The Subtle Art of the Overhand Slam: Improving Everyone on Your Team

I have never been chosen first when teams were picked for sports games in school. I was never tall enough, fast enough, or athletic enough to be on the “A” team. In fact, my single crowning achievement in sports was when I beat my older brother in a school ping-pong tournament in fifth grade. That experience, winning in front of the whole elementary school, was something that gave me confidence and still brings me happy memories. Even though for a schoolyard basketball game I was one of the lower performers and often one of the last picked, I knew I still had value and could improve with practice and help the team.

Today, I love the idea that sales leaders no longer should subscribe to the old-school idea that coaching your sales team members meant focusing only on the middle performers, at the expense of your star and poor performers. A 2005 CEB study concluded that it takes so much time and effort to coach your sales reps, you should focus on the middle performers with your coaching efforts and ignore the top and bottom end of the spectrum. Their research suggested that star performers would be fine without your help, and poor performers were just “dogs you can’t coach out of the kennel”.

Now, in 2019, at Xvoyant we have seen hundreds of sales teams with sales leaders who coached every single team member, no matter what level of success they have reached. Coaching with a segmented approach where each salesperson has an individualized plan that is relevant to their goals and personal aspirations results in success across the curve, and big outcomes for the business. We have seen individual sales reps move from the far-left side of the curve as poor performers to the extreme right side as stars in just three months. We have seen whole teams move to the right as sales leaders implement consistent one-on-ones with goals set around key activities and skills.

As a young kid, fresh off my ping-pong championship, I had a basketball coach who asked me what my aspiration was. I said wanted to shoot three pointers. He gave me some practice activities and guided me on what to work on, and I became a pretty good long-distance shooter. I never made the high-school basketball team, but playing pick-up games, I was a guy who was valuable to my team.

That’s why I am happy to be part of Xvoyant, where we help sales leaders hold meaningful one-on-ones with every rep on their teams to help them achieve their goals and aspirations. With the proper guidance and motivation, we have found that 25% of poor performers move out of the poor category into low core, core and even star performer territory. These reps are important to their teams in increasing production and in helping them reach team quotas.

As the producer of the Sales Leadership Podcast, I get to work with the world’s most successful sales leaders and I have heard advice and stories and anecdotes from dozens of these leaders on the benefits of moving every member of their team–helping them each improve by 10%. “Coachability” is the hallmark of their advice. If a rep is coachable–if they have aspirations and are willing to take advice and put in the work to improve–they can succeed. And their contribution will help their company. All of our podcast guests agree on this point and many have been successful precisely because they adhere to it.

I’m still not picked first for basketball teams but I can beat my kids at a game of HORSE and I dominate them at ping pong. And that’s the point, right?

Bryan Jeppsen
Producer, Sales Leadership Podcast
July 17

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