The rep who gets fired isn’t always the one who missed quota. It’s the one who gave the CRO nothing else.
We talk a lot about hitting and missing quota and while that is extremely important, there are other things that matter as well.
In my experience, more people get let go for other things than they do for missing quota for a quarter or two.
I’ll tell you that whenever the time comes that I need to decide who stays and who goes, I’m not just looking at the number. I’m looking at everything around the number. The effort, the process, the attitude, the contribution to the team. A rep who is struggling to close but showing me all of the right signals is a completely different conversation than a rep who is struggling and coasting.
The formula for an “A player” is Attitude + Behaviour + Closed deals (ABC).
Any one of these three things without the others is NOT an “A Player”.
Everyone has a down quarter. You could be doing everything right but the economy sucks, COVID happens, the product has issues and so on. It does not matter the reason. Nobody crushes it every quarter.
Here are the things you should be focused on to make sure that even when you’re in a tough stretch, you’re still an asset to the team:
Go all in on the process, even when the results aren’t there. This is the one that separates the reps I fight to keep from the ones I let go without much deliberation. I’ve said it out loud on calls more than once: “WGLL (What Good Looks Like) is what Shoshana does. Everyone run the process like Shoshana.” She might not have been the top number on the board that quarter, but her pipeline was clean, her discovery was sharp, and she focused on really helping the prospect. The rep who doesn’t follow a process and has no cadence, even if they do manage to hit quota, makes it much harder to build on and improve.
Show up prepared. This costs you nothing but it tells me everything about how seriously you take the work. When a rep walks into a discovery call with research, with a point of view, with questions worth asking, that rep is showing me that they understand what the job actually requires. The ones who wing it have a ceiling.
Be the person who raises their hand. Leaders remember who volunteers. When there’s a new initiative, a pilot program, a market test that needs someone to take the first run at it, be that person. When the team is evaluating a new tool, a new channel, a new sequence, be the one who runs the experiment. The reps who put their hands up, even when the outcome is uncertain, even when it might not count toward their number this quarter, are building a kind of equity with leadership that is almost impossible to manufacture any other way. You also position yourself as someone who is thinking about the craft, not just the commission.
Become a product feedback machine. You are closer to the buyer’s objections than anyone else in the company. When a prospect says the same thing in five different conversations, that is signal, and it belongs somewhere other than a CRM note nobody reads. Bring it to the product team. Bring it to your manager. Name it, frame it, and make it useful. A rep who is actively feeding the organization real market intelligence is adding value that shows up nowhere in their quota attainment and matters enormously anyway.
Post, create, and build the brand. If you’re in B2B sales in 2026 and you don’t have a professional presence on LinkedIn, you are leaving a tool on the table that costs you nothing to pick up. Share what you’re learning. Comment on relevant conversations. Write about something that happened in the field this week. You’re building the company’s brand, your own reputation, and a pipeline of future opportunities all at once. People notice.
Quota matters a lot. At some point, you have to produce consistently.
The things separate the good from the great and they are an extension of runway. They are the signal that tells a CRO or a CEO that this person is worth investing in through a rough patch. What you have been doing before and during the rough patches is what matters the most.
Miss the number with a clean pipeline and a point of view, and I'll fight for you. Miss it and coast, and I'll help you update your LinkedIn.
P.S. Get sh!t done.
Why GTM or GTFO Exists: The GTM bar is low: big talkers, best practices and bullshit. Being elite is your moat. Do the work that matters.
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Neil, the Shoshana line is the whole post for me. What I see with founders is there's no process to grade reps against, it all lives in their head, so the number becomes the only scoreboard and good reps get cut for a bad quarter. If you want to keep your Shoshanas, write down what good looks like first.