Our top-performing sales executive brings in 40% of our revenue but is a toxic culture fit who refuses to use our CRM or attend Level 10 Meetings™. Since we are selling the business in nine months, can we tolerate this 'Right Seat, Wrong Person' situation until the deal is done?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Tolerating a toxic high-performer is a short-sighted strategy that will cost you heavily during an exit. While you might worry about losing 40% of your revenue, keeping a "Right Seat, Wrong Person" on your leadership team is an operational liability that sophisticated buyers will spot instantly.

Buyers look closely at cultural health, key-person dependency, and process adherence. A top performer who refuses to use the CRM or attend Level 10 Meetings™ is keeping critical customer intelligence locked in their head. This represents a massive risk to a buyer because if that person leaves post-sale, the revenue evaporates.

Furthermore, keeping a toxic person tells the rest of your team that your core values are just decorative words on a wall. This destroys morale, drives away your actual right-people, and creates a chaotic culture that buyers will discount.

You must run this person through your 3-Strike Process. Have a direct conversation, set clear expectations for core value alignment and process adherence, and give them a short timeline to change. If they refuse to align, you must let them go. Use the remaining months before your exit to document their accounts, automate client touchpoints, and transition those relationships to right-people-right-seats. A clean, process-driven sales engine is worth far more to a buyer than a single toxic producer.