Fire Your Top Salesperson: The Red Sox Lesson for Better Sales Teams

What if firing your top salesperson would make your sales team better?

The Boston Red Sox showed the world how to do it this past weekend. I know you might not care about the Red Sox or even baseball, but this is worth reading because there’s an amazing lesson here.

The Red Sox were in the midst of a five-game winning streak and had just completed a three-game sweep of their arch-rival New York Yankees when they traded their best player, Rafael Devers. “Raffy” moved to the San Francisco Giants, who were kind enough to take on the remainder of his 10-year, $310 million contract and provide four players in return. Two of them might even be useful to the Red Sox in 2025.

The Red Sox Lesson

At face value, this trade makes the team worse because you can’t easily replace the offense of one of the league’s most prolific hitters, and they didn’t get any offense in return that will help them this year. But the trade runs deeper than that. The Red Sox might have the youngest team in Major League Baseball, and they need good, strong, mature, vocal, team-first, veteran leadership on the field and in the clubhouse. That is not who Rafael Devers is—not even close. In fact, he was the polar opposite, having been part of a public feud with management over what position he would play. In the mind of the Red Sox, this was addition by subtraction. In the mind of Red Sox fans, it was offensive and a complete betrayal of the promise to build a playoff team.

The Sales Team Problem

Now, let’s talk about your sales team—because the same principle applies.

I’ve met many CEOs who described their top salesperson, and that description usually sounds like the Rafael Devers of sales. In many companies, it’s the tail wagging the dog, with top salespeople calling the shots by:

• Refusing to use the company CRM

• Refusing to prospect for new opportunities

• Refusing to accept a larger quota

• Refusing to participate in a daily huddle

• Refusing to be held accountable

I always suggest, “Let’s replace them!”

They always respond with, “We can’t!”

I ask, “Why not?”

They say, “They have us between a rock and a hard place.”

I ask, “How?”

“They own the relationship with our biggest customers,” they admit.

Rafael Devers owned the relationship with Red Sox fans, not management. Red Sox fans were not happy. But they didn’t disown the Red Sox and follow Raffy to San Francisco. Instead, over 48 hours, they vented, simmered, accepted, and doubled down, rooting hard for the young kids on the team. There are four rookies in the starting lineup, along with two second-year players. In the first game after the Devers trade, the Sox won again on the strength of rookie Roman Anthony’s first major league home run, and their sixth straight win placed them in the third wild card spot. They are suddenly a playoff team.

So, that begs the question: Can you get rid of your biggest pain-in-the-ass salesperson—often the one who manages more revenue than anyone else, the one you can’t control, and the one who doesn’t set a good example for the younger or newer salespeople? The salesperson who manages the most revenue is not always the biggest cry-baby, but they are usually the ones who feel the most empowered to act that way.

The Solution

You can replace the sales version of Rafael Devers, but you might be wondering who will manage those big accounts.

In the opening scene of Coach Carter, the school’s best players walk out of the gym in protest of Coach Carter’s rules. A player whines, “There goes our top two scorers!” Coach Carter says, “Then we’ll have two new top scorers this year.”

Same with the Red Sox: They’ll have a new home run leader.

Same with your sales team: You’ll have a new top salesperson.

Those accounts can be awarded to the salespeople who earn them. Eye for an eye. Bring in a new account, and you get an existing account. Fail to bring in a new account, and you don’t get an existing account. Simple.

And by the way, those salespeople have relationships but they don’t own the relationships. It’s hard to change vendors, and most companies don’t want to go through the trouble. You know this because every salesperson who promised to bring their customers with them if hired lied—not out of malice, but because of overconfidence in their customers’ loyalty. The customers usually stay with the company.

You can replace your Rafael Devers-like salesperson, and we have replacement strategies and tactics to ensure things go the way you need them to.

Want some help?  Feel free to reach out.

Image created with the help of Grok3 (I know the hands look goofy on the bat and Raffy hits left-handed, but you know, AI image generation.)