S2E11 April Sabral- Retail Leadership Coaching

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[00:00:02] April Sabral: I think you have to stop thinking yourself as a task assigner and start thinking of yourself as a growth coach.

[00:00:07] Ricardo Belmar: Poor performance conversations are the silent leak in culture. When leaders avoid them or run them badly, people leave. Great leaders turn those moments into connections.

[00:00:18] April Sabral: because ops consistency comes from systems, but growth comes from questions.

[00:00:24] If you leave a meeting tomorrow or today and you haven't spent 80% listening and 20% talking, then you probably have not shifted towards a coaching mindset.

[00:00:38] But, if stores with positive leaders do sell more and they do keep staff longer, because it is, it's not fluff, it is profitable. And I just know that from doing the training and working in so many stores and seeing people disengaged because energy is everything. It just is everything.

[00:01:05] Show Intro

[00:01:05] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome to Blade to Greatness, the podcast where retail leaders sharpen their edge one essential skill at a time.

[00:01:11] I'm Ricardo Belmar.

[00:01:13] Casey Golden: And I am Casey Golden.

[00:01:14] This episode is a leadership reset for the post 2025 era, the mandate to move from managing tasks to coaching people.

[00:01:24] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Poor performance conversations are the silent leak in culture. When leaders avoid them or run them badly, people leave. Great leaders turn those moments into connections.

[00:01:34] Casey Golden: Our guest is April Sabral, who will show how stores win with human connection, not just systems. April explains why unmanaged conversations drive turnover, how everyday leadership has to shift from assigning work to unlocking potential, and why positivity is measurable ROI that can lift sales, retention, and reviews.

[00:01:59] Ricardo Belmar: [00:02:00] If you want a practical playbook for coaching conversations, rituals that replace task checklists and simple KPIs that prove the business value of energy and empathy.

[00:02:10] This is the episode for you.

[00:02:11] But before we get started, we'd like to thank our sponsor, RetailClub.

[00:02:14] Retail and brand leaders can attend RetailClub AI Festival completely budget free, plus get $1,750 toward travel and hotel. From the founders of ShopTalk and Grocery Shop, it's three days fully outdoors in Huntington Beach, September 22nd to 24th, with 2,000 senior leaders working through how AI is transforming retail.

[00:02:37] If you're shaping AI's future in retail, budget shouldn't be why you miss it. Register by August 28th at retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast. Casey and I hope to see you there.

[00:02:48] A big thank you to RetailClub for helping us bring you this podcast and all the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network.

[00:02:55] Now, before we jump in, I just have one quick ask of our listeners and [00:03:00] viewers. If you like our show and hope, we hope you do, please consider giving us a a five star rating and drop a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, YouTube, or Goodpods. We really appreciate your support.

[00:03:10] Casey Golden: That's right. And let me drop a quick plug for the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network. Please do yourself a favor and us and go check them out. The Retail Razor Show, Retail Transformers, and data Blades. If you're on Apple Podcasts, just search for the Retail Razor channel to find them all.

[00:03:29] Or put a face to our names. Visit us on the YouTube channel and you'll see 'em all.

[00:03:35] Ricardo Belmar: And with that said, let's jump into the show and reset how we lead.

[00:03:39] Welcome Back, April Sabral!

[00:03:44] Casey Golden: April, welcome back to another Blade to Greatness. Love having you on the show.

[00:03:49] April Sabral: I am so excited. I love this show. I love listening. It's so insightful.

[00:03:53] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, I love hearing you say that. so today you're gonna talk about something that you've referred to as [00:04:00] the leadership reset post 2025. and this maybe one of my favorite topics, so I'm glad we're focusing on this today. But it's really about how leaders need to evolve from being managers to coaches. And I think this is just another really timely topic. It really speaks to how businesses are changing. I, I think top to bottom in the AI era. Managing isn't, necessarily the same as coaching. And coaching isn't necessarily the same as managing either. So can you expand on what you mean by this and how leaders should be thinking about coaching?

[00:04:31] Coach Mindset Basics

[00:04:31] April Sabral: Yeah, I think you have to stop thinking yourself as a task assigner and start thinking of yourself as a growth coach. Really. What I hear a lot of times from leaders in the industry now with all the different generations that are coming in, is that, oh, they're just younger people are just not getting things done like we used to, or not working as hard as we used to.

[00:04:52] And I think, they need coaching. They need to ha be excited, empowered, and inspired. [00:05:00] So I would say if you're gonna try and. change the way that you lead things and approach things. Having a growth coach mindset is doing things like starting a meeting, asking people, what did you learn yesterday? Or What will you try differently today and get people engaged in the conversation?

[00:05:20] Versus heads down in a phone or looking at something like have this coaching approach, which coaching is just asking questions and listening more. That's what the core skills of coaching are. So I think asking those kind of questions and starting from that point, because ops consistency comes from systems, but growth comes from questions.

[00:05:42] So leaders need to kind of balance. Both of those, and too many times I see when sales are down, which has been a tough year this year, let's be real for retailers, with the environment we're in. And I just see people like going through their to-do list and like [00:06:00] all the things we've gotta get done and just.

[00:06:01] Pushing information and assigning tasks, but that's not having that growth mindset in, in, in place, right? Coaching really is leading through questions, and that's gonna improve everything, like just those little subtle tweaks.

[00:06:19] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. It really does, and especially. trying to move towards that growth mindset because that's why the business is there, right? To grow.

[00:06:30] Daily Coaching Habits

[00:06:30] Ricardo Belmar: So how do you, in a sense, redesign your day-to-day leadership routine so that managers can move from just assigning tasks to coaching growth?

[00:06:39] Like you were just explaining you without sacrificing their operational consistency.

[00:06:43] April Sabral: Yeah, I think that you have to have the processes in place and the structures and the expectations. but I think. you have to buy into the fact that coaching really does make a difference, right? It's a mindset, first of all, that I'm gonna have to [00:07:00] take some time, approach things in a bit of a slower way, and be open to hear what other people have to say.

[00:07:07] And, I think, again, just asking more questions. If you leave a meeting tomorrow or today and you haven't spent 80% listening and 20% talking, then you probably have not shifted towards a coaching mindset. You are probably doing all the talking and if you're in a store, we used to train people all the time, ask customers questions, find out as much as you can about them, listen to what they're saying and respond.

[00:07:36] So I find in a store environment when we're talking to customers. Most people get that. But when you move into a environment where you're working as a team and you're now the leader, you forget that it goes out the window. You think you have to tell people what to do all day, you don't. so I think just, yeah, asking questions, write down some questions.

[00:07:55] If you're going into a meeting, write down some questions or you're gonna do a store visit or [00:08:00] whatever it is, write down some questions that you can ask people. And I always love the one, what did you learn from me today? That

[00:08:05] Ricardo Belmar: really shows if you're coaching or not, that will validate to yourself. A lot of times you don't wanna ask that as a leader 'cause you're gonna hear something you might not wanna hear.

[00:08:13] April Sabral: But if they didn't learn anything, the next question is like, what can I help you learn? What

[00:08:16] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:08:17] And that keeps it positive.

[00:08:18] April Sabral: It does, it keeps it really positive because you read any exit interview or any statistics from any, limit competency or any of the big ones that do surveys, they'll tell you that people wanna be trained, they want to be developed, they wanna grow. That can only happen through coaching. It can't happen by delegating a task. Yeah, learn something. But it happens when the mindset kicks in of what I'm learning and how I'm applying it, and then how can I make it better? And that only comes through coaching.

[00:08:47] Positivity Produces ROI

[00:08:47] Casey Golden: I think that it's just, it is, you speak about this at a time when we're coming into holiday sales. It has been a rough sales year. and that anytime you're in a sales [00:09:00]organization, when you have the. Economics of the time impacting that where it's not so much a direct reflection of your performance, but it's just part of the moment that we're having in a time.

[00:09:16] It's easy for everyone to get a little down or feel a little insecure, because they're trying to change it, but they're up against something that's really not in their direct control. being able to change this and have this like mindset of positivity and move into a coaching period, I can guess that it really does change the entire vibe in a store or with your team, that even though maybe the sales aren't there, we are doing everything we're supposed to be doing for that growth mindset.

[00:09:50] And it will get there as maybe the environment changes, the economies change. We are still on path. For success. And [00:10:00] when you're, we're saying positivity produces ROI.

[00:10:05] Measure Energy Impact

[00:10:07] Casey Golden: How can leaders measures measure the business impact of energy, tone, and connection So positively becomes a repeatable leadership KPI, even at times when it may not necessarily result in direct sales.

[00:10:21] April Sabral: Yeah, I think you can track turnover and customer reviews. And productivity before and after anybody's gone through positivity leadership training, coaching, training. Because I think even if the sales aren't there, the turnover, because of the pressure of sales, if you're not leading it in the right way, the turnover's gonna happen and we work with teams that have got God really long tenure and they've been through the ups and the downs of the business. 'cause retail is a cycle, right? We have our ups and down downs. 'cause I think energy leaves evidence, it just does. And turnover, [00:11:00] customer reviews. I can tell you when I've walked into places recently where I know it's not a positive leader, that's coaching their team because the person standing in front of me is tense, head down, focused on getting something done.

[00:11:14] Probably hasn't been recognized, probably hasn't learned something new because they're struggling with how to get through this experience. It's transactional, versus transformational. And I think that's a huge differentiator. We can all feel that. it's really an interesting thing because leadership development is a hard thing for people to quantify.

[00:11:33] But, if stores with positive leaders do sell more and they do keep staff longer because it is, it's not fluff, it is profitable. And I just know that from doing the training and working in so many stores and seeing people disengaged because energy is everything. It just is everything.

[00:11:53] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:11:53] Blame to Curiosity

[00:11:53] Ricardo Belmar: so when you do spot those sort of, signs that, likely have managers operating still as a [00:12:00] task manager rather than a coach and that kind of scenario, as you were just describing, what are some immediate coaching interventions, if you will, you think will flip that behavior?

[00:12:08] April Sabral: Yeah. So you've gotta shift from blame to curiosity. So this, that, what that sounds like. 'cause a lot of times it's what does that sound like? Are people always asking us for scripts? It sounds like instead of saying you missed that target saying, walk me through your process. Where did it break down?

[00:12:23] What happened again, curiosity, asking a question. and then you can then coach the gap 'cause you can get them to walk you through it, tell you what happened. Then you are listening for the gap, and then you can actually coach the gap versus just dumping you missed target. Nobody's, most people know they missed target if they missed it.In my experience anyway, as long as they, the expectations have been set clear and they understand what their targets are, again, going back to that first step. But, they don't wanna feel lectured because if they do, they'll leave. That's just what happens. All of us wanna be lectured, but if you say to me today, April, walk me through what [00:13:00] happened yesterday. we missed the target, but can you walk me through anything that, you did anything that you felt you did well, or just walk me through what caught what you think caused that. And I walk you through the play just like a sports team. You are gonna listen and you're gonna hear three things probably that you can help me be better at, and then you can say, okay, let's talk about this.

[00:13:22] You know what you did in that moment. Is there any other ways now reflecting back on it, that you could have done something different, made a different decision, whatever that is, and then it becomes a two-way conversation and now I'm excited. I'm like, yeah, I can do that today. And I love that working in retail on the shop floor, because we were always coaching the play,

[00:13:39] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. It kinda shifts from that, like you were saying, it shifts from being a lecture to a learning moment and a learning experience. And I think you're right that people want to always be learning.

[00:13:49] People don't inherently want to be lecture, but they do wanna learn and everyone always wants to improve.

[00:13:54] April Sabral: And but asking those questions requires skill and effort on the leader's part. It really does.

[00:13:58] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:13:59] Casey Golden: [00:14:00] Definitely.

[00:14:01] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. Exactly. April, this has been another amazing discussion. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on how to evolve from task management to coaching. I think it's so important for retail leaders to recognize the power of coaching, how it impacts not just their employee satisfaction and performance, but just overall business success.

[00:14:19] April Sabral: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me on.

[00:14:21] Casey Golden: Thank you, April. I know our audience is taking away some valuable insights today. I myself have a new to-do list.

[00:14:31] So Ricardo, this is a wrap.

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[00:14:34] Show Close

[00:14:40] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed our show, we have a simple ask. Please consider giving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Good pods.

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[00:14:58] I'm Casey Golden.

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[00:15:12] Visit our website at retailrazor.com for transcripts and more info about each episode and our amazing guests.

[00:15:20] Blade to Greatness is part of the Retail Razor Podcast Network.

[00:15:23] I'm Ricardo Belmar.

[00:15:25] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[00:15:26] Ricardo Belmar: Until next time, stay sharp, lead boldly, and stay human.

[00:15:30] This is the Retail Razor Blade to Greatness.

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