Are you considering hiring a sales coach? How do you know if they're any good? How do you know if they know your world? How do you know if they'll be able to help? Who should you ask? How should you ask? Try these three paths.

Google the names of people that you respect along with the words "sales coach".

If I Google Pete Caputa sales coach, I see:

What's a Sales Coach, and Why Do You Need One?

3 Stories That Formed a Master Salesperson's Philosophies

If I Google Jeetu Mahtani sales coach, the Huffington Post article comes up, but also

What I Learned from Getting Sales Coached by @Rainmakermaker

I used people that I know have said nice things about me. If you respect them, I did your work for you. If not, just pick somebody that you do respect and start your Google search to find out who they say nice things about.

See what their guest authors say.

Find a sales coach's blog. Of course you should read some of their writing to get a feel for how their head works, but more importantly, what do their clients think and write about that might be relevant to your situation.

My son wrote Starting A Business Again earlier this year.

Michael Douglas wrote The day I stopped selling and they started buying recently.

Don Battis wrote about networking almost four years ago.

If you search my blog for the word "guest", you'll find articles by Arjun Moorthy and others.

So, if you're looking at a coach that has a blog, check out their guest authors.

Naturally, you should check out whether their clients are writing recommendations on LinkedIn, but have you ever contacted the recommenders and asked if they could add anything to the written review? Especially, if you know the recommender.

Look for stories like this or this.

I hope that you found this helpful. If you're thinking about hiring a coach or wondering how to turn things around by Labor Day, follow the links.