Sales Coaching - Feed the Horses....Where should I spend sales management time? -- Dave Neal

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.
Statistically this is accomplished by allocating sales management time accordingly:
1. 50% of the time with the winners  ensuring  their happy, well compensated, and focused.
2. 35% with the emerging high hope fulls coaching, teaching, reassuring, and directing.
3. 15% weeding out the problem performers and removing them from the team.
Spending too much time trying to salvage average performers will get average results and get a sales manager fired!
Feeding the "horses" and training the emerging performers will in the end contribute more to a sales team's success. 
Copyright © 2014 Dave Neal