The Movable Middle: How to Elevate Your 60% w/ Kelly Ross

The movable middle — that 60% in the center of every sales team — is where leaders win or lose the year, and Kelly Ross joins Mark McGraw to unpack exactly how to elevate them.

The movable middle is the 60% of your sales team that decides whether your year is great or just "okay." In Episode 62 of Building Your Sales Engine, host Mark McGraw sits down with Sandler enablement leader Kelly Ross to break down the 20/60/20 rule and how sales managers can systematically shift their middle performers upward.

Kelly and Mark unpack why top performers show up bright-eyed to every training while the middle hides in the back of the classroom, the role noise and distraction play in stalling growth, and how assessments, one-on-ones, and proven playbooks remove the guesswork. They get tactical on strategic vs. tactical coaching, the danger of "death by PowerPoint," and why progress (not perfection) is the real metric.

They also tackle a counterintuitive lever: addressing the bottom 20%. When managers tolerate underperformance too long, they give the middle permission to coast. If you're a sales leader trying to raise the average — or a seller ready to climb out of the middle — this episode hands you the framework.

About Kelly Ross

Kelly Ross is a longtime Sandler advocate and leader who runs Sandler's Oregon operations on the West Coast. With deep experience on the sales enablement side, Kelly specializes in coaching, training design, and helping sales teams turn frameworks into real behavior change.

Kelly Ross LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyannross/

Host: Mark McGraw — Building Your Sales Engine

Marks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmcgraw/

In This Episode

The 20/60/20 rule and why the middle 60% is where leaders make or break the year

Why top performers always show up — and what their mindset signals about hiring and retention