At a recent sales seminar I was asked by a sales manager,  "which sales people statistically should I spend the most time coaching and managing?"

I responded by asking, "where are you currently spending the majority of your time?" His response, "with his the problem performers."

Unfortunately this is frequently the case. Sales managers spend their precious coaching and management time with the poor performers in hopes they will somehow become "winning horses".

Let's take a step back, statistically 20% to 30% of a given sales team members generate 50% to 80% of the sales. They generally fall into three categories:

1. High Performers ~ The Horses

2.  The Hope Fulls ~ potentially moving up

3.  Problem Performers ~ resource drain

The following advice may seem stark and in some sense cruel. But bottom line a sales manager's job is to help the team sell  more.

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