Your best reps are often "unconsciously competent" and can't explain their own success. Before an SKO, leaders must help these individuals deconstruct their process and build a prescriptive presentation, translating their individual "art" into a replicable science for the entire sales team.

SKOs often fail with high-level corporate presentations. A better approach is to put top-performing reps on stage to share specific, tactical "how-to's" for key sales activities like cold calling, email outreach, and champion building, fostering peer-to-peer learning.

To make deep qualification a team-wide habit, sales managers must do more than just talk about it. They need to 'lead from the front' by joining customer calls and personally asking the critical questions. This demonstrates the correct technique and signals that it's a non-negotiable part of the sales culture.

To make role-playing an effective training tool, sales leaders must demonstrate vulnerability by going first in front of everyone. This signals that the goal is collective improvement, not performance evaluation, and encourages reps to engage openly without fear of judgment.

Instead of traditional classroom training, Stone would take new salespeople on live sales calls. They'd observe him, attempt a pitch themselves, and receive immediate feedback. This rapid, immersive cycle built competence and confidence quickly, even for those without a college degree.

Transitioning from a top-performing rep requires a mindset shift from doing to enabling. A new leader's role is not to teach their specific 'Michael Jordan' method, but to align company and personal goals, then focus on removing obstacles for each team member's unique path to success.

Sales skills like handling objections are useless if you can't get in front of prospects. The primary bottleneck is securing meetings, not closing them. Therefore, 80% of sales enablement efforts should target this top-of-funnel challenge.

Newcomers to sales often fail when they fixate on immediate outcomes. The key is to embrace the learning process—making dials, fumbling through conversations, and learning from mistakes. Competence and results are byproducts of consistent effort over time.

Instead of failing with hard-to-reach C-suite targets, new reps should engage easier-to-access, adjacent personas (like insurance brokers). These conversations serve as low-stakes training, rapidly building the specific industry language and knowledge needed to credibly approach senior decision-makers.