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.

Sales leaders often build expansive, multi-point rubrics under the assumption that greater complexity demonstrates competence. In practice, evaluating reps against dozens of criteria makes training unmemorable and execution impossible. Consolidating criteria into a few core categories relieves cognitive pressure and enables higher execution standards.

A company reliant on a single charismatic closer cannot scale. To build a repeatable process, identify one or two key, effective actions your top performer takes and build a systemized framework around them for the entire team to adopt.

For high-performing reps who resist parts of the sales process, enforce an 'our way, then your way' policy. They must first prove they can execute the standard playbook successfully. Once they have, they've earned the right to double down on their unique strengths and methods.

Accountability isn't just for underperformers. By helping top reps analyze and understand the specific actions driving their success, you can help them systematize their process and scale their performance, rather than letting them merely coast on hitting their existing quota.

Role-play feedback grounded in subjective opinions and personal gut feelings leaves sales reps confused about what advice to apply. Establishing an objective scoring rubric with explicit definitions for unacceptable, good, and great behaviors grounds peer feedback in concrete steps, ensuring training sessions translate into actionable behavioral change.

Effective coaching follows a three-step process: Identify a metric-based performance gap, validate the specific rep behaviors causing it, and then co-create a coaching plan focused on improving those behaviors, not just the lagging metric.

When one rep achieves a significant win in a new vertical, use the SKO to create industry-specific breakout sessions. Have that rep detail their exact process, sharing materials and insights to enable the rest of the team to replicate that success across similar accounts.

Instead of hiring generic sales trainers, identify your best salesperson, document their unique process—especially for discovery calls, demos, and proposals—and use that as the basis for your internal sales certification program. This creates a highly relevant and proven playbook tailored to your specific product and market.