In Their Corner Focus your coaching efforts where they'll pack the most punch--on your top performers.

When it comes to coaching your sales force, you musn'twander down Egal-itarian Avenue--it's a corridor of dashedexpectations and unmet challenges. Well-meaning entrepreneurs maybe forgiven for thinking a sales team should run like a democracy,but don't confuse the wonders of our social and politicalstructure with the rigors of sales management. It's imperativethat you focus on the fundamental few salespeople who'll affordyou the lion's share of the results. Squeamish about playingfavorites? Vanquish any unease by digesting the following reasonsfor devoting your coaching time to your elite sales performers:

• The money's at the top.For centuries, economic theorists have fashioned elaborate formulasto arrive at what you know from just taking a look at yourreceipts: About 20 percent of your employees are pulling in 80percent of your business. So it just makes good fiscal sense to putthe majority of your resources where you expect to getthe greatestreturn on your investment. Alan Fine, a sales coach, is thepresident of InsideOut Development LLC in American Fork, Utah.Fine, who has spent time working with both top golfers and tennisplayers, equates outstanding sales performers with professionalcompetitors: "You coach and support the top athletes becausethat's where the greatest ROI is."

• Coaching marginal performers is awaste of time. You must take care to differentiatebetween average and awesome. Todd Duncan,the author of High Trust Selling: Make More Money in Less TimeWith Less Stress (Thomas Nelson), argues that coaching averageperformers is largely worthless. "In selling, you either haveplayers or pretenders," Duncan asserts. "Playersshouldn't have to compensate for the inadequacies ofpretenders."

• Stellar sellers are more coachablebecause they have the right traits. After interviewingmore than 400 sales luminaries--earners who rake in between$250,000 and $2 million per year in commissions--Duncan pinpointedseveral behaviors that separate superstars from theirunderperforming counterparts: a belief that there's no limit towhat they can accomplish, a burning desire to help clients, andorganizational systems that allow them to eliminate daily timebandits and squeeze the most productivity out of every hour.

• Sales isn't aboutfairness. As tough as it may sound, you aren't inbusiness to support the sensibilities of marginal performers."The tough decision for the coach is to balance fairness andresults," says Fine. "Many coaches get seduced intoneglecting top performers because they want to be fair."Fine's sports metaphor extends into this area aswell-professional athletes know very well the week they startlosing is the week they stop earning. Fine calls this implied (andoften explicit) contract "no pay, no play."

• Top performers can raise the sellingbar for other employees. Spending the bulk of yourcoaching time with superlative sellers may cause dissent in theranks, so look for ways in which the success of the top dogs canhearten the team. Seleste Lunsford, sales portfolio market directorfor international sales training company AchieveGlobal inTampa, Florida, says entrepreneurs can strengthen the entireteam's performance by "surveying top performers toidentify best practices that can be shared with less stellarperformers."

Lunsford adds that managers can also work with the elite crew tohave them serve as mentors to any up-and-comers or those in a salesslump. Mentorship, believes Lunsford, "helps the poorerperformer, provides recognition for the top performer, andencourages the top performer to be more mindful of the detailedprocedures that may have been 'shortcutted' overtime."

Kimberly L. McCall (aka Marketing Angel) is the president ofMcCall Media & Marketing Inc.(www.marketingangel.com), a business communicationscompany in Durham, Maine.