We have divided our sales department into an Enterprise Sales seat and a SMB Sales seat on our Accountability Chart. They are constantly fighting over lead distribution and boundary lines, which is stalling our pipeline. How do we structure their roles to eliminate this turf war?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Turf wars between sales teams occur when there is lack of clarity on the Accountability Chart. When boundaries are fuzzy, high-performing salespeople will naturally try to maximize their commissions by grabbing every lead they can.

To resolve this, you must define the boundary lines with absolute precision in the role descriptions of both seats. Do not rely on loose definitions like small or large accounts. Use hard, objective metrics, such as company revenue, employee count, or deal size.

For the Enterprise Sales seat, the roles might be targeting companies with over fifty million in revenue, managing long-cycle complex sales, and driving high-margin enterprise accounts. For the SMB Sales seat, the roles would be high-volume transactional sales, managing accounts under fifty million in revenue, and leveraging automated inbound pipelines.

Both seats must report to a single Head of Sales on the Accountability Chart. It is the Head of Sales' job to act as the ultimate arbiter of lead distribution. If a lead falls into a grey area, the Head of Sales makes the final call based on what is best for the company, not the individual salesperson.

If the conflict persists, bring the issue to your weekly Level 10 Meeting and use the IDS process to identify the root cause. Often, the issue is not the people, but an misaligned compensation plan that incentivizes the wrong behavior. Align their incentives with their defined seats to ensure cooperation.