AUTHENTIC COACHING IN SALES MANAGEMENT: THE EFFECTS ON SALESPEOPLE'S TASK PERFORMANCE RELATED OUTCOMES

In recent years, the importance of sales coaching has become more pronounced as an essential component of salesperson development programs, as job success is increasingly linked to the quality of coaching provided. Though more people are aware of it, actual studies looking at the link between real coaching and staff results still are few. This paper intends to look at how genuine coaching in sales management affects salesperson performance. To achieve this objective, qualitative interviews were conducted with 20 individuals from the sales department of Asia-cell Telecommunications to identify the themes that characterize authentic coaching. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, and the insights gained informed the development of a researcherdesigned questionnaire assessing authentic coaching. This questionnaire, combined with a job performance assessment based on the standardized instrument by Donassolo and Matos (2014), was distributed to 371 respondents. Using structural equation modelling using a partial least squares (PLS) technique, the data were statistically analysed to examine the association between real coaching and salesperson performance. The findings show that real coaching improves sales success.