Surviving a Toxic Sales Environment
Surviving a toxic sales environment may depend more on your actions than on what your boss or co-workers are doing to make the workplace an uncomfortable environment. Considering how you can make changes to improve your working conditions may be your best survival mechanism in a toxic environment.
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Characteristics of Toxicity
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A toxic sales environment is unproductive and characterized by frustrated salespeople whose morale is on the decline. Unfortunately, corporate structure and managers may be contributing to toxic sales environments by creating unhealthy competition among employees. For example, bitter disagreements over commission pay may occur among co-workers who find they’re making sales pitches to the same clients because they have overlapping sales territories.
Competition
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Infighting may occur among salespeople as they try to grab sales from each other to meet unreasonable sales quotas in crowded sales territories. Employers can prevent such toxic environments by giving sales representatives exclusive territories to reduce unhealthy competition among co-workers. Salespeople can overcome such situations by looking for ways to move into less crowded sales territories. For example, sales representatives who have specialized technical skills may be able to sell high-tech products that other salespeople don't understand.
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Promoting Change
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Sometimes salespeople have to be agents for change to survive toxic sales environments. For example, salespeople who can show a manager how the overlap of territories is harming sales prospects may be able to convince a manager to reconfigure territories to everyone's benefit if the manager doesn't do so on his own. A sales representative can point out to a manager how exclusive territories encourage salespeople to compete based on their talents, not on their ability to overrun their co-workers.
Attitude
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Your attitude may be the most effective tool in surviving in a toxic sales environment. Executive coach T.C. North wrote in "ColoradoBiz" magazine that complaining and making excuses for not meeting sales goals makes salespeople victims of their own negative thoughts. Therefore, shifting your perception in the midst of a toxic sales environment and concentrating on what you like about your job can help you rise above bad attitudes and even boost your sales. North asserted that not taking responsibility for your actions and performance will erode your job satisfaction and make you feel trapped in a toxic environment.
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