The "More vs Better" Diagnostic For Coaching An Underperforming Sales Rep

The Coaching Question Most Sales Leaders Get Wrong

A rep is missing quota. Activity is high. Closes are low. What do you do?

Most leaders push for more activity. More dials. More demos. More meetings on the books. The reality is, more rarely fixes a conversion problem. After 13 years in sales leadership and helping 700+ B2B sales teams generate over $950M in revenue, the same lesson keeps showing up. The struggling rep is rarely lazy. They are misaligned.

This post breaks down the diagnostic I use to separate volume problems from skill problems before any coaching plan gets built.

What Is The "More vs Better" Coaching Diagnostic?

The "More vs Better" diagnostic is a single question every sales leader should ask before coaching a struggling rep. Does this rep need more reps of what they are doing, or do they need to do it differently? More-coaching and better-coaching look almost identical from the outside. Applied to the wrong rep, either one wastes the quarter.

The framework has two diagnostic steps and three coaching moves. It applies whether you lead 3 reps or 110.

Why Do Top Activity Reps Sometimes Have The Worst Conversion?

I had a rep on my team named Lisa. Strong track record. Sharp grinder. Inside two weeks she was booking 25 discovery calls per week. The team minimum was 16.

She closed one deal a week.

For three weeks straight. One.

Most leaders see those numbers and assume slump. Or bad leads. Or a soft territory. Lisa had two specific gaps no activity report would catch. She was meeting with anyone who picked up the phone instead of qualifying. And she had no idea how to coach a champion or multi-thread a deal.

I sat with her on a phone block and listened to her calls. The qualification gap surfaced fast. We role-played three questions she could ask before booking. Then I rode along on her field meetings the same week. The multi-thread gap surfaced on call two.

The next week her meetings dropped to 12. Her closes climbed to three. The week after, five closes on 12 meetings. She won Rookie of the Year and hit President’s Club that fiscal year.

Lisa needed BETTER. She did not need more.

Why Do Skilled Reps Sometimes Need More, Not Better?

I had another rep named Forrest. Photographic memory. Fast learner. Could mimic any framework I taught him within one rep. His skill ceiling was higher than most of the team.

He did the bare minimum.

He would post zeros all quarter, then close one monster deal in week 13 to cover his number. His conversion rate was great. His volume was nothing.

Coaching Forrest on skill would have been a waste. He already had it. Forrest needed MORE reps at bat. The diagnosis took 30 seconds. The coaching conversation took longer because his self-concept was the actual gap, but the framework call was clear from the start.

Two reps. Same dashboard symptom (missing quota). Two opposite prescriptions. Get the diagnosis wrong and you waste both quarters.

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How Do You Coach A Sales Rep In The Field Without Wasting Their Time?

Get out of your office. The diagnosis lives in the room.

Listen to live calls. Ride along on field meetings. Sit in on demos. The dashboard tells you what happened. It does not tell you why. Three coached calls in a week beats three months of pipeline reviews from your desk.

Then teach in the moment. Not the next 1:1. Now. Between calls. In the car. On Slack 30 seconds after the call ends. Coaching loses half its power once the rep leaves the moment.

Then role-play. Or rather, real-play.

Why Do "Real Plays" Work Better Than Role Plays?

Most sales teams role play with the intensity of flag football. Pull a buddy aside. Run through a friendly script. Smile. Move on.

That is theater.

A real play is the worst-case version of the call. The prospect says no three times. They push back on price. They go silent. They tell you to send an email and never call again. Your rep has to keep their composure and find the next move.

Why this matters: reps perform at the level they trained to. Train them for one easy no, they fold at two. Train them for five hostile pushbacks, the real call feels manageable.

Amateurs play more than they practice. Pros practice harder than they play.

FAQ

Q: How do you tell if a rep needs more activity or better skill?

Look at conversion rate by funnel stage. If their conversion at any single stage is below team average, it is a skill issue. If their conversion is on par but their volume is half the team, it is an activity issue. Most underperformers are skill issues disguised as activity issues.

Q: How long should a struggling rep get before you make a call?

If the gap is one or two specific skills, expect 3 to 6 weeks of focused field coaching. Lisa moved in four. The 700+ teams I have worked with average closer to six weeks when the leader commits to weekly field time and real plays.

Q: Should I fire a rep missing quota for two quarters straight?

Not before you diagnose what is broken. Fire too early and you waste the ramp investment. Coach without a diagnosis and you waste another quarter. Run the diagnostic first.

Q: What is the biggest mistake sales leaders make when coaching reps?

Coaching from the dashboard. The dashboard is the receipt. The coaching opportunity was 10 calls ago.

Q: Do real plays work for senior reps?

Especially for senior reps. The longer someone has been selling, the more bad habits they have absorbed. Real plays expose the habits faster than any other coaching tool I have used in 19 years of selling and leadership.

Stop Coaching Blind

Your reps are not lazy. They are misaligned. Get the diagnostic right and the coaching writes itself.

Book your free Executive Snapshot to see exactly where your team is leaking revenue by clicking the link below.