Underperformance:
How to Have the Hard Conversation
By James Denny, Global COO, Sales Geek
The Sales Mastery Blog is written for sales leaders, business owners and commercial operators responsible for revenue. Each article explores the structural and behavioural forces that shape performance. We look at qualification, forecasting, decision making, pressure and leadership standards through the lens of real experience gained over more than 35 years in sales and senior leadership. Every piece centres on a single commercial tension and examines it with practical clarity. The aim is simple. To give you disciplined, real world insight that helps you build a sales function that performs without chaos.
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The Conversations Leaders Put Off
Research from VitalSmarts, led by Joseph Grenny, surveyed more than five hundred leaders. Over eight in ten admitted they were putting off at least one important but uncomfortable conversation at work. A quarter had been delaying it for six months. One in ten had been avoiding it for a year or longer.
In almost every case, the conversation was performance related.
Translate that into sales. Six months of avoidance is two quarters of missed quota. A year is twelve missed forecasts, twelve months of a distorted pipeline, and twelve months of one person being treated differently to everyone else. The rest of the team will have noticed.
Why This Matters
Almost every sales leader I have worked with, across hundreds of businesses from one person operations to multinational teams, is carrying at least one underperformer they have not dealt with properly. Often it has been months. Sometimes years. And if you are carrying one, you are probably carrying two or three.
The cost of avoidance is enormous.
This article is about how to have the conversation properly. Not how to avoid it. Not how to soften it into nothing. How to do it with dignity, structure and a clear outcome, whether that outcome is improvement or a decision to move on.
The Five Reasons Leaders Avoid the Conversation
There are many reasons, but they usually fall into five groups.
1. Hope
We hope it fixes itself. We tell ourselves the rep is having a bad month or a bad quarter. We make excuses. We hope the deal lands and the conversation becomes unnecessary. Hope is not a management strategy, and while we are hoping, the rest of the team is watching.
2. Personal Relationship
We like the person. They are nice. They have been here a long time. We go for drinks with them. They might have been at our wedding. We do not want to hurt their feelings, so we soften the message or hint at the issue. They do not hear it because we never really said it.
3. Fear of Conflict
Most people do not enjoy conflict. A Harris Poll found that 69 percent of managers are uncomfortable communicating with their employees. That is general communication, not performance conversations. In sales, where we expect our teams to have hard conversations with customers every day, it is especially damaging when leaders avoid having one with their own people.
4. Lack of Structure
Many leaders simply do not know how to do it. There is no process. No data. No framework. No script. So we avoid the thing we do not know how to do and tell ourselves we are being kind.
5. Confusing Support with Avoidance
Modern leadership talks a lot about coaching and supporting. That is right, but supporting someone is not the same as letting them fail in slow motion. Real support is honesty, not avoidance.
These reasons often combine. Two or three together make the avoidance stronger.
Before the Conversation: Diagnose Properly
You need to understand what is really going on. One of the simplest and most important tools is the skill and will matrix. Every salesperson sits somewhere on two axes: capability and motivation.
High Skill, High Will
Your top performers. Focus on retention and stretching them. Do not ignore them while you fight fires elsewhere.
Low Skill, High Will
They want to do well but do not yet know how. This is a development conversation, not an underperformance one.
High Skill, Low Will
Often misdiagnosed. They can do the job but something has changed. Coaching will not fix this. You need to understand what has shifted and whether it is recoverable.
Low Skill, Low Will
This is where the difficult conversation sits. They cannot do the job and do not want to. Most managers freeze here because they know what the likely outcome is.
Before you speak to anyone, write down which quadrant they are in and the evidence that supports it. Activity data. Deal data. Coaching notes. Observed behaviour. The conversation you have depends entirely on the quadrant.
The Real Cost of Carrying an Underperformer
Most managers calculate the cost as salary plus missed quota. The real cost is far higher.
Direct Cost
A rep on a 45k base plus 25 percent on costs is around 56k loaded. Run them at 50 percent of quota for a year and you are already at roughly 100k of missed contribution.
Manager Time
A struggling rep takes more time. Longer one to ones. More deal reviews. More hand holding. Two extra hours a week at a 75k loaded manager salary is around 4k a year.
Opportunity Cost
Every hour spent propping up an underperformer is an hour not spent coaching a high performer.
Cultural Cost
When the team sees someone missing the standard and nothing happens, the message is simple: the standard is not real.
Credibility Cost
Every week you do not act, your credibility weakens. People stop bringing you problems because they know you will not deal with them.
Top Performer Attrition
Your best people leave first. They want to work where standards are real and leadership is decisive.
Carrying one underperformer for a year can be catastrophic.
How to Have the Conversation: The SBIA Model
We use this across Sales Geek. It stands for Situation, Behaviour, Impact and Action.
Prepare First
Gather your data. Be specific about what needs to change. Set the right environment. No corridor chats. No interruptions.
Situation
State the situation clearly. Do not bury the headline. Do not soften it. “I want to talk about your performance over the last quarter.”
Behaviour
Talk about behaviour, not the person. “Your call activity has been below team average for six weeks. You have missed three forecasted close dates without flagging them.”
Impact
Explain why it matters. Impact on forecasting. Impact on manager time. Impact on the team. Impact on their role.
Action
Listen first. Then agree clear, measurable actions with timelines and check in points.
Use clean language. Not “I think” but “The data shows.” Not “People are saying” but “I have observed.” Not “You always” but “In the last six weeks.” Not “You need to do better” but “By next Friday I need to see X.”
When a PIP Is the Right Step
A performance improvement plan is not a sacking note. If you treat it as one, it becomes one. A good PIP is a structured chance.
A strong PIP includes:
The current state with data
The required state with measurable outcomes
The support you will provide
A clear timeframe
A check in cadence
Two outcomes: meet the bar or move forward
Do not extend a PIP unless there is a very good reason. A PIP done badly is worse than no PIP at all.
When Exit Is the Right Outcome
If you have diagnosed properly, had the conversations, run the PIP and the bar is still not met, exit is not failure. It is the right outcome for the rep, the team and the business.
Get HR involved early. Be clear, respectful and brief. Communicate professionally to the team. Do not carry guilt if you have followed the process.
If you want to go deeper, you can listen to the full conversation in The Sales Mastery Podcast. Each episode explores the decisions, structures and leadership behaviours that shape sales performance in the real world. Listen on Spotify
For more practical insight, explore topics like fractional sales leadership, Sales Clubs and sales insight across the rest of Sales Geeks social media.
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