What you actually learn by shadowing your top rep
Top-rep shadowing is a cliché that mostly produces bad lessons. Here's how to do it so the mid-tier reps actually improve.
Every sales manager eventually has the same idea: "let's have the B reps shadow the A rep for a week." It sounds obvious. It usually produces nothing, because the B reps come back with the wrong conclusions.
Why shadowing often fails
The A rep has fifteen years of pattern recognition. What they do looks simple. A B rep sees them ask a question and close a deal, and concludes "I need to ask that question." But the A rep asked that question because of eight other things they noticed in the first sixty seconds. The question is visible. The pattern recognition isn't.
The fix: narrate, don't just demonstrate
The value of shadowing is in the truck, between meetings, when the A rep explains what they noticed. Not "I asked about their warehouse." But "I noticed the forklift had a competitor's branding on the seat cover, so I asked about their warehouse, because I wanted to know how deep that relationship was without asking directly."
Nobody learns from the question. Everyone learns from the chain of noticing.
The setup
Before each visit, the A rep says: "Here's what I think is going to happen. Here are the three things I'll look for."
After each visit, the B rep gets sixty seconds to say what they noticed. Then the A rep says what they noticed. The delta is the lesson.
The recording trick
Both reps voice-memo their post-visit take. Compare them side by side. Over a week, the B rep's memos will start to mirror the A rep's. That's the moment something's actually transferring.
This is the only form of sales training I've seen reliably work on mid-tier reps. Everything else is vibes.