In fact, out of a maximum score of 100 on the program evaluation instrument, the program receives an average score of 94!

The following are typical responses to the program evaluation questionnaire.

• "Motivating. Great experiential learning. Instructors were excellent. Great flow - - days really flew by."
 
• "Having HR and my director present really added a lot of valuable info and ideas to the program."

• "This was absolutely THE best situational course I have ever been involved in - - in 20 years! Could not have been better."

• "I was impressed at how knowledgeable the Simulations staff was regarding products, sales, and the role of representatives."

• "It's tough role-playing in front of your peers, but it's a really great way to learn, with an end result that's rewarding."

• "Amazingly real world - - clearly did your homework on all the different rep types."
 
• "Well-planned, realistic, applicable to day-to-day issues."
 
• "Better than an in-house program, the Simulations actors provided the realism."

• "Incredible."