What Do You Do With a Sales Maverick?

They’ve got flair, confidence, and the numbers but no interest in the system that makes the rest of the team succeed.

What Do You Do With a Sales Maverick? The Answer May Surprise You.

Sales maverick (definition): a high-performing but non-compliant seller whose behaviour creates risk across deals and team culture. Here’s how to coach, contain, or channel them. Examples and language here are UK-focused.

We've All Been There

Every sales leader has faced this dilemma at some point.

There’s one salesperson on the team who’s driven, confident, and seemingly an expert in their field. They’ve got flair, confidence, and the numbers but no interest in the system that makes the rest of the team succeed. They are a sales maverick.

Each quarter, they hit target without fail.

They’re trusted by the SLT.

They’ve got boardroom fans and a top spot on every leaderboard.

But You Can See Behind the Curtain

They ignore the process you’ve spent months building, the one designed for repeatable, predictable, scalable growth..

They qualify lightly, lean on a few trusted champions, and leave the rest to instinct.

They push through custom deals the business can’t deliver at scale.

Sometimes they sell things the business probably shouldn’t be offering at all.

But they hit their number.

They hit their number and in the short term, they boost your credibility too

Long term?

They’re a liability for product, delivery, and culture.

So Here’s the Question

Do you rein them in and risk losing short term revenue? Or let them run wild and risk longer term pain?

There's no easy answer.

I’ve heard highly experienced, seasoned sales leaders (managing tens of millions in revenue) answer it both ways:

1. If they hit their number, leave them to it. That’s your responsibility.

2. If they won’t follow the process — and could hurt the wider business — they need to go.

What would you do?

What Do You Do With a Sales Maverick? The Answer May Surprise You.

👇 Vote below — I’d love to hear your take.

What would you do?

• Let them continue. The number is what matters
• Coach them back into the process
• Set boundaries. If they break them they're out
• Move them on. Nobody is bigger than the business

• What is a sales maverick? A high performer who ignores process and creates risk if unmanaged.

• Coach or contain? Coach first with clear rules, then contain if risk persists.

• Who Do We Help? we work with UK B2B tech and IT SME's

  
  

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