The Big Myth Of The Sales A Player

Running a small or mid-sized business, you’re told to “hire A Players” to boost performance. But what if your budget can’t support superstar salaries? For most companies, especially in competitive markets like Tokyo (東京, Tokyo), the real challenge is building strong results without betting everything on a few expensive top performers.

A Players are elite performers, and they come with elite price tags. Large corporations with deep pockets can hire them everywhere. Smaller firms usually can’t.

Instead, small companies often:

• hire C Players (inexperienced or average performers),

• develop them into B Players (solid, reliable contributors),

• and then wonder if they should push them into A Player territory.

Mini-summary: For smaller firms, chasing A Players across every role is usually financially unrealistic. Building from C to B is the practical path.

Should we turn B Players into A Players?

It sounds logical to upgrade your best people. But there’s a real risk: once a B Player becomes an A Player, other companies notice—and poach them.

That old saying applies here:

• “What if I train them and they leave?”

• “What if I don’t train them and they stay?”

Both are true, but only up to your cash-flow limits. If you over-invest and they leave, you lose both capability and money.

Mini-summary: Developing B Players is smart, but pushing them into A Players can increase turnover risk and drain resources.

Why can over-reliance on A Players be dangerous?

Just like depending on a few big clients is risky, depending on one or two star employees is risky too. If they leave, your business can wobble.

When top performers exit:

• their loss hurts performance,

• and the remaining team often panics in the silence.

People start guessing:

• “Do they know something bad?”

• “Is the company failing?”

• “Should I leave too?”

Leaders must actively explain departures and reassure the team. You have to “own the narrative,” every time.

Mini-summary: A Players can create fragility. Their exit affects both results and team psychology unless leaders communicate clearly.

How do you measure who’s really valuable to the business?

A practical way is to track each person’s revenue multiple:

revenue generated ÷ total cost (salary + related costs)

A strong multiple means high leverage for your business. But multiples need context:

• Great multiple + tiny revenue volume = business still goes broke.

• Healthy multiple + good volume = stable growth.

B Players often shine here: they generate dependable profits with sustainable costs.

A Players may bring big revenue, but their costs rise fast—especially when they demand raises. That can crush their multiple.

Mini-summary: Track revenue return versus true cost. B Players often deliver the best sustainable profit multiples.

What’s the smarter growth strategy for small firms?

Think of A Players like a desert mirage: tempting, but not always the best investment. A stronger long-term strategy is:

1. hire C Players carefully,

2. develop them into reliable B Players,

3. expand your B Player base steadily.

This “bootstrap” approach keeps your cost structure healthy and avoids hubris as you grow.

Mini-summary: For small businesses, steadily building many B Players is safer and more profitable than chasing a few A Players.

There isn’t a perfect formula. But experience plus tracking can get you close.

If you monitor:

• training spend,

• compensation growth,

• and revenue multiples,

you’ll see when development is paying off—and when it’s becoming too expensive for the return.

This is leadership “art,” backed by plenty of “science.”

Mini-summary: Use data on costs and multiples to find the point where development stops being profitable.

• A Players are valuable but often too costly and risky for smaller firms.

• B Players deliver strong profit multiples and stable growth.

• Over-investing to create A Players can lead to poaching and business fragility.

• Track revenue multiples per person to guide hiring, development, and pay decisions.

Founded in the U.S. in 1912, Dale Carnegie Training has supported individuals and companies worldwide for over a century in leadership, sales, presentation, executive coaching, and DEI. Our Tokyo office, established in 1963, has been empowering both Japanese and multinational corporate clients (日本企業, Japanese companies; 外資系企業, multinational companies) ever since.