From Good to Great: Coaching Strategies That Turn Mid-Level Salespeople into Top Performers

In most dealerships, you'll find a group of mid-level salespeople: steady performers who consistently meet minimum expectations but rarely exceed them. They're reliable, experienced, and valuable, but do not maximize their full potential. While it's tempting to focus coaching efforts on underperformers or top earners, unlocking the potential of your mid-tier staff is often the fastest way to increase total showroom performance.

Here's how dealership managers and sales leaders can systematically elevate their middle tier into high-performing professionals.

Identify the Coaching Opportunity

First, identify who your mid-level performers are. Look at your historical data: the reps hitting 80–100% of their targets consistently but never breaking into the top 20%. Often, this group is overlooked in development conversations and caught in the comfort zone of “good enough.”

Why coach this group? Because they’ve already proven their capabilities with moderate success, and with focus and direction, they often have the potential to deliver 30–50% more within the same sales cycle.

Diagnose Roadblocks With Structured One-on-Ones

Mid-level performers usually have one or two blind spots holding them back—weak objection handling, struggling to close without a manager, or inconsistent follow-up. These weaknesses aren’t always obvious and often require digging.

Conduct structured one-on-one sessions at least biweekly, asking practical questions:

- What do you feel is stopping you from increasing your units this month?

- What part of the sales process do you feel least confident in?

- What types of customers do you find the hardest to close?

Use these insights to diagnose their real coaching needs. Avoid general feedback. Instead, isolate one area to improve and invest attention there first.

Develop a Personalized Growth Plan

Coaching isn't just about correcting—it’s about developing. Once you've diagnosed the improvement area, co-create a 30-day micro-development plan. For example:

- If the issue is weak closing, schedule two closing-focused mock scenarios weekly with a manager.

- Create a daily work plan with logged shopper touchpoints and report-outs if the structure is missing.

- If motivation is low, tie metrics to personal goals and create weekly tracking with incentives.

Assign mentors from your top performers who can shadow or collaborate on deals. This doesn’t require compensation plans—most high performers are eager to mentor if they see leadership appreciates their contributions.

Layer Training With Accountability

While coaching is personal, combining it with structured training reinforces consistency. Supplement your coaching plan with weekly training modules focused on the identified individual gap—be it financing objections, digital follow-up, or first impressions.

Crucially, add what many overlook: accountability. Track a few behavioral KPIs tied directly to the development area, such as demo drives completed, outbound calls made, or quotes delivered in under 24 hours. Celebrate incremental improvement and use team huddles to praise progress publicly.

Avoid the common pitfall of assigning training without measuring engagement or outcomes.

Use Team-Based Coaching Tricks

A powerful way to accelerate mid-level development is through subtle team pressure and collaboration. Introduce team-wide challenges that appeal to the competitive spirit without singling anyone out:

- Most test drives scheduled in a week

- Fastest to complete follow-up calls after day one

- Smoothest walk-around pitch (voted during team meetings)

This style of friendly competition gets buy-in while creating a culture that supports growth without shame.

Hold Weekly Performance Reviews Focused on Growth

Every week, brief check-ins are conducted, focusing not on quotas alone but on growth metrics. Ask:

- What’s one thing you improved this week?

- What are you trying to improve next week?

- What support do you need to reach that next level?

Could you document these conversations? When mid-tier performers see you invest in their journey and track their evolution, complacency gives way to ambition.

Celebrate Milestones Publicly

The jump from consistent to exceptional doesn't happen overnight. As reps begin showing growth—closing deals quicker, holding gross, improving show-to-sale ratio—highlight wins during sales meetings. Recognition fuels confidence.

Specifically, “Tyler improved his same-day follow-up from 48% to 89% this month and landed an extra four units.”

You don’t need to wait until someone wins Salesperson of the Month—celebrate process milestones loud and often.

Conclusion

Developing your mid-level performers is one of the most overlooked yet impactful opportunities in dealership sales leadership. You'll unleash a new tier of productivity inside your dealership by focusing your coaching on specific behaviors, creating personalized growth plans, and reinforcing those through training and accountability.

Don’t wait until another top performer walks out the door to realize the potential buried in your middle. Six Figure Driven can help structure coaching systems that transform not just individuals, but entire teams. Reach out today to elevate your dealership's performance.