The five reps that cost you the most

All five of these people are pleasant to have around. That is the problem. None of them announce themselves, and none of them show up as a crisis on a report.

• The one who is always one call away. Something is about to turn. A big job is close. Next week looks better. He has been one call away since March. Hope is not a pipeline.
• The one who is trying. Genuinely trying. First one in, takes the coaching, says all the right things in the one on one, and runs the exact same appointment he ran in the spring. Effort without change is the hardest one to act on, because moving on from someone who is trying feels wrong. Keeping him is worse. It tells everybody else that effort is the standard.
• The one who knows the script cold and does not use it. He can recite it in the office. In the house he freelances. This is usually pride rather than laziness, and the tell is that his numbers look fine in a good month and fall apart in a slow one.
• The one who blames the leads. Sometimes he is right, so check. If the same leads are closing for somebody else in the same market on the same day, he is not right, and the conversation you need to have is not about leads.
• The one nobody can find between appointments. Two demos a day and seven hours unaccounted for. He will hit his minimum and never clear it, and he is usually the last person you look at because he is not causing you any trouble.

None of these are performance problems the week you notice them. All five will run a full year at the bottom of the board if you let them.

The cost is not their production. It is what everybody else concludes about what is acceptable while they watch.