In this candid, profanity‑laden monologue, Matt Ryder breaks down salespeople into seven distinct tiers, ranging from completely ineffective (Level 1) to the untouchable elite (Level 7). He describes each tier’s hallmark behaviors – from the awkward, conversation‑less rep who can’t even hold a dialogue, to the “parrot” who mimics online scripts, the mediocre bench‑warmer, the tolerable but limited performer, the impatient good rep, the great rep who can sell anything on short notice, and finally the top‑dog who parks in the CEO’s spot and commands deference. Ryder punctuates the hierarchy with a personal anecdote about refusing to train his team for a steep hourly fee, illustrating the leverage and autonomy top reps enjoy (outbound prospecting, referrals, upsells, cross‑selling, higher close and show rates). The overall message is that sales effectiveness is a ladder, and only the highest tier earns true power and respect.
Chapters
Every level of sales rep explained. First level is trash. Can't hold a conversation. Awkwardly stare. The second level of rep is bad reps. They're trying to parrot people that they see online. Level number three is the meh sales rep. They're just meh. They're the sixth man down on the bench. Level four is tolerable. Usually these tolerable reps are fairly skilled, but they don't do the other things that make you good. If you can't have a high lead to sale, then like you're tolerable at best. Okay, now you've got good reps. Pretty good on the phones. The big thing is that they usually are impatient, both with. Themselves and with the prospects, and that caused them to focus on more than one problem at a time in their actual sales, which then makes it very difficult to become really, really good. Level 6, a great rep. Now this person can sell almost anything with very little notice. They do all the same things. They're just not quite there with their skill set, usually just because of a time thing. Now the last and final level 7, park in the CEO's parking spot and no one says a word. This is what you want to be. I remember when I was a rep and I had the owner of the business come to me, hey, we would love you to do some training for the team. And I And I said, no, I'm not doing that. If I make $2,000 per sale and I'm making about $100 grand a month right now, you have to pay me $2,000 an hour to train those people. And they were like, we're not doing that. And I was like, then go fuck yourself. I'm a fucking rogue unit. You don't like it, I can go sell somewhere else. When you're the best rep in a whole company, you're doing outbound, you're getting referrals, you're upselling people, cross-selling people, higher close rate, higher show rate. When you do all these things, they need to get in line because you don't need them to sell. They need you. And so that's what it's like when you're the top, top rep. You can park in the CEO's spot and no one says a word.
