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In yet another powerhouse interview, CEO Steve Benson hosts sales leadership veteran Alice Kemper, who reveals her "secret three actions" for sales managers aiming to hit quotas without the burnout. Drawing from 36 years of trailblazing - from teaching to managing dozens of reps at American Greetings - Kemper shares battle-tested tactics on coaching, analytics, and motivation.
In this article, we've taken Kemper’s interview and boiled down her wisdom into five actionable insights, blending the core trio with ride-along extras and sales psychology gems, so you can implement them tomorrow. Afterwards, if you’d like to listen to the full interview, check out the Outside Sales Talk episode The Secret Actions for Sales Teams to Meet Quotas.
Kemper calls sales ride-alongs the cornerstone of her quota formula: "When you're there in the field and you're observing what's actually happening on the job, then you can be a better coach." Skip the secondhand reports - join reps on calls to catch unspoken cues like tone and expressions that reshape your guidance.
- Attend multiple sales ride - alongs first: Shadow several interactions without interrupting to spot patterns, ensuring your feedback lands on genuine pain points rather than isolated mishaps.
- Limit critiques to one or two tweaks: After ride-alongs, focus on a single high-impact adjustment - like refining the phrasing of a question - and demo it via quick role-play to keep reps engaged.
- Intervene only if necessary: Toss in a subtle, supportive question during the call if the rep veers off-track, gently steering without stealing the spotlight.
Why This Works: Sales ride-alongs bridge the gap between office assumptions and field realities, empowering managers to deliver precise coaching that accelerates skill uptake and deal momentum in dynamic outside sales environments.
Want more field sales strategies, tools, and frameworks? Look no further than this all-inclusive field sales management playbook!
For her second action, Kemper flips one-on-ones from quota interrogations to motivational deep dives: "They are about finding out what barriers or challenges are in their way, right now, from moving deals forward." She stresses that no team is all stars - "Everybody wants to have a whole team of A players and we don't end up with that - so categorize reps by performance against quotas: A's as consistent overachievers, B's as reliable mid-tier contributors with upside, C's as those occasionally missing marks, and D's as chronic underperformers. Tailor your style to each, investing time proportionally to maximize growth without burning out on fixes.
- Value A's with advisory check-ins: Schedule monthly rides or lunches for top reps, soliciting their frontline solutions to company hurdles - like territory blind spots - making them feel indispensable and tapping their expertise to solve broader team issues.
- Fast-track B's as A-wannabes: Ramp up weekly sessions for solid performers, using ride insights to coach them toward sales warrior status with targeted goal breakdowns, such as breaking a big vacation fund into quarterly sales milestones for quick wins.
- Hand-hold C's and D's with accountability: Invest intensive time in underperformers via short-term action plans and frequent check-ins, but redirect if no progress after thorough coaching - everyone starts with a clean slate to ensure fairness and avoid inherited team pitfalls.
Why This Works: Tiered coaching maximizes ROI on your time, converting B's to revenue drivers while weeding out mismatches early (like D’s that don’t improve). This fosters balanced teams that sustain quotas amid turnover pressures by aligning efforts with individual drivers, tied to personal aspirations.
Kemper's third action combats today’s short attention spans with "30 minutes or less" skill boosters, a format born from real manager feedback: "They felt that they could take 30 minutes out and do some skill building, but not an hour." This bite-sized approach ditches multi-day marathons for quick, high-impact hits that fit busy schedules, preventing the "cardiac arrest" of pulling reps from the field too long. At its core is her 3E Accelerator formula - Engage to hook them emotionally, Energize to fuel participation, and Equip to arm them with tools - woven into a precise 5-10-10-5 structure: 5 minutes to spark, 10 for solo mastery, 10 for collaborative practice, and 5 for personal commitment, ensuring every second drives retention and real-world application.
- Ignite with a 5-minute Engage/Energize aha opener: Start by tying the skill (for example, handling objections) to a vivid, relatable "why now" story or quick stat that hooks attention and builds urgency, making reps lean in from the jump without wasting time on fluff.
- Build solo Equip skills in 10 minutes: Dive into bite-sized core principles - like objection rebuttals - then hand off to individual low-pressure practice (for example, jotting a custom script), letting each rep internalize tools at their pace for immediate, personal ownership.
- Fuel group Energize & Engage via 10-minute real play: Circulate authentic challenges in groups of threes (buyer, seller, observer) for peer-driven role-plays, blending energy from shared stories with equipping feedback to turn passive learning into active, team-wide breakthroughs.
Why This Works: Even if your reps have the focus of a goldfish, these ultra-short, 3E-infused sessions layer engagement for buy-in, energy for momentum, and equipping reps with tools for action. This delivers outsized ROI in quota-chasing teams where lengthy training sessions disrupt routine and revenue, and quickly fade from memory more often than not.
Really wanting to emphasize the importance of the first step in her formula, Kemper returns to and hypes up sales ride-alongs: "You're another set of eyes and ears... you may ask a question that the sales representative would not have asked." Use them not just to critique, but to co-create wins after the ride-along itself.
- Debrief with solution brainstorming: Post-ride, probe "What one thing could we tweak here?" to co-develop fixes, empowering reps as partners in their growth.
- Tie observations to personal goals: Weave in rep aspirations - like funding a dream vacation - during drives to align tweaks and adjustments with bigger motivations.
- Share anonymized insights team-wide: After rides, distill patterns (such as common objection triggers) into quick group shares, multiplying coaching efficiency.
Why This Works: Layering collaboration and personalization turns rides into trust-builders, reducing resistance to feedback and cascading improvements that lift overall team performance without extra calendar hits.
Kemper wraps with rapid-fire tips, like offloading from the Harvard Business Review playbook: "When a sales rep approaches you with a problem... say, 'I'd like you to go think about it... and have a minimum of one, if not two solutions.'" Kemper’s methods inspire reps to own their success.
- Believe bigger than they do: Channel your inner coach by voicing confidence in their untapped potential, echoing Kemper's mantra: "Inspire people to do things that they don't think that they could do."
- Do NOT be a stereotypical "Talking Heads" manager: “Talking heads talk at you, tell you how great they did, and you should do it like them.” This is rarely received well - ditch lectures for roleplay on actual challenges or even “real play” out in the field.
- Audit daily time wasters: Combat overload and low-impact activities by analyzing your day. Kemper especially recommends the Harvard Business Review article Management Time: Who’s Got The Monkey? to help reps understand and reclaim hours.
Why This Works: These mindset shifts cultivate self-reliant, motivated teams that thrive on autonomy, which combats manager burnout while also sparking innovation and loyalty in quota-driven sales cultures.
Alice Kemper's “secret three action” blueprint - field sales ride-alongs, tailored one-on-one coaching, and bite-sized trainings - proves that consistent quotas stem from genuine attention and coaching, not endless micromanagement. What elevates it all is her unshakeable ethos - "Believe in your people more than they believe in themselves" - a thread from her classroom days that turns managers into multipliers, not micromanagers.
Sales leaders, audit your calendar this week and slot in one ride-along or 3E session. And then watch the ripple: You’ll see scattered efforts turn to synchronized wins, all while making reps feel seen, valued, and unstoppable.
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