Your team is learning how to use coaching skills to explore implications with customers.
They're practising how to dig deeper with each question based on the most significant element of the previous answer. By the fourth question, they're in territory no one expected.
Your priority should be to model these coaching skills in how you lead and coach your team in almost every conversation, every day.
Nobody said this was going to be easy! 😀
When you explore implications with your sellers about their deals, they experience what coaching feels like. When you dig deeper into their thinking rather than telling them what to do, you're demonstrating the exact behaviour they need to exhibit with customers.
This is the most important work you'll do. Without it, your sellers will revert to pitching the moment quarterly pressure hits. With it, your team will develop a competitive advantage that compounds over time.
Conventional vs Sales Reset Leadership
Conventional Sales Management:
You tell sellers to ask better discovery questions.
You review their pipeline and ask when deals will close.
You push for activity.
When they struggle, you step in and show them how to pitch.
You demonstrate interrogation through how you manage.
Success means your team hits quota this quarter.
Sales Reset Leadership:
You model exploring implications in every coaching conversation.
When sellers describe their deals, you dig deeper just like they should with customers.
You demonstrate the behaviour by living it.
When they struggle, you coach them through their thinking using the same technique they need with customers.
Success means that your team develops coaching capabilities, creating a long-term and sustainable competitive advantage.
Your team is learning to stop merely gathering facts and start to create customer clarity about outcomes and value. You must model that shift AND coach it.
The Coaching Process
Model the Behaviour First:
Before you can coach exploring implications, you must demonstrate it. In your one-on-ones, pipeline reviews, and coaching conversations, use the exact technique your sellers need with customers.
When a seller describes a deal, don't interrogate. Explore implications.
Seller: "They need better efficiency."
You: "Tell me more about efficiency." (You're modelling level one)
Seller: "Their team is at capacity."
You: "What would improved capacity enable for them?" (You're modelling level two)
Seller: "They could tackle the digital transformation their board wants."
You: "Tell me about that transformation." (You're modelling level three)
Your sellers experience what coaching feels like. They see how digging deeper reveals what matters. They learn by feeling it, not just hearing about it.
What Your Team Is Learning:
Your sellers are practising a specific technique. Ask about customer outcomes. Listen completely. Take the most significant element from the response. Dig deeper with the next question. Repeat until they're four levels deep in unexplored territory.
This feels unnatural at first. Every instinct tells them to pitch solutions. They've spent years being rewarded for talking about features.
You face the same challenge. Every instinct tells you to give answers and show sellers how you'd close the deal.
You've spent years being rewarded for demonstrating your sales expertise.
Resisting that urge to tell them what to do is as hard for you as resisting the urge to pitch is for them.
How to Observe Coaching Skills:
Listen to call recordings. Watch for these moments:
Customer says something important. Does your seller dig deeper? Or jump to solutions?
Count the levels. How many questions deep before they move on to a new theme? One? Two? Four?
Notice which element they chose. Was it the most significant? Or did they follow their predetermined agenda?
Questions That Develop Awareness:
After reviewing a call together, ask:
"What did you notice about their response when you asked the third question?"
"Which part of what they said felt most important to you?"
"What made you move to solution discussion at that point?"
"If you could ask one more question, what would it be?"
These questions build their ability to recognise significance. You're not telling them what to see. You're helping them see what's available.
Protecting Early Practice:
When quarterly pressure hits, sellers face a choice. Dig deeper with coaching questions? Or pitch fast to close this month?
Your pipeline review sets the tone. Don't merely ask "When will this close?" Ask "How clear are their outcomes?" Don't simply push them to clarify “agreed next actions”. Ask "Who else needs to be involved?".
When your boss potentially demands more and faster activity, you can “translate the pressure”. You don't need to pass it through unchanged.
Creating Practice Opportunities:
One-on-one role-play in private. You play the customer. The seller practises exploring implications. No audience. No embarrassment. Safe space to try and fail. Then swap roles and demonstrate what excellent coaching skills look like in this specific situation.
Review call recordings together. Stop at key moments. "What would you ask next?" Discuss before revealing what actually happened. Learning from real conversations, not performing for peers.
Pair sellers for peer coaching. They review each other's transcripts privately and spot missed opportunities to dig deeper. Built on trust, not performance.
Daily practice with AI role-play. Ten minutes before the customer calls. Building muscle memory for exploring implications without risk of public failure.
Coaching Tools & Resources
The Observation Framework:
Review call recordings for:
Opening question quality (outcome-focused or problem-focused?)
Depth of exploration (how many levels before pitching?)
Element selection (most significant or predetermined agenda?)
Customer engagement (opening up or shutting down?)
Outcome clarity (specific and measurable or vague?)
The Coaching Conversation Guide:
"Play back that moment when the customer mentioned capacity constraints. What did you notice?"
"You asked three good questions, then pitched. What changed?"
"Which word did they say appeared most important? Why?"
"What would happen if you'd asked one more question there?"
"How will you practise this before your next call?"
Potential Team Meeting Structure:
15 minutes: You model exploring implications (lead team discussion using the technique)
15 minutes: Review one call together, pause at key moments, discuss what you'd ask next
15 minutes: Sellers share what they're learning from AI practice and 1-on-1 sessions
15 minutes: You dig deeper into their observations using the same questioning approach
Every meeting, you demonstrate the behaviour. No public performance. No embarrassment. Just observation and discussion.
Development Plans:
Months 1-3: Focus on conscious exploration, expect it to feel deliberate
Months 4-6: Build fluency, reduce thinking time between questions
Months 7-12: Develop instinct for significance, natural flow emerges
Like learning any sport. Early practice is mechanical. Mastery comes through repetition.
Coaching Quality Standards
Your Own Capability First:
Can you explore implications fluently in your coaching conversations? When sellers describe deals, do you dig deeper or interrogate? When team members share challenges, do you explore or seek to solve with advice?
If you can't demonstrate the skill yourself, you can't coach it effectively. Your team learns more from how you lead than what you say.
Minimum Standard:
You consistently model exploring implications in coaching conversations.
Your sellers reach three levels of exploration with customers.
They're uncomfortable but trying.
Call recordings show deliberate questioning.
They're not reverting to pitch mode immediately.
Good Standard:
You model the skill instinctively.
Your team reaches four levels deep with questions to customers regularly.
Conversations feel more natural.
Sellers spot significance more quickly.
Customer feedback mentions "different from other salespeople."
Pipeline quality improves through better qualification.
Excellence:
Exploring implications becomes your default leadership style.
Your team's capability becomes instinctive.
Sellers sense which element matters without thinking.
Customers say "you helped us understand what we need."
New stakeholders emerge naturally.
Deals have clear, measurable outcomes.
Competitive advantage becomes visible in win rates and learning speed.
Evidence of Progress
Track These Metrics:
Number of stakeholders per deal (should grow from 2-3 to 4-6+).
Depth of exploration in transcripts (average levels per conversation).
Proposals containing customer-defined success criteria.
Win rates on qualified opportunities.
Time to create proposals (faster when outcomes are clear).
Early Warning Signals:
Sellers are reverting to feature pitching under pressure.
Questions are becoming shallower, not deeper.
Fewer stakeholders engaged over time.
Generic proposals without customer language.
Increased no-decisions from unclear outcomes.
Success Indicators:
Sellers are requesting more practice time.
Team members share exploration techniques with one another.
Customers are volunteering additional stakeholders.
Cross-functional colleagues are asking Sales to facilitate their meetings.
Pipeline quality is improving despite lower activity numbers.
Reporting Upward:
Show senior leaders:
Improved qualification metrics
Higher win rates on pursued deals
Customer feedback about conversation quality
Competitive learning advantage (patterns spotted across customers)
Cross-functional adoption of coaching skills.
Don't just report closed deals. Report on capability development and its measurable impact.
Coach This Week
In your next pipeline review, model exploring implications with one seller.
When team members are describing a deal, focus on the most significant element and dig deeper. Then dig deeper again. Show them what it feels like.
Then listen to one of their customer calls together. Count the levels of exploration. Ask: "What did you notice about the customer's response when you asked about capacity?"
Model the behaviour. Then, coach their application of it.
What's In It For Me
You as Leader:
Your coaching capability grows dramatically through modelling exploration. When you dig deeper with sellers about their deals, you're practising the skill yourself. Every coaching conversation where you explore implications builds your own fluency.
This makes you a better leader overall. Exploring implications works in any conversation. With your boss. With cross-functional partners. With your family. The skill transfers everywhere because it's about helping people discover their own clarity.
Your reputation strengthens. Senior leaders notice team quality improving. Cross-functional partners request that you provide your sellers for facilitation. Your career opportunities expand as your coaching capability becomes recognised and your team's results demonstrate your leadership effectiveness.
Your Team:
They develop a rare competitive skill. Most sellers still pitch. Your team explores implications. Customers remember them. They get brought in earlier. They discover opportunities others miss.
Their job satisfaction increases. Coaching conversations are more interesting than pitching. Customers appreciate their help in thinking through challenges. They feel professional pride in facilitation capability.
Their earning potential grows. Better qualification means higher win rates. Clearer outcomes mean stronger expansion revenue. Learning faster than competitors creates a compounding advantage throughout a career.
Your Customers:
They make better decisions. When sellers explore implications effectively, customers discover clarity they didn't have. Multiple stakeholders get heard. Outcomes become specific and measurable.
Implementation succeeds more often. Clear pre-contract outcomes enable Operations, Finance, and Legal to plan effectively. No surprises. Expectations properly set. Value actually delivered.
They build trust with your team. Customers experience sellers who help them think, not just sell them things. That trust extends to future opportunities and referrals.
Senior Leaders:
Revenue becomes more predictable. Your team's improved qualification means better forecasts. Resources focus on winnable opportunities. Bad-fit deals get identified early.
Customer success rates improve. When your team explores implications pre-contract, Operations knows what to deliver. Finance can measure value. Legal has clear success criteria. The whole organisation executes better.
Strategic insight emerges. Your team learns patterns across customers more quickly than your competitors. This intelligence informs product roadmap, market positioning, and strategic decisions. Competitive advantage compounds.
Cross-functional Partners:
Operations get more precise deliverability requirements early. Your team's exploration reveals implementation details before contracts are signed. Finance and Legal get measurable criteria for value tracking and risk allocation.
Internal collaboration improves. When your sellers can facilitate thinking, cross-functional teams request their help. Sales becomes a strategic partner, not an order-taker. Departmental silos are reduced.
Executive Extract
Sales Team Leaders face a crucial choice when developing exploration skills. Conventional sales management tells sellers to ask better questions while interrogating them about the pipeline. Sales Reset leadership models how to explore implications in every coaching conversation.
The number one development lever isn't observation or feedback. It's a demonstration of coaching skills. When you dig deeper with sellers about their deals using the exact technique they need with customers, they experience what coaching feels like. Leaders who interrogate sellers teach interrogation. Leaders who explore implications teach exploration.
Your team is learning to dig deeper with each question based on the most significant element. By the fourth question, they're in territory neither seller nor customer expected. Before you can coach this capability, you must demonstrate it yourself. In pipeline reviews, one-on-ones, and team meetings, you model the behaviour.
What happens when team leaders demonstrate exploration skills consistently? Sellers develop an instinct for significance. Pipeline quality improves through better qualification. Customers say, "You're different from other salespeople." A competitive learning advantage compounds as your team identifies patterns that others miss.
This isn't extra work. This is the work. Modelling exploration capability in how you lead creates the conditions for team development. The capability survives job changes, market shifts, and quarterly pressure when it's genuinely demonstrated, not just taught.
Vision Workshop Invitation
Wondering how to build coaching capability across your sales organisation? Our 90-minute Vision Workshop explores what's possible when team leaders develop sellers systematically.
Valuable whether you proceed or not. Five acts, genuinely interesting, might be uncomfortable.
Coach Customers: How to Dig Deeper (Seller Article) - What your team is learning about exploring implications. Read this first to understand what you're coaching.
Choose Values & Mindsets (Team Leader) - The prerequisite mindset work that enables coaching skills. Start here if your team isn't ready for exploration practice.
Engage Stakeholders (Team Leader) - Once your team explores implications well, they'll surface more stakeholders. Learn how to coach multi-party orchestration next.
