I love a good bargain as much as the next person, but I learned a valuable lesson about phantom costs. That is, those costs that don’t show up on your income statement but drain profits. Everyone has heard the saying “good things are cheap, and she things are good,” however, we tend to forget it when it comes to phantom costs because it’s unknown if they are expensive or not. 
It would depress me to list all of the companies I’ve seen unnecessarily drain profits by making the most expensive mistake in business – giving good leads to bad salespeople. Forget my opinion, download the spreadsheet and run the numbers for yourself.
The example below is pretty typical. Every mediocre salesperson on your team has the potential to be a profit drain. Granted, not all salespeople can be rock stars, and most small businesses can only afford so many rock stars. There’s a simple solution to bridge the gap between average salespeople and the rock stars – coaching.
Great salespeople may not need much coaching, but the rest do. None, repeat, none of your B-team will ask for coaching or say they need coaching. However, they all can close more deals with coaching.
The two best ways to recoup lost revenue to close the gap between the rockstar level and the rest of the team is to engage in regular coaching and to create a proven and repeatable sales process the entire team can use.
