Key Takeaways

  • Sam Levy, head of Go-to-Market Strategy at NetSuite, highlights the dilemma of high-performing “lone wolf” sales reps: their productivity might be tolerated if their disruptive behavior doesn't become a "cancer to the team" or impede broader scale.
  • Delaying the removal of underperforming sales personnel carries a hidden tax, as Levy notes, “everyone around you is watching and saying, 'Why can't this leader make decisions?'” This erodes leadership credibility and team morale more than the lost revenue.
  • Effective performance decisions, especially for sales underperformers, must pivot from subjective feelings to objective competency assessments to avoid the emotional trap of holding on to "good people" who don't deliver.
  • Removing an underperformer, even if it means short-term revenue loss, can paradoxically boost team morale and motivate the remaining organization, signaling that leadership prioritizes overall health over individual sacred cows.

The Lone Wolf's Trade-Off

Sam Levy, who leads NetSuite’s $4 billion GTM organization, understands the allure and peril of the sales “lone wolf.” These are the individual contributors who consistently hit their numbers but might skip processes, rub colleagues the wrong way, or generally operate outside the lines. The instinct is often to tolerate them because of their outsized contribution. Levy describes this as a delicate “balancing act is how disruptive is it to the organization or to the team or to scale and you have to use them in the right lights.”

The real test for Levy isn't just their quarterly quota attainment, but their systemic impact. Is their high output truly accretive, or does it mask a deeper cultural debt? He even offers a blunt personal gut check: “I always look at as geez would you invite this person to your Thanksgiving... your Christmas party, and would you want to go hang out with this person? If the answer is no, that tells you something.” For a private equity portfolio company pushing for operational rigor and integrated value creation, a lone wolf's disruptive tendencies can quickly become a bottleneck, making scale an expensive, messy proposition.

The Hidden Costs of Inaction

Beyond the lone wolf, Levy and Devin Mathews address the more common, yet equally damaging, problem of underperforming sales staff. The inclination to delay a termination often comes from a place of empathy, or simply a reluctance to face a difficult conversation. But the actual cost of holding on to these individuals, Levy argues, extends far beyond their individual pipeline misses. “When you hold on to people long too long, two things happen. One, everyone around you is watching and saying, 'Why can't this leader make decisions?'” This inaction is a loud signal to the rest of the team: leadership is either weak, indecisive, or unwilling to enforce standards.

Mathews echoes this, pointing out the ripple effect. When a clear underperformer is allowed to linger, high performers often become demoralized, questioning the fairness and effectiveness of the system. Conversely, removing an underperformer can be “highly motivating often to the rest of the organization because they know it hurts. They know you're going to lose a lot of revenue potential from that and they appreciate that you got rid of somebody who is uh making everybody's lives miserable.” The short-term pain of revenue dip is often outweighed by the long-term gain in team morale, respect for leadership, and renewed focus from productive team members.

Objective Decisions Over Subjective Feelings

So how do leaders make these tough calls without getting bogged down in emotion? Levy stresses a pivot to objectivity. “You got to look at the competencies and say, do they have these core competencies? Get out the subjective and get to the objective measurement pretty quickly because you always have the subjective. We're all people. We all feel things. I feel I can get this. They're a good person. They do this well.” This means defining clear metrics and expected behaviors upfront, then using those as the unwavering standard.

This shift is critical for building a high-performing sales culture. It removes the ambiguity that leads to resentment and frees up leadership to focus on coaching and development rather than perpetual second chances. By grounding decisions in objective competencies, leaders can defend their choices, maintain team trust, and ensure that every role contributes meaningfully to the organization's goals.

Why It Matters

These insights on managing sales talent signal a deeper understanding of operational rigor within portfolio companies. For private equity operating partners and LPs, the ability of a management team to navigate "lone wolves" and swiftly address underperformance isn't just about sales quotas; it's a proxy for their broader competency in building scalable, efficient organizations. The choice to tolerate a disruptive top seller or delay the exit of an underperformer directly impacts talent retention, cultural integrity, and ultimately, the velocity of value creation initiatives. In an environment where operational improvements are key to driving multiples, a management team that fails to make these difficult, objective talent calls signals a potential drag on exit value and a less attractive investment profile for future capital deployment. It's a clear indicator of whether a company can truly professionalize and scale beyond its early growth phase.