Sales Leaders - Are you focused on your "Movable Middle"?

Sales Leaders - are you investing enough time in the “movable middle”? Unfortunately, most leaders are not....and its costing you revenue. Big time.

Here’s what I mean. If you grade you’re sales people (A,B,C,D,F) this should be your plan of action:

“D’s & “F’s” - fire immediately. Especially if you're a "young" company (meaning under $20M in annual revenue). Its critical to make sure every investment pays off - don't "hope" that someday they will figure it out.

You should always have a steady pipeline of new AE’s that you’re speaking with that can come in and easily replace your bottom performers.

“C’s” - this is a little trickier. If your Account Executive is a “C” its for one of two reasons:

1. They are not putting in the effort necessary to be successful. Best way to fix this? Use the “stick”. I know many sales leaders who prefer to use the “carrot” when managing your AE team. And there is a time and place for that (see below). But when it comes to lack of effort, you need to be firm. Give them no more than 1 quarter to show they can put in the effort necessary to be successful, otherwise they are out.?
2. They lack some basic skills. Here’s where you use the carrot, motivate them to get better at one or two specific foundational skills. Maybe it's picking up the phone and making calls. Maybe its how to give a demo. Usually its going to be a foundational skill. Give them no more than 2 quarters (or one sales cycle) to a) learn the new skill b) implement it in their sales activities and c) measure the results.?

Thats it -its not rocket science. Diagnose it as either effort or skills.

If you don’t see improvements in your C players in the given time frame - get rid of them. DO NOT build a culture where its okay to be mediocre and keep your job on the sales team.

“A’s” are obvious. Do what you need to support them. Find ways to get them more leads. Make sure your comp plan rewards their efforts. Figure out what you did to recruit them and double down to find more A players.

Which leads me to the “Bs”. Strategically this is your most important group.?

This is your “Movable Middle”

We know they have foundational skills. And we know they put in the effort. (Otherwise they would be "C's"). But they are not consistently a top performer.

Your goal is to move them up a “half grade.”

In other words, if they are “B-“ move them to a “B”. If they are a B, move them to a “B+”. If they are a “B+” move them to an “A-“. You get the picture.?

Here’s what you do:

1. Do a complete diagnostic on what deeper level skills they are lacking. Now this takes work and effort by the sales leader - but it will pay off. Maybe the AE is good at getting to a Decision Maker, but they struggle getting in front of the Economic Buyer. Or, maybe they accept too many “think it overs” from a prospect and as a result sales cycles drag on. Sometimes they are really strong on presenting benefits, but they have weak questioning strategies and miss the opportunity to find actionable pain. Or it could be a combination. Again, make sure you put in the time necessary to make a proper diagnosis.
2. Build a training plan around 1 skill at a time. Don’t give them 10 things to work on. Give them one thing, make sure they got it, and then given them the next skill. Make it bite sized.
3. Coach the hell out of them. This is the area I see most sales leaders lack. Remember, a sales leader needs to manage, coach, mentor, & train (yes, on top of recruit, forecast, plan, etc). Thats A LOT. With the movable middle you need to put on your coaching hat. Make AE’s do the skill over and over. Give them lots of feedback. Role play it over and over. Keep a close eye on their call recordings to see how this plays out in real life.?
4. Find a way to reward them when they are successful. It could be a personalize SPIFF, a bump up in title, group recognition.?

Now this playbook assumes that you have a good compensation model, you’re making good hiring decisions, and you have a good onboarding program. However, these don’t need to be perfect. They just need to be good. Too often, I see sales leaders prioritize these three components trying to take them from good to great, while completely ignoring their “movable” middle.

Let me use a simple model to illustrate the impact:

Lets say you have 20 AE’s with a $1M Annual Quota.?

• 3 of your AE’s are obvious “D’s and “F’s” - get rid of them.
• 6 of your AE’s are “Cs” - implement the steps above and see what happens. For this exercise, I'm not going to count them.
• 4 of your AE’s are “As”. They bring in on average $1.3M a year. Awesome, make sure you keep it going
• 7 of your AE’s are “Bs”.?Here's where you focus your time

Breaking it down further:

1 of them is a B+ and brings in $1M

4 of them are Bs and bring in $800k

2 of them are B-’s and bring in $700k

Add up the A's and B's and you should be expecting $10.8M in revenue from the year.?

Now - you invest in moving your B's a half letter grade.

The B+ is now an A- and does $1.150M

The B’s are now B+’s and bring in $1M

The B-’s are now B’s and bring in $800k

Now you can expect $12M in revenue for the year. Thats $1.2 Million of Revenue you would have left on the table.?

Repeating what I said before: Sales Leaders if you’re not spending a significant portion of your time on the Movable Middle - you’re leaving money on the table.

Additional resources:

Tim Maloney has a fantastic podcast on how to grade your Sales People: https://youtu.be/DqeYTwfRcF0?si=QteUsHC8RVziEUGD

Here's how I can help:

1. Diagnosing the skills your B and C players need to be successful. I have a systematic process to identify the skills, attitudes, and behaviors your sales team needs to be successful.
2. Training. Sandler Training is the #1 sales methodology in the world. Its a proven, repeatable, and gets results quick. No sales leader can do it all - I can help with you get the most out of your movable middle.

Interested in either one - shoot me a note and we can have a conversation.

Good Selling!

Jason