The Sales Percentile — a measure of overall sales effectiveness — is 41, in the weak band. Yet Desire, the core of the Heartset, is a strong 74. And Coachability — how readily a person absorbs coaching and changes behavior — is an exceptional 89.

That combination rules out the explanation most leaders reach for first. This is not a team that lacks motivation or resists development. The Heartset is there. What is missing is the Skillset between wanting to sell and actually winning: the ability to diagnose before presenting, to hold price, to reach the real decision-maker, and to grow what is already on the truck.

Why it costs so much here. On one-to-three-point margins across hundreds of accounts and constant reorders, weak execution never fails loudly. It leaks — a concession here, a stalled account there, an order that quietly moves to another truck. Multiplied across a route and a year, "average" is expensive.

What to do. Stop coaching effort and start coaching skill. The 89 says the team will absorb it. The 41 says the current approach is not landing where it counts.

Selling Value — making the impact of the service tangible so price is not the only thing left to discuss — sits at 47. Comfortable Discussing Money — how at ease a rep is talking about price and budget — is a weak 56 (the threshold for strong is 66). And Supportive Buy Cycle — how a rep's own buying habits shape the way they respond to a stalling prospect — is a deeply weak 36.

Those three compound. A rep who cannot make value tangible, who tenses up around price, and who personally shops around before every purchase will sympathize with a buyer who wants three quotes — and reach for a discount to relieve the tension.

Why it costs so much here. On distribution margins, every unnecessary discount is brutal math. In the bid-driven school and healthcare segments, price becomes the default battleground unless the rep has already made service, fill rates, and compliance feel worth paying for. A weak buy cycle is the quiet reason "let me think about it" works so often across this sector.

What to do. Train reps to quantify value in the buyer's terms — dollars saved, waste reduced, deliveries never missed — and to treat a price question as a buying signal, not a threat.

Account Management — the ability to keep, serve, and systematically grow the accounts a rep already handles — scores a fair 52. Orders keep flowing. What is only fair is turning those daily and weekly deliveries into bigger accounts.

Food distribution runs on a standing relationship: a restaurant or facility orders several times a week, every week. That cadence is the single biggest growth asset a distributor owns — and it is mostly being spent taking the same order rather than expanding it. Strong account management means following up constantly, knowing an account's real budget, and steadily adding categories and SKUs. At 52, the "maintain" half is carrying the score while the "grow" half lags.

Why it costs so much here. Every delivery is a chance to move another category onto the truck — produce, protein, paper, chemicals — and reps who only replenish today's lines hand that expansion to a competitor. It compounds with weak access to power (Insight 4): an account managed at the kitchen level rarely unlocks a bigger commitment. Retention and organic growth are the cheapest revenue in distribution, and a fair score means it is being left on the truck.

What to do. Treat every reorder as a growth conversation. Have reps know each key account's total food spend — not just the lines they supply today — and target one planned category expansion per account per quarter.

Sales Process — a staged, milestone-based path that every opportunity follows so anyone can see where a deal stands — scores 37. Sales Technology — using CRM and modern tools to sell, not just to log activity — scores 23, with CRM Savvy at 20 and Social Selling at 14.

Together, these numbers describe an operation with no infrastructure underneath the selling. Reps sell their own way, track opportunities in their heads, and use CRM (if at all) as a reporting chore rather than a selling tool. There is no shared language for where a deal is, no early-warning system for an account going quiet, and no clean way to hand off an account when a rep leaves.

Why it costs so much here. A distributor managing hundreds of accounts, weekly reorder cycles, and seasonal swings needs visibility just to see what is happening — and to onboard new route and inside sellers without a two-year ramp. Without process, results depend on individual heroics. Without data discipline, the account no one noticed shrinking is the account that disappears. And without social tools, doors above the kitchen stay closed.

What to do. Define a simple, milestone-based path every opportunity follows. Make CRM the single source of truth — not a chore but the way reps see which accounts are growing, which are shrinking, and where the whitespace is. When the system works, the system sells.