Arguments. Politics. Tension.
Your salespeople hate each other. They hate their workplace. They hate your sales management software. They want to see everyone else fail.
Perhaps you say to yourself, “Maybe things will get better.”
No.
If the culture in your sales team has turned toxic, the worst thing you can do is hope for things to resolve themselves.
Let’s talk about how you end up with a toxic sales culture and how to avoid it.
The Two Reasons Your Sales Team Has a Toxic Culture
If the culture in your sales team has turned toxic, the explanation lies in two main reasons:
- You hire the wrong people
- You incentivize the wrong behaviors
After understanding your team's personality types, it's crucial to have the right tools and strategies to manage them effectively. One such tool is Close CRM, which offers comprehensive features to manage your sales team efficiently.
First, let’s look at your sales team's personality types.
The 4 Archetypes of Your Sales Team
Your sales team consists of four basic archetypes. Depending on how you reward and incentivize them, any member of your team will fit into one of these categories.
- Willing and capable
- Unwilling and capable
- Willing and incapable
- Unwilling and incapable
Willing and Capable
These people have the necessary skills, but they’re not just able to do the job; they're also someone other people want to be around because they have great energy and attitude.
They want to grow and improve, and they want to bring everyone along with them. Ultimately, they want to create value and help other team members succeed.
Unwilling and Capable
These are the people who have the right skills but don’t have the right attitude. They are often arrogant, selfish, and egotistical.
Managers often turn a blind eye to their attitude and arrogance because they generate much revenue.
Willing and Incapable
These people are hungry and ready to hustle. They have a great attitude and are ready to learn. But they’re not ready or experienced enough to do the job—maybe not yet, maybe never.
These are the people that you’ll want to give a chance. A lot of people will empathize with them because a lot of people have been in their shoes.
Unwilling and Incapable
These people lack the right attitude or skills. They bring no value to your team, so don’t bother with them.
Two of these four personality types will create a toxic culture in your sales team: the unwilling and capable and the willing and incapable.
Let’s take a look at why.
Unwilling but Capable—Great Salesperson, Bad Team Player
This person is probably going to perform well. That’s what makes it difficult to fire them. You want to hold on to the results they’re generating and not do anything that could threaten that.
This means that when you approach them about changing something, you come from a position of weakness. You know that you don’t want to let them go. So do they. And they’ll take full advantage of this.
Playing by Different Rules
Because they’re so successful, they think they can play by different rules. They’re going to break the company rules. They’re going to break the team rules. And they will do this in front of everyone and get away with it because they’re so good at their job.
This is going to hurt everyone else on the team. People that are capable of performing on the same level will want to be just as big of an asshole as that person. Why? They think they’ve earned the same privilege.
It sets a standard that everyone else can and wants to follow.
The Great Divide
Instead of helping everyone succeed and setting a good example, top performers will look down on the rest.
Those who can’t be on the same level will feel left behind and maybe even bullied. This will create rifts between team members, and factions may form.
The message you’re sending is that this behavior is okay, and the type of behavior gets rewarded. Ultimately, you’ll get a lot more of that behavior.
Can They Change?
Can you change a person that’s unwilling and capable? Should you hire them and try to change their ways? The answer is no.
Why? Changing someone’s attitude is way too big of a task. You have a business to run, and unless you’re in the business of changing human behavior—it’s not worth it.
Now, let’s examine the second personality type and how it contributes to a toxic sales culture.
Willing but Incapable: Potential Value, Potential Failure
There’s an argument to be made that it’s worth investing in this person and benefiting from the growth they’ll experience. But there’s no guarantee you’ll see a return on that investment.
An Unpolished Diamond
This person is potentially an undervalued asset in the market. One that you could develop into a precious part of your team. So it’s not necessarily a bad idea to hire this type of person, but you’d have to be incredibly disciplined about it.
You’ll invest a lot of resources into helping this person grow and succeed. It will require time, training, and patience. They might fail, and they might keep failing.
Low Standards, Low Morale
If someone else on the team is working hard and generating much value, they’ll become incredibly demoralized and demotivated by seeing this. This will create a form of resentment toward the people who can just sit there and get away with doing nothing.
The message you send to the entire team is that low performance is acceptable. This will lower the team's overall performance because low performance is the standard.
The best salespeople want to work with people who are better than them. If they’re not placed in that kind of environment, they will leave for something better.
This structure will destroy your sales team.
Rewarding the Wrong Behavior
How you reward people will most likely be the reason behind a toxic sales culture. Based on how your compensation structure is designed, it will encourage and discourage certain behaviors.
Below are two compensation structures guaranteed to set your team up for failure.
The ABC Approach
If you design a compensation structure that only rewards the dollar amount your reps bring in, you’ll get reps that contact the wrong leads and lie to prospects.
This behavior will hurt not only your brand but also your business because your reps will pursue any deal.
Working 9-5
If you pay people the same base salary, no matter what type of deal they close, $5 million or $5,000—people will work as little as humanly possible. They will do the bare minimum to earn their salary and nothing beyond that.
Soon, reps capable of much more will start looking for jobs that reward their talent.
Find the Right Compensation Structure
You need to have a compensation structure that creates long-term value and helps everyone succeed.
Think about it in two ways.
Reward Individual Performance
You need to consider the individual first. If they generate a lot of revenue for your business, they should be compensated accordingly.
Reward them at different stages throughout the sales process so that they will bring in the best business possible.
Reward Overall Team Performance
Set a goal for the team to hit together. If they do, everyone gets a bonus.
This means they’ll be incentivized to perform as individuals and contribute to the overall team performance. Do they want to be the sole reason a company-wide bonus is not paid out? Probably not.
The structure is designed for your salespeople to succeed individually and collectively as a team.
Avoid a Toxic Sales Culture
It’s your responsibility as the sales manager to make sure your culture is healthy and optimized for success.
Pay attention to salespeople that hurt your culture. Ultimately, they will hurt your bottom line. Harvard Business Review noted, "Avoiding a toxic employee can save a company more than twice as much as bringing on a star performer.”
If you think you have a toxic sales team or are on your way to developing a toxic sales culture, examine the type of personas your team consists of. Then, examine how you reward behavior within your team.
After doing this, you’ll quickly see where things went wrong and what needs to be done to get things back on track.
Remember, happy salespeople are successful salespeople.
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