Have you ever had a sales professional working for you that is your top producer and a menace to your employees? I mean, your people cannot stand this person and will move heaven and earth to avoid working with him or her. This salesperson is like the driver of one of those old road rally movies where the driver rips the rearview mirror off the windshield and says, “The only thing I care about is what is in front of me, I could care less about what is in my wake.” Do you know this salesperson? Have you knowingly hired this salesperson?
If you are in this situation, you are stuck with firing this person and potentially losing sales, not making your sales metrics and possibly being fired. On the other hand, by keeping this person, you are at risk of losing sales support staff that quit or get burned out — even worse, you’re at risk of being sued for having a hostile work environment.
What do you do?
This is not an easy solution, nor a short-term problem. At some point, this salesperson will reach a point of diminishing returns. In other words, the value of the generated sales gross margin will not cover the cost of replacing disgruntled employees, the lack of support staff efficiency/productivity and litigation expense. Not to mention the compromising of your corporate culture and brand.
At some point, after you have coached, counseled, threatened and coerced this salesperson, and they have not changed their ways, you are going to have to let them go. Just ensure you have a plan in place for the revenue drop, and clearly forewarn your executive management of what is going to take place before it happens. In addition, you should always be running a wanted ad for salespeople because you never know when one will leave.
Dave Harman is an associate with Sandler Training. He has over 30 years’ experience in sales and sales management with Fortune 500 companies as well as small, family-owned organizations. He has held positions from sales to senior management with companies such as Conoco/Vista, Amresco and Ohio Awning, and owns his own business. He earned his MBA with a concentration in Marketing from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. You can reach him at [email protected] or (888) 448-2030.
