How to Improve Sales Productivity by Developing Average Sales Performers

Quick answer: The fastest way to improve sales productivity is not to spend all your energy on A-players or underperformers. It is to develop the middle 65% of your sales team, the average performers who already do “okay” but have the biggest hidden potential for revenue growth. With stronger sales team motivation, better sales manager coaching, clearer accountability, and small regular training doses, this group can become a serious revenue driver without adding headcount.

Every sales leader spends their nights worrying about two groups of people: their top earners and the underperformers at the bottom who are struggling to survive.

But according to the Harvard Business Review, focusing all your energy on the top and bottom is a massive mistake. In their article, "Motivating Salespeople: What Really Works," researchers Thomas Steenburgh and Michael Ahearne found that the real engine of your company isn't your top 20%, it's the large group of steady workers right in the middle.

Most management teams completely ignore this middle tier. If you want to grow your revenue this year, you need to stop obsessing over your stars and start helping your average performers get better.

This is exactly what my guest Jennifer Krueger, founder of Curious Salesperson, and I discussed on the latest episode of Top Performers by SalesPipeline.

Jennifer’s experience aligns perfectly with the data: average performers make up about 65% of your sales force. They are the forgotten middle children of the team. They stay under the radar because they do "okay" and “sort of hit their numbers”, but they are mostly just coasting.

If you can help this middle group sell just 10% or 15% more, that is where your real revenue growth will come from.

Based on our conversation, here is exactly how to do it.

Focus on Sales Team Motivation, Not Just Skills

When sales numbers drop, managers usually assume their reps forget how to sell and need new tactics. But Jennifer points out that the real problem is almost always a lack of motivation.

The Attention Gap

Because middle performers aren't failing and aren't breaking records, managers rarely spend one-on-one time with them.

The “Luck” Trap

Without regular management attention, middle performers often hit their quotas out of pure luck, like a client dropping into their lap, rather than repeatable skill.

The Solution

To move your middle group up, managers must spend time finding out what these individuals actually care about, giving them personal attention and small, daily bits of support.

That is where sales team motivation becomes a revenue lever. The goal is not just to track sales performance metrics after the fact, but to build enough daily support that average performers know exactly what to improve before the month is already lost.

Hire Sales Managers Who Are Organized, Not Just Great at Selling

You cannot improve the middle 65% of your team without organized, active managers. However, companies constantly make the mistake of promoting their best salesperson into a management role.

Completely Different Jobs

Great salespeople love unpredictable days where everything changes. Management is the exact opposite. Being a good manager requires routine, organization, and discipline to check numbers, run internal meetings, and coach people every day.

The Best Managers

Jennifer notes that the best sales managers often weren't the top salespeople. They might have been number 3, 7, or even 20 on the leaderboard. What they lacked in raw closing skills, they made up for in personal organization and a genuine ability to help people.

That is why sales management training should focus less on turning managers into bigger closers and more on helping them build a repeatable coaching rhythm for the rest of the team.

Balance Sales Accountability with Staying Focused on the Money

When sales teams struggle, it is often because they are being too nice to potential buyers. They build great relationships, but they hesitate to ask for a final decision, telling prospects to "take their time."

As Jennifer said plainly on the podcast: "If you're not in sales, you're overhead." Salespeople hold a massive responsibility. The money they bring in pays company salaries and keeps the business alive.

Being nice is important for building trust, but reps must stay focused on the goal. A well-trained salesperson understands that holding a customer to a clear timeline isn't rude, it is their job.

Ditch Rigid Scripts and Improve Sales Effectiveness by Listening

Average performers tend to hide behind rigid scripts. They run through a checklist of 30 questions on a call, checking a box for each one without actually listening to what the customer says.

Forget the Percentages

Do not worry about rigid rules that say a rep should talk for exactly 10% or 50% of a call. It is about when you talk, not a strict math formula.

The Simple Pitch Method

Teach your team to ask open-ended questions early on and keep their own ideas to themselves. When it is finally time to pitch, have them share just 3 or 4 quick, clear bullet points that solve the customer's problem. Then, immediately pass the conversation back to the buyer by asking: "Which of those four things should we talk about first?"

This is where sales effectiveness starts to improve. Reps stop performing the script and start using the conversation to understand what the buyer actually needs.

Give Sales Training in Small, Regular Doses

A major reason sales training fails to help average performers is the way companies buy it. Most businesses only hire a trainer during a crisis, relying on a single, exhausting two day seminar to fix everything.

However, adults do not actually remember or absorb new information until they have an immediate, practical need to use it.

While big training events are fun and temporarily motivate people, long-term improvement requires small, regular lessons paired with weekly reinforcement from your sales managers.

For average performers, sales training reinforcement matters more than one big event. Small, consistent coaching gives reps a practical reason to use the lesson while the deal is still active.

How SalesPipeline Helps Your Team Improve Sales Performance

When we start working with new clients at SalesPipeline, we hear the same question over and over again: "Where do you find these A players or top performers?"

Now, don't get us wrong, we 100% know how to hire the best, but we also know how to build top performers.

It is easy to look at rockstar closers and assume they were just born that way. But companies completely forget that these top performers were once middle performers themselves. They didn't become superstars by accident, they got there because they received the right type of training, coaching, support, and structure at the right time.

The reality is that most teams simply don't have a clear leader dedicated to this growth. If you are a founder-led organization, you don't have the hours in the day to sit down and coach your reps. In larger corporations, managers are too bogged down with internal meetings and paperwork to give their average performers that kind of personal attention.

That is where we come in. You don't have to spend months struggling to find and vet rare sales talent, we already have top performers ready to deploy, and we know exactly how to make the people already on your team significantly better.

At SalesPipeline, we act as your strategic growth partner to fix this gap and help you increase your revenue.

If your team needs a stronger structure around sales productivity, sales coaching, and performance improvement, this is exactly the gap SalesPipeline is built to support.

Wrapping Up: Unlock Hidden Revenue in Your Current Sales Team

The middle 65% of your sales team is not a problem to tolerate. It is a revenue opportunity most companies are ignoring.

If you want more growth from your current team, stop treating average performers like they are fixed in place. Give them attention, put organized managers around them, create accountability around the money, teach them to listen better, and reinforce training in small regular doses.

That is how average sales performers become revenue drivers.