As a business, you need to know that your investments in time, resources, and money are producing worthwhile benefits. You want a significant return on investment. Coaching is a smart option.

Sales and Marketing Management magazine reported that the the average amount spent on sales training for experienced salespeople was $3737 per salesperson in 1990.  We imagine it is much higher now.  Are you getting a return for your investment?

Annette Fillery-Travis & David Lane, Journal of Coaching Psychology Review, April 2006:

The productivity of each of the managers was measured after training and after coaching. The measures chosen were appropriate to the specific work of the manager, were quantifiable and of benefit to the organization. The result was a 22.4 per cent increase in productivity after the management training but an 88 per cent increase after coaching.

American Society for Training and Development:

The probability of completing a goal:

• 10% if you hear an idea.
• 25% if you consciously decide to adopt it.
• 40% if you decide when you will do it.
• 50% if you plan how you will do it.
• 65% if you commit to someone else you will do it.
• 95% if you have a specific accountability appointment with the person to whom you committed.

Study after study points to an inability of training alone to affect performance.  New skills are uncomfortable; without reinforcement and fine-tuning, old habits re-appear.

The Xerox Corporation showed that in the absence of follow-up coaching, 87% of the skills change brought about by the training program was lost. However good skills training is in the classroom, most of its effectiveness is lost without follow-up coaching. For example: Most sales people try out the new skills for a few calls, find that they feel awkward and the new method isn't bringing instant results, so they go back to their old ways. (Study reported in Business Wire, July 30, 2001.)

Lyn Christian, MCC and CEO of SoulSalt Coaching, explains it this way:

The element of accountability is critical to the success of coaching…. Having an action item and knowing you're going to report back to another adult who has your best interests in mind makes you complete your assignment or take more thought.... Coaching is the highest form of adult learning.

Training and Development Journal

Coaching is the only cost-effective way to reinforce new behaviors and skills until a learner is through the dangerous results dip. Once through the dip, when the new skills bring results, they will become self-reinforcing.

Merrill C. Anderson, Ph.D. MetrixGlobal, LLC gives us the results:

The Bottom Line: Coaching produced a 529% return on investment and significant intangible benefits to the business. Including the financial benefits from employee retention boosted the overall ROI to 788%. The study provided powerful new insights into how to maximize the business impact from executive coaching.

Joy McGovern, et.al., report in The Manchester Review:

Manchester's coaching programs delivered an average return on investment of 5.7 times the initial investment in a typical executive coaching assignment - or a return of more than $100,000 - according to executives who estimated the monetary value of the results achieved through coaching.

Among the benefits to companies that provided coaching to executives were improvements in:

• Productivity (reported by 53% of executives)
• Quality (48%)
• Organizational strength (48%)
• Customer service (39%)
• Reducing customer complaints (34%)
• Retaining executives who received coaching (32%)
• Cost reductions (23%)
• Bottom-line profitability (22%)