Why I fired half my sales team (and revenue went up)

“Culture” is one of those things that's hard to define in business. But you definitely know a good one or a bad one when you experience it.

And it's one of the highest-leverage tools you have as a leader. Because culture has the ability to influence how your team communicates, how they interact with one another, how they execute, how they prioritize, and ultimately, how much value they add to the business.

In every turnaround opportunity I've had, culture played a critical role in determining my level of success.

The Three Types of Culture

From my experience, you typically have three types of culture in any organization:

1. Default Culture: This is where the owner or leader is basically oblivious to the fact that culture even exists.

A culture develops, but it's by default, not by design. It's perhaps not a massive liability, but it's not an asset either. It just is. And it ebbs and flows with who's on the team and how they're doing.

2. Delusional Culture: This is where the owner or leader talks about how great the environment is and what a wonderful place it is to work, but employees there have a very different perspective on things.

There's a complete disconnect between the person leading the business and the people they’re supposed to be leading. In this case, culture truly is a liability because it erodes trust in leadership. That person is seen as disconnected or disingenuous. Most of the real talk happens behind closed doors, at water coolers, or behind people's backs.

3. Deliberate Culture (By Design) This is when a leader or owner has a vision for who the team is, how they operate, where they're going, and how they'll do things.

It doesn't mean it's all butterflies and rainbows. But it’s healthy, productive, engaging, and compels people to give all the discretionary effort they would’ve held back if they truly gave a shit about the team.

When you have a healthy culture that’s built by design, you have an incredible asset. It determines who gets on the team in the first place. It sets the standard for how people interact and communicate with one another. It influences whether people act like individual contributors or members of an actual team. It affects your ability to execute and achieve goals—or not.

The U.S. Chamber Turnaround: When Culture Changed Everything

Fifteen years ago, I read a book that changed everything I believed about building and leading teams: Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. I was a young exec at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, running a $10M P&L from a satellite office as Managing Director of the national small and midsize business unit.

I'd just inherited a sales team that was in decline. Losing people. Missing numbers. Lots of gossip. Toxic and negative culture.

After reading Delivering Happiness, I took one of my biggest career risks and decided to completely change the culture of the team I was leading.

The radical moves:

• I fired half my team within 90 days

• I created core values

• I changed how we hired to be values-based

• I hammered the core values over and over in meetings

• I enforced the core values and fired top salespeople who didn't align with them

The non-negotiables became clear:

• If you weren't willing to help train new people, you weren't a fit

• If you weren't willing to coach someone and share what's working, you probably weren't going to be there long

• If you were gossipy, negative, and pointed out problems without attempting to make things better—see ya

• If you used shady practices or slick tricks to hit your numbers, you were fired on the spot

The home office thought I was an extremist and unrealistic. Our HR team had serious concerns, especially as people complained about me and threatened lawsuits on their way out.

(Thankfully, I had a badass HR department that ultimately backed me on this or it wouldn’t have been possible.)

At first… it didn't look good. Morale was "eh" because of all the change. Numbers kept declining (which made sense—we had half the team we'd had three months prior).

From the outside, I looked confident. On the inside, I periodically doubted myself.

But then the uptick started.

Our number one salesperson bought in and raised the bar. Others started to buy in and dug deeper on effort. We found rock stars who aligned with the values and kept momentum going. People started helping each other, calling their own huddles to share what was working, celebrating other people's wins.

Before long, the group started to act like a real TEAM—focused on team goals, protecting the team culture.

The results:

• We hit our revenue goal for the first time in a couple years

• We double revenue per sale in fundraising

• We led the first increase in SMB membership in a decade

• For 10 years in a row, we NEVER missed a goal

And that team ultimately went form being the smallest portion of SMB sales to the largest over several years.

When I eventually left to take my first CEO role, it was one of the hardest decisions I've had to make in business. Because I didn't want to leave—even for a huge opportunity.

That's the power of strong culture.

The Warning Signs Your Culture Needs a Turnaround

Look for these symptoms in your business:

• Low engagement from salespeople who protect "their" customers

• Poor or stagnant growth results

• Low morale across the team

• Turnover of solid, productive, and positive people

• Constant fighting between ops and sales because there's no alignment on where the company is going (sales wants more sales, ops doesn’t)

When I encountered this as a first-time CEO in my next role (a company that had churned through three CEOs in as many years due to abysmal culture), I knew what needed to be done.

The top producers were selfish, guarded, and refused to collaborate. When I started to clean house, it created a rift with the board and was ultimately why we chose to part ways.

The lesson?

If you can't turn the culture around, you can't turn the team around. And you can't turn the team around without making changes.

The MSP Sales Partners 3D Framework

Everywhere I've led, I've taken the time to intentionally determine what our culture is going to be. At the U.S. Chamber it was core values. At first CEO role, it was a principles-based approach. And I’ve created others along the way.

At MSP Sales Partners, as we're hiring and growing our team, we've implemented what I call the 3D Framework:

Direction – Sets where we're headed. This is our North Star, our mission that guides every decision.

DNA – Our core values that guide who we hire, who we fire, and how we get things done in the business.

Drumbeat – Our operational meetings. How we plan and prioritize, how we execute, how we keep things rolling smoothly and proactively to avoid a reactive firefighting culture.

This framework is about 35 slides that I've shared with my team, and I'm offering to share it with you if you care to steal from it.

Your Move

Culture isn't a nice-to-have. It's the operating system of your business. And if you're running on the default setting—or worse, a delusional one—you're leaving massive value on the table.

The question isn't whether you have a culture. You do. The question is whether you're designing it deliberately or letting it happen by default.

Want the complete 3D Framework? 

Simply reply to this email and we’ll send you the full 35 slides. There’s no financial motive here. I don’t sell anything related to this. But it’s one thing I’m passionate about—because I have an abundance of evidence to have seen the impact first hand.

And I know that when you do the heavy lifting to create a healthy culture, your customers, your team, and your own headspace all stand to benefit.

Hope it helps.

Adios,

Ray

P.S. Thanks to the late Tony Hsieh for introducing me to the power that culture can have. His work at Zappos proved that culture isn't just feel-good corporate speak—it's a measurable competitive advantage.