What does rescuing over 250 high-risk dogs teach you about coaching sales reps? More than you'd think.
Ian Spandow, an enablement consultant and sales trainer with experience at Oracle, MongoDB, and WalkMe, has spent years rehabilitating traumatized dogs. Through this work, he discovered something powerful: the same principles that help fearful animals thrive also transform struggling sales teams.
The insight? "Dogs act out because they've had trauma. So do struggling salespeople."
In this article, we'll explore Ian's unique approach to sales coaching and the four specific activities he uses to create psychological safety for sales teams.
Most sales coaching follows a predictable pattern. Managers focus on performance metrics first, conduct pipeline reviews, analyze numbers, and prioritize what the business needs. On paper, this seems logical. After all, sales is about results, right?
But according to Ian, this approach creates a fundamental problem: reps shut down, hide their struggles, and resist feedback.
Think about it from the sales rep's perspective. When coaching sessions start with "Let's review your numbers," the message is clear: you're being evaluated, not supported. This creates fear rather than safety. Reps learn to hide problems instead of surfacing them early when they're easier to solve.
Ian draws a direct parallel to his dog rescue work. Both struggling dogs and struggling sales reps need the same things:
The question is: how do you create this environment?
Ian starts every week with a simple but revealing question: "You just won $5 million. What's the first thing you buy?"
This isn't small talk. It's a strategic coaching tool that uncovers what really drives each person on your team.
Here's why this exercise works so well:
Most sales coaching focuses exclusively on business objectives. But your reps aren't motivated by your company's quarterly targets. They're motivated by their own dreams, families, and personal aspirations. When you understand what they're really working toward, you can connect daily activities to those meaningful goals.
Starting Monday with this question shifts the energy. Instead of diving straight into numbers and stress, you're reminding people why they're here and what they're building toward. This positive framing carries through the week.
When you know someone wants to buy their mom a house or finally take that trip to Japan, you're not just managing metrics anymore. You're coaching a real person with real dreams. That changes the entire relationship.
The beauty of this activity is its simplicity. It takes five minutes, but the impact lasts all week. Your reps start Monday feeling seen, understood, and connected to their bigger purpose.
Here's an activity that sounds counterintuitive but delivers powerful results: a role play where your reps get to act as the absolute worst customers imaginable.
Let them be the most difficult, unreasonable, hostile prospects they've ever encountered. Encourage them to throw every objection, attitude problem, and curveball they can think of. Make it fun. Make it exaggerated. Make it safe.
Why does this work?
One of the biggest barriers to sales improvement is fear of messing up. When reps worry about losing real deals or looking incompetent in front of customers, they play it safe. But in this roleplay, there are no stakes. It's deliberately absurd, which removes the pressure and lets people experiment freely.
When you've practiced handling the customer from hell, regular difficult conversations feel manageable by comparison. Your team develops the mental resilience to stay calm when prospects push back, because they've already navigated much worse in practice.
Sales reps often dread tough calls because they haven't practiced failing in a safe environment. This exercise normalizes challenging interactions and proves that even the worst scenarios are survivable.
The result? Your team approaches the week feeling prepared instead of anxious. They've already faced the worst and laughed about it.
This activity asks reps to rank four life areas in order of personal importance:
The rankings themselves aren't what matters most. What matters is what this exercise signals to your team and reveals to you as a coach.
When you ask about health, family, and hobbies before career, you're sending a clear message: I see you as a whole person, not just a revenue generator.
Some reps put career first because they're in a financial growth phase. Others prioritize family because they have young children. Understanding these priorities helps you coach more effectively and spot potential burnout before it happens.
Sales is intense. The pressure is constant. Without understanding what else matters to your reps, it's easy for them to sacrifice everything for work until they burn out completely.
When reps see that you understand and respect their full life context, they're more likely to be honest about struggles. They don't have to pretend everything is fine when it's not.
Ian's approach recognizes something crucial: you can't sustainably coach someone to high performance if you don't understand what they're performing for. Career success means nothing if it costs someone their health or destroys their relationships.
The fourth activity Ian recommends is conducting quarterly anonymous surveys with open-ended questions like:
These aren't your standard engagement surveys with rated scales. They're open invitations for honest feedback with genuine anonymity.
Here's why this activity is essential:
Even in psychologically safe environments, people worry about political consequences for honest feedback. Will my manager take this personally? Will this hurt my career? Anonymous surveys eliminate these concerns completely.
Your reps know things you don't. They experience frustrations you never hear about. But they won't share these insights if they think it might damage their standing.
When three different people independently suggest the same improvement, you've identified a real problem worth addressing. These patterns are gold. They show you exactly where to invest coaching energy for maximum impact.
The key is what you do with the feedback. Ian emphasizes that these surveys only build trust if you actually respond to what you hear. Share the themes with the team. Explain which suggestions you can implement and which you can't, and why.
When reps see their anonymous feedback driving actual improvements, they learn that honesty is valued.
All four activities support Ian's fundamental coaching philosophy: manage down, not up.
His non-negotiable rule to every boss:
"The most important meeting my rep has isn't with a customer. It's with me. If I break that commitment, I'm breaking trust."
This is radical in sales environments where customer meetings always take priority. But Ian insists that consistent coaching time is sacred and non-negotiable.
Here's why this matters:
When you cancel coaching sessions for other commitments, you're teaching reps that they're not that important. They learn to hide problems instead of bringing them to you early.
Trust is built through consistent follow-through on small promises. If you commit to meeting every Monday at 9am but frequently reschedule, why should reps trust you with vulnerable admissions about their struggles?
When reps know they have guaranteed time with you every week, they can plan to bring up challenges. They develop confidence that support is available when they need it.
Ian also emphasizes using daily metrics as your early warning system. Don't wait for quarterly reviews to spot problems. Track activity levels daily. When you see someone's numbers dropping, you can intervene immediately with support rather than judgment.
Creating psychological safety isn't about lowering standards or avoiding difficult conversations. It's about building an environment where growth can actually happen.
Ian Spandow's four coaching activities provide a practical framework for this work. Start your weeks by connecting to personal motivation. Practice in safe, low-stakes scenarios. Understand your team's whole-life priorities. Create channels for anonymous honesty. And above all, protect coaching time as sacred.
These activities work because they recognize a simple truth: people perform best when they feel safe, understood, and supported. Whether you're rehabilitating traumatized dogs or coaching struggling sales reps, the principle is the same. Environment first, then performance.
The sales leaders who embrace this approach don't just build better numbers. They build better teams, better cultures, and better careers for everyone involved.
In this episode of SellMeThisPen Podcast, Michael and Ian discuss how principles from dog rescue apply to sales coaching, the importance of creating psychological safety before focusing on performance metrics, and specific activities that help sales teams feel supported rather than evaluated.
Ian Spandow is an enablement consultant and sales trainer at Ian Spandow Sales Training, with extensive experience at companies like Oracle, MongoDB, and WalkMe. Beyond his corporate work, Ian has rehabilitated over 250 high-risk dogs, and he brings insights from that experience to his approach to developing sales teams.
