The two types of sales coaching. And why one of them isn't really coaching at all.

The two types of sales coaching. And why one of them isn't really coaching at all.

Marcus had been running a mid-market logistics software business for six years (I have adapted the name and specifics for privacy reasons). Forty people. A sales team of eight. One sales manager he trusted and had promoted from within, Daniel.

One Tuesday afternoon he decided to sit in on what Daniel had described as a coaching session with a rep named Sophie. He expected to hear questions. Development. Reflection. What he witnessed was a deal review.

"Where are we with Hartmann?" "What did they say about the proposal?" "Can we close it this quarter?" Forty minutes. Six deals. Zero questions about Sophie.

Marcus left the room with a quiet, uncomfortable realisation. His manager wasn't coaching. He was managing pipeline, coaching for production. And Marcus had built the environment that made it inevitable.

What is coaching for production?

Coaching for production - often called deal coaching - is the most common form of sales management in B2B organisations. It focuses on the deal in front of the salesperson, not the salesperson in front of the deal.

The manager reviews the pipeline, asks where each opportunity stands, identifies what's blocking progress and tells the rep what to do next. It feels productive. It moves things. It gives leadership the sense that something is being managed.

And in the short term, it sometimes works. A deal gets unstuck. A rep is pointed in the right direction. A quarter is salvaged.

But the rep learned nothing. Next time a similar situation arises, they will need the same intervention. The manager has become a crutch - and neither of them has noticed.

What is coaching for development?

Coaching for development shifts the focus entirely. The deal is still present - but it becomes a vehicle, not the destination. The manager uses the live opportunity in front of them to build something more durable: the salesperson's ability to think, qualify, question and decide for themselves.

Rather than "where are we with Hartmann?", the question becomes "what tells you this prospect is genuinely qualified?" Rather than "here's what you should do", the question becomes "what options do you see, and what are the risks of each?"

The rep does the thinking. The manager guides the thinking. The outcome is a salesperson who, over time, needs less intervention - not more.

This is consultative coaching. And most sales managers have never seen it done.

Why development coaching is far more powerful

Marcus's problem wasn't Daniel. Daniel was doing exactly what Marcus had always measured and rewarded - pipeline coverage, forecast accuracy, deal progression. Daniel was a strong sales person who had been promoted. Nobody had ever shown Daniel what else was possible. Nobody had ever measured him on the quality of his reps' thinking.

This is the pattern Curiosity's sales talent analytics partner OMG identifies consistently across mid-market sales organisations. Managers default to deal coaching for three reasons: they were never trained to do anything else, they are under pressure from above to show short-term results, and they have never witnessed development coaching in a previous role. They don't know what they don't know.

The cost is invisible until it isn't. Reps plateau. Attrition climbs. The manager becomes the bottleneck. And the CEO, like Marcus, sits in on a session one Tuesday afternoon and suddenly sees it clearly.

Development coaching compounds. A rep who learns to self-qualify stops bringing bad deals into the pipeline. A rep who learns to ask better questions closes more without needing rescue. A manager who coaches for development builds a team that runs - not a team that waits.

Two competencies that separate development coaches from pipeline reviewers

Asking questions that create insight, not just answers

The deal coach asks "what's blocking this?" The development coach asks "what does the prospect's hesitation tell you about how well you've uncovered their pain?" The first extracts information. The second builds a thinking habit.

OMG's data consistently shows that the ability to ask questions - robust, challenging, timely questions - is among the weakest competencies across sales populations. The same is true of sales managers. Managers who coach through questions rather than directives create reps who develop the same muscle. It is learned by exposure, not instruction.

Holding the silence

The most underrated coaching competency is the ability to wait. Deal coaches fill silence with answers. Development coaches sit in the discomfort and let the rep find their way to the insight.

It requires something most high-performing former salespeople turned managers find deeply unnatural: restraint. The instinct when you know the answer is to give it. The coaching choice is to resist that instinct and ask one more question instead.

Marcus restructured his next quarter's management meetings. Not around pipeline. Around conversations. What question did you ask this week that you wouldn't have asked six months ago?

Daniel found it uncomfortable at first. Then he found it interesting. Then, slowly, he found it worked. And naturally deployed this with Sophie.

That's development coaching. It's slower to start. It's harder to measure in week one. And it's the only kind that actually builds a sales team.