Should you ride along with the high performers?

How Do I Get My Manager to Ride Along With Me?

If you’re a high performer, it can feel like all the attention goes to the lowest performers—leaving you on your own.

In today’s Question of the Day, I challenge that dynamic and explain why high performers should be getting more coaching, not less.

I compare it to the NFL: elite quarterbacks get the most attention from their coaches because they have the greatest impact on the outcome of the game. The same is true in our industry—your top performers influence the most revenue and adopt improvements the fastest.

In this episode, we cover:

•  Why managers often default to spending time with low performers 
•  Why investing in high performers creates a bigger return 
•  The challenge (and opportunity) of coaching someone already performing at a high level 
•  A practical way to assumptively close your manager on a ride-along by giving them an either/or option on timing 

If you’re a top performer looking to keep growing—or a leader deciding where to invest your time—this episode will shift your perspective on where coaching has the biggest impact.

Have a Question? - Submit your questions to chrish@nexstarnetwork.com

Transcript

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Welcome to the question of the day. Today's question is from Joe in Idaho. And Joe asks, My manager doesn't ride along with me. He spends most of his time riding along with the lower performers on the team. How do I get my manager to ride along with me? That is a great question and a fair question. And a question that I see a lot, right? And not just in the trades. I see this in business everywhere. It's like, well, that person is performing at a high level. They're probably good. I can let them go on their own. So then I focus my energy and effort on the lower performers. There's more opportunity there, right? And and secretly, secretly, there it's it's easier because I can watch them and find lots of opportunities. And then I sound like a genius. Whereas when you are riding along with a high performer, what am I going to tell them? Right. And and I myself have suffered from this. I I went and I rode along with a salesperson, a very high performer. He closed 80 plus percent every single month. And and as I'm riding with him to the first call, I'm thinking, like, what am I what am I going to tell this guy? Like, this guy's awesome. Like, what am I going to tell him? We still found some opportunities, right? Simply riding along, we still found some opportunities. Think about the absurdity of this, though. Think about the absurdity and and look at the NFL as a good example. Okay. And the NFL and think of think of an elite quarterback on a really good team, whatever team or quarterback you want to think of, right? And so I'm going to use the Patriots as an example because they've been they've been a dynasty in most people's memories, right? And they know who the Patriots are and and who Tom Brady is, right? And so Tom Brady being that elite quarterback. Do you remember who Tom Brady's backup quarterback was? I'll let you think for a second. Who was Tom Brady's backup quarterback? You know what? I don't know either. There's only one I can think of. The only one I can think of was Matt Castle. And that was that year uh Brady injured his knee. He was out for most of the season, and so Castle had to come in. And then, long story short, he looked good, ended up on the Vikings, and everybody saw his true colors. But um, that's the only backup I can think of, right? And so think of your Bill Belichick. You were the quarterback of the Patriots. Who did you spend almost all your time with during the week between games? Did you spend it with Tom Brady or did you spend it with the backup quarterback? You spent almost all your time with Tom Brady. And why? Why did you spend, as a head coach, why would you spend your time with the elite quarterback? Well, the reason is that's the guy that's going to implement on the field. That's the guy that's going to put it into action. That's the guy that's going to get results. That's the guy that's going to have greater impact. And so I'm multiplying my efforts. Every minute spent with them equals more in the field than minutes spent with other people. In this case, the backup quarterback. There's almost no time spent with the backup quarterback. Until Matt Castle had to step up. And then that's all you got left. So then you do got to spend time with him. But other than that, you don't spend any time with him. But in every other business, we're different, right? And in trades, especially, we're different. We do it completely the opposite of that. We're spending almost no time with our elite quarterbacks, and we're spending almost all our time with the backup quarterback, the rookie. We're spending all our time there. Now think about this though. That high performer, that high performer, if you ride along with them and you find an opportunity, it's gonna be harder. Yes, it will be harder because they're good. They're a high performer for a reason. They're good. They might be better than you. But if I find something with them, if I find one, even one thing, one opportunity, that high performer is going to be able to implement it almost immediately. They're going to be able to course correct almost immediately. So that adoption time is almost zero. And it's going to have a broader impact because they're running more calls. It's going to have more effect on more leads and more customers, which means more dollars. So they will have a much broader impact. So the time spent with that high performer, I would argue, yeah, you'll find less things. It's harder. But that probably means it's a thing you should do because it's going to equal more dollars. Now, I'm not saying, I'm not saying leave your low performers to die. Okay. You need to support them too. But what I'm saying is we probably need to invert that area of emphasis, right? So think of like the 80-20 rule. 80-20 rule is pretty common. Right now, you're spending 80% of your time with your low performers, 20% with your high performers. What if you flipped that? What if you spent 80% of your time with your high performers, 20% of your time with your lower performers, set them up with tools, set them up for success, set them, set uh set them up for self-development, like help them, but spend the majority of your time with your high performers. And I'm not saying like spend the time with them like you're gonna beat them over the head. You're not riding along with the high performers to beat them over the head. You're riding along to partner with them. You're gonna partner with them. You're gonna make each other better. You're gonna ask them questions that's gonna better their sales process. They're gonna ask you questions that better the business. Because they're seeing things in the business too that's gonna make the business better. You're partnering with them, you're gonna make each other better. So stop starving your high performers by leaving them defend for themselves. So that being said, that being said, let's get to answering the question here. So Joe asks, how do I get my manager to ride along with me? So I'm gonna direct you to the assumptive close, right? In sales, we talk about the assumptive close. If you're working with a customer and like everything's going right, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like eating out of the palm of your hand. Like, this is the right system, you're the right person, this is the right company. Like, they're just excited, right? Like, you're not even gonna slow things down to ask them to buy. You're gonna say, like, well, hey, it sounds like we found the right one. Let's get this thing installed, right? Like, you're gonna that's the assumptive close. You're just gonna keep that momentum going, right? So you never even actually ask for the sale. Same concept. We're going to assume, and sometimes we have to manage our manager. Sometimes, not because they're they're bad people or they're ignoring you, but it might be they feel like they need to focus in these areas or they're stretched too thin, or they're pulled in different directions, and you know, they just got too much on their plate and they don't realize it, right? Or maybe they think you don't want them to ride along, and so they're shying away from it. Uh, whatever the reason is. I don't think it's because they're bad people, but sometimes we need to manage our managers and simply just ask. But you're gonna ask like that. You're not actually gonna ask, you're going to assumptively ask. So you're gonna say something like, Hey, I'm looking to get better here. I need you to ride along with me and help me find some opportunities. When would work better to ride along with me? This week or next week? You'll notice there, I didn't ask them to ride along. I told them they were riding along. Hey, I'm looking for some help. I need you to help me find some opportunities. I need you to ride along with me. That's a statement, not a question. I need you to ride along with me. The question was what week works better, this week or next week? It's an either or. So, yes, they are riding along. It's just, are they gonna do it this week or next week? Any manager worth anything, and I think that would be almost every manager. Any manager is gonna make that happen for you. If you said that to them, if you said, hey, I'm trying to get better, I want your help. Can you ride along with me? Will you you will ride along with me? So, Joe, way to be humble. You're number one, but you're still looking to get better. The best are always looking to get better. Managers, stop avoiding your high performers. There's more opportunity, more dollars there. Focus on your high performers. Support them. That's today's question of the day. If you're enjoying question of the day, follow, share, give a rating. Question of the day is on major streaming platforms. If you have a question, reach out to me either on social media or email. Both are going to be listed below in the show description. Let's get your question answered. And if you're an XR member, schedule a call with me. Let's get this addressed one on one and get very specific to your situation. I'm Coach Chris. We'll see you tomorrow.