Your Best Salesperson Might Be Your Biggest Risk

We all know who they are. That one salesperson on the team who consistently doubles everyone else's quota. The one who ignores the process, keeps their notes in a private spreadsheet, and somehow, magically, always gets the deal signed. They’re a hero, right? The one you can always count on.

But let me ask you a question that should keep you up at night: What happens to your business if they walk out the door tomorrow?

Your Best Salesperson Might Be Your Biggest Risk

If that thought gives you a cold knot in your stomach, then your best salesperson isn't a hero. They are a single point of failure. And relying on them isn't a strategy; it's a gamble. In the modern sales environment, the celebrated "lone wolf" archetype is not just outdated; it's a serious liability.

The Modern Buyer Doesn't Want a Hero; They Want a Team

The lone wolf thrived in a simpler time when a single salesperson could control the flow of information. That world is gone. Today's buying journey is complex and requires a unified front.

Buyers expect a seamless experience. They've already done their research on your website, interacted with your marketing content, and maybe even talked to a chatbot. If they finally speak to a salesperson who gives them conflicting information or operates outside the company process, it creates a disjointed experience that destroys trust.

Modern deals demand diverse expertise. Selling a complex solution today requires input from technical specialists, customer success managers, finance, and legal.

No single person can be an expert in all of these areas. In fact, research from companies like Microsoft has shown that deals sold collaboratively by a team close significantly faster and are often larger than those pursued by an individual.

A War Story: When the Star Player Quits

I learned this lesson the hard way years ago. We had a guy—let's call him David—who was a sales machine. He hated the CRM, kept all his notes in a private notebook, and worked his own kind of magic. We all just let him be because he kept hitting his numbers.

Then, he got a better offer from a competitor and was gone in two weeks.

It was absolute chaos. His sales pipeline, which we thought was worth over a million pounds, evaporated overnight. The ‘hot leads’ had no meaningful context logged in the CRM. The relationships were his, not the company's. It took us two full quarters to recover from the hole he left. David wasn't a hero; he was a black box, and when he left, he took all the secrets with him.

The Fix: Building a Wolf Pack, Not Breeding Lone Wolves

Moving to a collaborative model isn't about crushing individual talent. It's about creating a system where everyone's strengths are amplified, and success becomes predictable and scalable. Here’s how to start.

• Make Revenue a Team Sport. The most critical alignment is between sales and marketing. If marketing is measured on "lead volume" and sales on "revenue," they will always be in conflict. Create shared goals tied to revenue or qualified pipeline. This forces marketing to care about lead quality and sales to value the marketing effort.

  
  

• Your CRM Is the Team's Brain. Use It. Stop treating your CRM as an admin tool for management. Frame it as the central, shared intelligence of the entire team. It's where customer history is stored, where insights are shared, and where a deal can be seamlessly handed over if someone is on holiday—or quits. Make its proper use non-negotiable.

  
  

• Sell in Pods, Not Silos. For complex deals, build small, dedicated teams or "pods." A typical pod might include a Sales Development Rep (SDR) for prospecting, an Account Executive (AE) to manage the deal, and a Solution Engineer (SE) for technical expertise. They attack an opportunity together, bringing their complementary skills to the table. This team-based approach leads to better solutions for the customer and higher win rates for you.

  
  

• Pay for the 'We', Not Just the 'Me'. If your compensation plan only rewards individual closes, you will get a team of lone wolves fighting over leads. To foster collaboration, you need to adjust your incentives. Introduce team-based bonuses, tie a portion of commissions to company-wide or regional goals, and formally recognise people who help their peers win.

  
  

The Pack Survives. The Lone Wolf Doesn't.

The romantic myth of the maverick salesperson is holding businesses back. In a world where buyers are more informed and deals are more complex, individual heroics are no longer a sustainable strategy. The most resilient and successful companies are those that build a culture of collaboration.

As a leader, your job isn't to find one person who can hit the target. It's to build a process so strong that any good salesperson can succeed within it.

Stop celebrating the lone wolf. Start building the pack. It’s safer, it's more scalable, and in the long run, it’s the only way to win.