How much does a quarrel in the sales department cost?

Where does the money escape when sales reps are at each other's throats?

In this specific company, the problem was not a lack of sales skills, but unclear rules regarding taking over leads. Two sales reps, let's say Tomasz and Robert, quarreled about who first called a client from the developer industry. Instead of selling, they spent 42 minutes checking the history in the CRM and another half hour complaining to the rest of the team in the kitchen. This is not an isolated case, it's everyday life in many offices in Jeżyce or Wilda.

We calculated it coolly. The average hourly rate of a sales rep plus office costs is about 72 PLN. If 8 people lose only 2 hours a week on gossip about conflicts and clarifying disputes, the company loses 1,152 PLN per month on the salary for 'non-working' time alone. To this is added the boss's time, who must act as a judge. The owner of the warehouse spent an average of 5 hours a month on mediations. His hour is worth at least 180 PLN. Together this gives the amount of 3,412 PLN thrown straight into the trash.

The worst part is that these 3,412 PLN is only the pure cost of time. We're not counting lost margins here, because a client who hears an upset sales rep on the phone rarely decides to buy. You can feel a conflict in the team from a distance, even over the phone. People think it's the 'difficult character' of the employees, and most often it's simply a lack of clear rules of the game, which we at Poznań Progress Partners introduce in 4 weeks.

A conflict in the team costs more than leasing a new car, but rarely does anyone enter it into the loss table.

The boss's role as a judge is the most expensive service in your company

Most bosses we talk to believe that firefighting is their duty. 'I have to reconcile them or they'll kill each other' – we often hear. The truth is that every minute the president spends listening to who stole whose client's phone number is a minute stolen from strategic planning. In the Poznań warehouse, the boss lost those 5 hours a month, which he could have devoted to closing one large contract worth 12,000 PLN in margin.

Instead of building a culture of responsibility, the boss unconsciously rewards quarrels. If a sales rep knows that he can go 'to complain' and the boss will devote an hour of attention to him, he will do it. This mechanism is as old as the hills. At Poznań Progress Partners, we teach bosses how to cut off such discussions in 3 minutes. It's not about being a jerk, but about referring employees to specific, written procedures that leave no room for guessing.

When we analyzed the CRM logs from the period of the greatest conflict (February-March 2024), it turned out that the response time to a new inquiry extended from 14 minutes to 56 minutes. Why? Because the sales reps were afraid to touch a lead so as not to be accused of 'poaching'. In the meantime, the competition from Luboń had already managed to send an offer and arrange a meeting. Here lie the real money that you lose due to a lack of order in relationships.

The solution on two A4 pages

The warehouse owner expected that we would propose expensive integration trips or psychological tests for every employee. None of those things. People are not Excel spreadsheets, but they need frameworks to function well. We prepared a document 'Rules of cooperation in the sales department', which took exactly 1.5 pages. We described 4 specific dispute situations there and gave a clear instruction on what to do in each of them.

Without beating around the bush: we introduced a rule that if a sales rep does not update the client's status within 24 hours, the lead becomes 'free' and anyone can take it over without asking. The quarrels of the type 'I've been thinking about him for a week' ended. What counts is the fact in the system, and not the intention. This is a simple, even banal solution, but its implementation required consistency from the boss, which we taught him during three training sessions.

A month after the introduction of these rules, the owner saved those 5 hours of his time. The sales reps stopped coming to him with complaints because they knew they would only hear the question: 'What does point two of the instruction say?'. The atmosphere cleared up because the rules were equal for everyone. There were no longer 'favorites' or 'the aggrieved'. In July 2024, the team recorded 19% higher effectiveness in closing transactions than in the corresponding period a year earlier.

Clear rules are better than the best integration on go-karts. Order builds peace.

How to calculate your own losses in 15 minutes?

If you read this and think that it's different in your case, do a simple test. For the next week, note down every minute you devote to listening to problems between people. Not about problems with a client or goods, but about 'Kasia didn't pass information' or 'Marek left a mess in the papers again'. I guarantee that the sum will surprise you. Most bosses in Poznań that we work with discover that they give away about 10-15% of their working time by default.

Remember that company culture is not slogans on kitchen walls. It's the way your people solve problems when you're not in the room. If they have to wait for your return from a business trip to resolve a dispute about a desk or a commission, it means your system is not working. This is exactly the moment when it's worth stopping dreaming about an ideal team and start building one that is based on facts and procedures.

At Poznań Progress Partners, we don't do a revolution in one day. We organize relationships in 4 weeks, step by step. We start with an audit of such 'hidden costs'. Often already after the first conversation, bosses see where thousands of zlotys are escaping. Straight talk for the board: either you rule by the emotions of other people, or you build a system that rules itself. We choose the latter because it allows the boss to finally leave the office at 4:00 PM.