You're Killing Your Sales By Making Your Salespeople Compete — Push Them to Collaborate Instead. The role of a sales leader can be high-stress. One way to reduce burnout and improve team performance is to restructure the team to embrace collaboration alongside healthy competition.

As someone who has coached several sales teams over the years, I've seen how traditional competitive sales environments run leaders down. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of managing this particular group of personalities is that they're extremely competitive. This competitiveness can be both a boon for your company (e.g. the sales will keep coming) and a burden for you (e.g. you're trying to keep high-achievers from acting aggressively or impulsively).

I've seen top sales performers clash over territories and go to war with each other. Their sales manager then has to move from focusing on strategic leadership to constant conflict resolution. The stress is overwhelming not just for the manager, but for the entire organization.

This experience led me to explore alternative approaches to sales team structures, studying companies that had successfully reimagined their sales cultures. The organizations I observed transformed their sales department by breaking down traditional silos and changing their compensation models to reward collective success over individual achievement. These models showed me that there's a better way forward.

Related: How Collaboration Can Help Drive Growth and Propel Your Business to New Heights

Why collaborative selling works for everyone

The natural go-getter attitudes of your sales team are a benefit to you, but when they are at odds with each other, it's a drain on their time. If your salespeople are constantly trying to outdo each other, they won't be as focused on outdoing the competition. They will also have trouble working together to meet shared goals.

One way to fix this is to switch up your internal selling framework and move toward one that rewards collaboration. When they collaborate, they can pool their talents and have a better chance of beating the competitors.

But beware. You can't just say that you're going to collaborate and then let the discussion end. Instead, you have to strategically revisit several aspects of your sales culture to drive more collaboration in a systematic way that you can still measure and control. You can start with the following suggestions.

1. Allow sales representatives to have more flexibility

Are your salespeople assigned to strict territories, verticals or product lines? This may be causing unnecessary tension between your salespeople and their customers. Sometimes, this friction can stem from team members feeling that certain assignments are less favorable than others.

To increase cross-divisional synergy, think about ways you could drop some of your barriers. For example, Nexus Power bucks the traditional sales model by organizing into five separate but collaborative divisions across 11 western states. Rather than only incentivizing each sales team for the products for which they are directly responsible, their sales reps have the ability to tap into expertise from any division when customer needs span multiple product categories or require specialized knowledge. This approach not only provides a more seamless customer experience, but it also positions the sales team as the customer's "go-to" resource for all their needs.

To implement this concept, map your current territorial or product barriers, then pilot a "flex territory" program allowing cross-boundary collaboration on qualifying deals. Establish clear revenue-sharing protocols and regular knowledge-sharing sessions between divisions.

Also, most importantly, adjust your compensation structure to reward collaboration alongside individual performance, ensuring that helping a colleague close a deal doesn't penalize anyone's commission.

Opening up more opportunities to your salespeople won't mean your stressors will vanish. However, you won't have to play the role of referee between unhappy salespeople as much.

Related: A Guide to Hiring the Right Type of Salesperson for What You're Selling

2. Incorporate a group commission into your compensation model

Conventional sales-comp structures built almost entirely around individual quotas can choke off collaboration. That's why 91% of companies said they will tweak their incentive plans this year, according to the Alexander Group's 2024 Sales-Compensation Trends survey.

A proof point comes from Pfizer, whose 4,500 U.S. customer-facing colleagues are mapped into seven business lines and hundreds of micro-territories. Each territory rolls up into a regional collective, and once that region crosses 100% of target, the entire cohort participates in Pfizer's Global Performance Plan, an annual bonus pool that adds roughly 20% of base pay on top of any individual incentives. Territories are re-mapped quarterly to keep workload and opportunity balanced, so no one feels short-changed yet everyone is invested in pushing the region over goal.

Related: How to Create a Pay Structure That Promotes Team and Company Growth

3. Empower sales professionals to work their unique skills

Another way to boost collaboration is to give your processes a complete overhaul. For example, you could use a test like the Clifton Strengths assessment to pinpoint what each of your employees is best at doing. You could then use the data to figure out who on your team is a rainmaker, a relationship builder, a closer, a specialist, etc.

After determining the strengths of your team, you can then position them to shine. Maybe you assign your networkers to make it rain and then hand off leads to your communication masters who can build connections. By making the most of the skills of your current team, you may be able to help everyone achieve more — just make sure your new compensation model aligns with this shuffling of roles.

A nice side effect of turning your team into a cohesive unit is that you'll be able to see any gaps right away. When you do, you can fill those gaps with the right talent. Plus, you'll be able to easily adapt your team to market changes because they'll be working in tandem.

You have enough stress. Rather than continuing with work as usual, consider the advantages of downplaying competition and encouraging collaboration for you and your team.