ICoachFirst, Bridgewater, NJ (2026)

05/16/2023

The Impact of Great Coaching on Your Numbers

Wondering if it’s worth the investment to build your sales managers into great coaches? Here’s the difference coaching can make to the bottom line, according to recent research:

A study by Zenger Folkman found that salespeople who reported to managers with high leadership skills — including coaching — were 10 times more likely to be in the top 10% of sales performance.

A study by the Sales Readiness Group found that managers at high-impact sales organizations — where more than 75% of the sales reps achieve quota — are more proficient at sales coaching and spend more time coaching their teams.

A study from Second Nature Sales Coaching in 2021 found that 96% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that effective sales coaching positively impacted their sales performance.

A study by the RAIN Group in 2022 found that sellers are 63% more likely to become a top performer when they have the trifecta of an effective manager, regular coaching, and effective sales training. Top performers were 51% more likely to have regular ongoing coaching and 40% more likely to have managers skilled at leading coaching meetings.

All of this is even more true in Life Sciences sales — where a relationship-driven, high-information environment requires more sophisticated and thoughtful approaches to selling — and therefore more intense coaching.

08/30/2022

How Senior Leadership Benefits from Employee Engagement

When employees are productive, the company is productive—and senior leadership doesn’t need much help in understanding how productivity helps the bottom line.

But the advantages of engaged employees don't begin and end at productivity. Companies with higher rates of engagement report turnover rates ranging from 25 percent to 65 percent lower than average, depending on the industry and company type, according to Harvard Business Review.

There are the obvious financial implications of high turnover—it takes a lot of time and money to recruit and train employees, after all—but there is also the impact it can have on a larger team. One unengaged employee, or, worse, an actively disengaged employee, can have serious repercussions on a team, causing the whole team's outlook to sour.

The opposite can be true, though, with engaged employees helping the rest of the team stay more focused, more efficient, and more engaged.

Kevin Kruse breaks down the importance of engaged employees to managers and entire companies in no uncertain terms:

"An employee’s discretionary effort results in the Engagement-Profit chain. Because they care more, they are more productive, give better service, and even stay in their jobs longer. All of that leads to happier customers, who buy more and refer more often, which drives sales and profits higher, finally resulting in an increase in stock price."

When everyone from individual contributors on up is engaged and focused on making their work the best it can be, everyone profits.

01/26/2022

Sales Wins with iCoach!

Learn how iCoach can help you drive greater sale team engagement, motivation, and results by bringing together critical coaching and development tools into one easy-to-use application.

- Dynamic field coaching reports
- Ongoing Quick Feedback
- Coaching linked to training
- Coach-the-coach
- Video role play
- Developmental competency assessments
- Dashboards and analytics
- And much more!

Download the iCoach Overview Flyer here:
https://www.icoachfirst.com/icoach-overview-flyer

10/28/2021

Going to this year's Life Sciences Trainers and Educators Network conference (LTEN) in Denver (Nov. 8-10)? If so, we'd love for you to stop by our booth, meet the team, and learn more about our industry-leading field coaching and development solution.

Not going? You can request a virtual demo of iCoach by clicking the link below:

https://www.icoachfirst.com/request-a-demo

07/22/2021

iCoach Coaching Tip - Be Demosthenes, not Cicero.

Okay, that title is a little high brow, but give us a moment, while we prove an important point!
Demosthenes and Cicero were two great orators who lived in antiquity. Cicero was an amazing speaker. Whenever he addressed audiences, they would wildly applaud and everyone praised him and gushed about his speaking prowess. Demosthenes was different. He didn’t get as much praise for his finely turned prose… but when he presented, his audiences would get fired up. So fired up they’d often storm out to grab their weapons and charge out to fight the enemy.

The difference was that Cicero was praised because of how well he gave smart speeches, but Demosthenes’s power was in how well he persuaded people to act.

This is an important distinction for coaches and managers to understand. If you’ve ever sat in a meeting that lasted 3x longer than it needed to, because everyone needed to go around the table and hear themselves speak, you understand this phenomenon. If you’ve ever talked to someone who isn’t listening because they are too busy thinking of what clever thing they plan to say next, you’ve experienced it.

We all want to be inspiring and wise, but at the end of the day it pays to remember that it doesn’t matter how smart you sound. It matters how much of an impact you make on your employees. As a coach or manager, your job is to validate them, boost them up, motivate them, and help them grow their capabilities.

Be Demosthenes, not Cicero.

04/07/2021

Providing Feedback Doesn't Need To Be Hard

Meaningful feedback is a gift. So why don’t we provide it, or ask for it, more often? One way to hone your skills is to make sure your feedback includes three distinct elements - setting the context (situation), describing the behavior, and providing the impact of that behavior (see Situation-Behavior-Impact feedback model below).

This approach is easy to remember and works for both positive and constructive feedback. It also steers you away from making personal judgments by focusing your comments on specific, observable behaviors (remember, it’s not what you think, it's what you see).

Situation-Behavior-Impact model:

1. Describe the situation; set the context
2. Describe the behavior, not the motivation
3. Describe the impact or result

Example - "Susan at last week’s leadership team meeting when you were presenting (situation), you asked very thought-provoking questions of the audience (behavior) which resulted in everyone being more engaged and conversational than usual (impact)."

While saying things like “great job” or “that was a productive session” might feel good in the moment, they don’t have nearly the same impact and value as more specific feedback with just a few additional words.

03/16/2021

The iCoach Outlook Plug-in

Tired of having to bounce from system to system just to get your work done?

With iCoach's Outlook plug-in, you can easily provide coaching and feedback right from email. No switching applications, no hassle.

To see the Outlook Plug-in and other ways iCoach can make your life easier, request a demo today!

Request iCoach demo:
https://www.icoachfirst.com/request-a-demo

03/11/2021

iCoach Infographic: 11 Ways Adult Learners Are Different

Check out our complimentary infographic and learn about surprising ways adult learners are different than children, and even young adults.

For instance, did you know adults are more receptive to learning something new if you surprise them? Realizing we are wrong, or outright missing something, inspires us to open our minds.

Click link below to receive your copy:
https://www.icoachfirst.com/11-surprising-ways-adult-learners-are-different

02/18/2021

LTEN and iCoach Webinar:
Enhanced Virtual Communication To Improve Multigenerational Coaching

When: Thursday, March 4th, 2021 at 12:30 PM ET
Duration: 60 minutes

Overview:
As we continue to live in a highly digital world, it is critical for L&D teams to support their organizations in being highly effective virtual coaches and communicators.

This requires an understanding of how to engage employees virtually, how to adjust communication and coaching style for generational diverse audiences, how a combination of virtual and face-to-face coaching impacts frequency and shared responsibility, and how technology can support organizational behavioral shifts.

Click below to register:
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1351826869400021518?source=iCoachFirst&utm_campaign=Demo%20Request&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_fHz5LsesKfLYuglC2EWN5zMi-t3R2uOKPglbuODObm7_65VjWWxAmvgonGV97hOj3ctTY

02/09/2021

Coaching Tip - Coach, Know Thyself

When you walk into an interaction thinking you know how it will go, the chances are very high that your strong belief will cause it to go that way. If you think you’re going to have a good meeting, you’ll do everything possible—consciously or unconsciously— to make that happen. If you are dreading a 1:1 with an employee and are sure it’s not going to go well, you will most likely convey that belief to the employee.

As coaches, managers and humans, it’s important for us to understand the biases we bring to every encounter. Our feelings and expectations can determine the outcomes of feedback. Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.” The same is true for us and the people we are coaching. We hold a lot of power as coaches, and whether we think they can or cannot achieve something has a lot to do with their ability to develop. Remember, what you bring into a coaching conversation is a huge part of what your employee will leave with.

01/22/2021

iCoach brings together critical coaching and development tools into one flexible, mobile application. Watch this video to see product highlights.

01/21/2021

Coaching Tip -

Don’t waste time treating symptoms instead of the problem.

As managers, it is easy to get sucked into treating symptoms instead of causes. If an employee is consistently late with a weekly report, for example, it is faster and simpler to criticize them or privately jump to conclusions about why that is happening than to ask what is really going on. But the truth is, unless you ask, you may be addressing the wrong issue.

Being too quick to treat symptoms can make us miss serious underlying problems that may be going unaddressed—or even being exacerbated by your focus on the symptom. If you are too busy chastising Sally for her late reporting, you may be missing the feelings of inadequacy that are making her over-check her numbers—or her crippling belief that you don’t have confidence in her. Behavior is always a symptom. Highlight your concern with the employee and then listen to their side of the story. Don’t interrupt. Ask why. Ask why again. Probe deeper to get at the root cause. And then work from there.

ICoachFirst

05/16/2023

08/30/2022

01/26/2022

10/28/2021

07/22/2021

04/07/2021

03/16/2021

03/11/2021

02/18/2021

02/09/2021

01/22/2021

01/21/2021

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share