By Mike Schultz and John Doerr

Spending time working at the bottom? There are bigger returns at the top.

You have ten salespeople on your sales team. Like all sales teams, there are a few selling swimmingly at the top of their game, several are treading water quite well in the middle, and a few on the lower rung are barely keeping their noses above water, if at all. Like a good sales manager, you jump in to save those at the bottom before they drag you down with them. Nice sentiment, wrong move.

If you really want to make strong improvements in your sales numbers, help the best get even better. Don't believe me? Let's do the numbers.

Let's assume for the moment that the bottom performers are averaging $200,000 per year in sales, just enough to lure you to keep them on. After all they cover their costs and give you a little margin. Your middle people produce $350,000 per year. And your top people, your stars, are giving you an average of $500,000 each.

You're thinking, if you can get another $100,000 more out of each person on the bottom it will be great. This will get them close to the middle and you will raise the bottom rung. Sounds reasonable. But to get them there you need a 50% increase in what they are producing now. They haven't shown the ability to get there yet, so you are going to have to invest a great deal in them to raise the bar. The lower performers always take the most time and hand holding.

Instead, what if you could get another $100,000 out of your stars. That is only a 20% increase from them. They already have the skills, the drive, and the confidence. Your investment in time and energy will probably be less and your return has a good chance to be even better. And just think what a 50% increase from the stars could mean. (Well, in this case $250,000. Is it more in your case?)

So spend more time on your stars—encourage, praise, and help them do more of what they already do best. They'll love the attention, get you more sales, be more likely to stay on, and be more positive about the company. Your middle performers will see that the way to get attention is to sell more. As for the bottom, maybe it's time to tell them to sink or swim.