You’ve got a top performer bringing in serious revenue. They’re your MVP by the numbers. But they’re also poisoning your team — and you know it.

Here’s the problem: You’re afraid to let them go.

In this episode, we break down the difference between a sales problem and a leadership problem. Spoiler: it’s almost always leadership.

We tackle:

  1. Why one “bad apple” can destroy team culture faster than you realize
  2. How to quantify what that toxic high performer is actually costing you
  3. The P&L trap: why short-term revenue blinds you to long-term destruction
  4. How to spot poisoning with absolute certainty (not just suspicion)
  5. The legal realities of firing high performers
  6. When to make the hard call — and why delay costs you everything

Watch above or read below:

Dennis Collins: Have you heard that before? “My people suck. They are incompetent. They can’t sell. They don’t know what they’re doing. Maybe, I should get rid of them.” What do you think?

Paul Boomer: I hear it a lot.

Leah Bumphrey: I’ve rarely heard it about an entire team, but I’ve felt it, and I’ve seen it with individuals within a team. Absolutely.

Dennis Collins: Right? Okay. And how many bad apples are there on the average team of seven or eight people?

Leah Bumphrey: One.

Dennis Collins: Out of seven or eight people, there’s one bad apple.

Leah Bumphrey: Oh, there’s one. And he brings them… Or she brings them into the little pod of discontent. They’re the ones at the coffee…

Dennis Collins: The Pod of… Ooh! You coined that phrase, pod of discontent. I like that.

Leah Bumphrey: Absolutely. And it’s like, “Oh, what about this?” and “Oh, what about that?” And it wrecks the whole team. And I will tell you that the leaders do not pull the plug quick enough.

Dennis Collins: So what you’re saying is, it is a people problem. It can be one person that poisons the rest of the people.

Leah Bumphrey: But the leader… The sales manager, I’ll say, or the owner, allows it to happen. And when they finally lose that person, or hopefully, get rid of them, they go, “Oh, this feels nicer.” The whole atmosphere changes. Isn’t this great? But how come it takes them so damn long?

Dennis Collins: What if that person, Leah, is their top performer? They are billing out… I mean, they’re going nuts. I mean, they’re the top biller by far. And them leaving, would put a massive hole in your revenue picture. Now, what are we doing?

Leah Bumphrey: What else are they doing? Just because you’re an…

Dennis Collins: Because you’re an out producer. Yeah. You’re the best person on the team.

Leah Bumphrey: But what are they costing you? You have more than one person.

Dennis Collins: I don’t know. All I know is what they’re making me. I don’t know what they’re costing me.

Leah Bumphrey: It appears to me, if you have one maverick… Because out of 10 people, we all know the stats, you have one maverick that does whatever they’re gonna do, as long as they’re not negatively influencing, but rather, inspiring your other people… Because you’re gonna have four that are not… Eh, they’re kind of doing a little bit of this, little bit of that. You’re gonna have three that are consistent, boring, hitting the numbers. They’re just there. You know you can count on them.

Dennis Collins: Consistent and boring.

Leah Bumphrey: They’re boring. They’re just doing it. You know, you got four that you just don’t know. Of those four, two are probably not gonna be there in a couple of years. And then you’ve got these mavericks. You’ve got two that are hyper, and doing really good. And you can… They’re just gonna knock it out of the park. But this one maverick, this one guy, he may be consistently doing the business, but if he’s wrecking it for the rest of them, it’s no good for you. It’s costing you more money. You think he’s making you money, but he’s not.

Dennis Collins: Okay. So when I was running radio stations, I had to quantify everything. So Leah, how much is that person costing me? I have to put a quantity on that, because right now, if I’m billing a million dollars a month, and that person is doing $150,000 or $200,000 of that, and my other six people are doing the rest, I got a real problem there. If that person leaves…

Leah Bumphrey: It’s the 80-20 rule.

Dennis Collins: Well, what am I gonna do? What is it costing me to keep that person there? I know what it’s making me. What’s it costing me?

Leah Bumphrey: It’s costing you a percentage of what everybody else is doing. It’s the 80-20 rule.

Dennis Collins: But how do I quantify… How do I quantify that?

Paul Boomer: Can you?

Leah Bumphrey: Sometimes.

Dennis Collins: I don’t know. That’s my question. I never found out a way to quantify it. How do I know what the “poison” is doing to those other seven or eight people on the team?

Paul Boomer: Okay. Hold on. So think about it this way.

Dennis Collins: All right.

Paul Boomer: You have a glass of water, and you have a glass of water every single day. And somebody puts in a small drop of cyanide every single day. Over the long term, what happens to that human individual who’s drinking that water?

Dennis Collins: They die.

Paul Boomer: That’s my point. That’s my point. That’s a…

Leah Bumphrey: They might get immune.

Paul Boomer: There you go.

Leah Bumphrey: They might develop immunity to cyanide. Oh, no. They won’t.

Paul Boomer: Umm, geez… No.

Dennis Collins: I don’t know about that.

Paul Boomer: That’s… So that, to me… That to me is the issue. Yes. You might be able to quantify, or may not… Actually, you can’t quantify that, necessarily, in terms of, okay, so you have a maverick who’s just killing it, but they’re poisoning everybody else. Yes; they are bringing in the big bucks, today. But long term, what is the return on that? Nothing. Negative. You go backwards. You die. You die because you’re letting somebody sit there, and dictating to others, by absorption of psychological… Everything, their negativity.

Dennis Collins: Psychological everything!

Leah Bumphrey: And everybody knows that they’re getting away with it. They know that they’re getting away with it, because those guys that are, “Me, me, me, me, me,” and causing you grief, yeah, they’re bringing in some business, but is it just based on relationships? Is it good business? Is it business that, actually, is going to build your team? No. No, it’s not. It’s a beautiful glass of wine. You have a beautiful glass of wine, you’re getting your million dollars a year, or a month, in revenue. Beautiful, beautiful. And you take one drop of sewage, and you put it in there. Are you gonna drink that wine? But it’s only one drop.

Dennis Collins: You’d never drink wine again.

Leah Bumphrey: Yeah.

Dennis Collins: Okay. I love your metaphors, your analogies, but I’m not buying it. When you’re sitting there with P&L responsibility, you’ve got a P&L sheet you gotta look at every month, and you know this person is good for a ton of money, consistently, every month. I can infer that they might be poisoning the well, but I can’t define it. I can’t define it.

Leah Bumphrey: You’re more worried about short term. You’re more worried about short term. Why are you in this position… To make the hard decisions?

Dennis Collins: No. I’m just posing the question.

Leah Bumphrey: Yeah.

Dennis Collins: What’s the manager to do?

Leah Bumphrey: If you hang on to that, then it shows that you’re a short-term manager, and you’re not long for that position. You should be looking 5 years out, 10 years out. What are you building? Your top people, you should be prepared to move them into other positions to be managing other opportunities, other pieces of business, maybe, moving to another location. But not as a way of getting rid of them, as a way of growing them, because they’re that good.

Paul Boomer: And you want to quantify it, Dennis? How many people are leaving the sales team? What is your attrition rate on employees?

Dennis Collins: Let’s say, it’s minimal. That they’ve learned to put up with the BS from the poison person, and they go out and do their job anyway.

Paul Boomer: Okay. Great. Now, this is hypothetical, I understand. This is that gray area. Let’s say that those… Let’s see, eight people we said, and one person’s the negative… Whatever. So we’ll just say seven people are doing okay, I guess, in your terms. If each one of those eight people did 10% to 15% better than they are today, in the next few months, how much money would they bring in, versus that one individual?

Dennis Collins: Well, that’s easy to quantify. But how…

Paul Boomer: No, no, no, no, no. Don’t go anywhere.

Dennis Collins: How do you quantify that? How do you say it’s 10%, or 20%, or 80%? What’s the number?

Leah Bumphrey: If you tell your people, “You know what? We just got rid of Leah, because she’s such a negative influence. I need all of you guys to pull up what you’re doing. There’s business now that I’m going to be able to share around with the rest of the team, if you guys are with me. I want to have the best team possible, and Leah didn’t work for me because I know the kind of chat she was having. I know the negative effect. Let’s go.” All of a sudden, they realize…

Dennis Collins: Okay. So they come to you and say, “You know, Leah, that’s a nice speech you just gave. I appreciate that. But that person wasn’t affecting me at all. I don’t care what they did. They tried to poison me.”

Leah Bumphrey: You tell this person you’re giving them business. You’re giving them a chunk. You got 10 people, you’re giving them 10%.

Dennis Collins: Well, that’s…

Leah Bumphrey: You’re giving me money? And I’m in sales? I’m there. I’m there, baby. I don’t care if I love that guy. I don’t care if he’s my…

Paul Boomer: In addition, you are now also… You’re also now gaining the trust of those other seven people, because you did the hard thing. You did the hard thing by recognizing that this one person was poisoning everybody else. You’re showing balls.

Leah Bumphrey: And don’t discount your business. Don’t discount the product you have. This guy wasn’t a maverick, making all these sales, and doing such a great job, just pulling it out of his back pocket. This is your product. This is… Whether it’s a radio station, or it’s HVAC, or you’re putting shingles on roofs; this is your business. And you’re gonna let someone represent you, and take advantage of these people that, really, are trying to help you build your business? It’s a no-brainer.

Dennis Collins: No-brainer. So what would you do? Would you just summarily fire them? At what point do you fire them? At what point do you get rid of them? What’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back? What’s the tipping point?

Leah Bumphrey: As soon as I hear that they… If I have absolute knowledge that they are…

Dennis Collins: Absolute?

Leah Bumphrey: Absolute knowledge that Paul is poisoning the well. Paul is saying stuff to you that is just wrecking the business. “Paul, I heard this. You’re gone. Here’s your notice.” If you don’t know, then there’s opportunity to lead and say, “Paul, are you doing the best… You’re doing great in sales, but are you doing the best for the team? I need to know that you are committed to the team.”

Dennis Collins: But it’s not my job, as an individual contributor, to manage the team. That’s the leader’s job. My job is to manage my business.

Leah Bumphrey: Are you committed to the business? Then semantics. So you don’t like me using “team”? Semantics. But are you committed to my business?

Paul Boomer: But Dennis…

Dennis Collins: But you said a couple words… Go ahead, Paul.

Paul Boomer: You just said it there. “It’s the leader’s job.”

Dennis Collins: Right. Yeah. Don’t… I never, ever, ever assign to a team member, the responsibility for the health of the team. That’s not their job.

Leah Bumphrey: But what if they’re being negative?

Dennis Collins: Okay. That’s another story. I’m saying… What I said… What you said and I said are two different things. I said I never assign them responsibility for the health of the team. That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be a negative. Those two things can both be true, actually.

Paul Boomer: They can influence.

Dennis Collins: But… Yeah. But you know, guys, nowadays, when you start talking about firing people, and dismissing people, you get into a big legal brouhaha. And you used the word, Leah, “when you’re absolutely sure they’re poisoning the well.” And having sat in the seat for three decades, and been on the spot for all of these things, how do you know they are absolutely poisoning the well, beyond a reasonable doubt, or you’re gonna get your ass sued for wrongful termination? Help me with that.

Leah Bumphrey: Well, you know based on what people are telling you. And that’s where having a good relationship with all the people working for you, comes. I worked with a guy for years, and I really liked him. But he was the most negative influence on about 18 people. He cost the company money… And he was making great money.

And yes, the company was afraid to lose him. And yes, he had valuable experience and relationships. But at the end of the day, when he finally left, it was a breath of fresh air. And how did they know it was time? Well, they should have known the first time somebody came in and said, “Okay. This guy is telling me this. It’s exactly against what I’m learning, but he’s suggesting this is the way to do business.” “Well, no, that’s not.” “He’s saying that this is how we have to do it.” “No, that’s not good.” Three strikes, baby.

Paul Boomer: I’m an idealist. To me, Dennis, it sounds like you’re coming at it from the point of view of a much larger company, that has multiple locations, and regional, maybe even national.

Dennis Collins: Could be. Could be.

Paul Boomer: Where as, sometimes, we’re also talking about a $3 million, one-shop location of HVAC, or something. When it’s that, those are two different things. Very, very different. And being afraid of running your business the way you should, happens; but it shouldn’t. I should not be afraid to run my business the way I want to run my business, because I’m afraid I’m gonna get sued.

Dennis Collins: Agreed.

Paul Boomer: That’s a problem.

Dennis Collins: Okay. Agreed.

Paul Boomer: And so, I want to make sure that those watching us understand, that you cannot allow fear to capture your business. You are your business. The business is you. Now, we also just want to say that… We also had a conversation about one-on-ones, and creating these relationships, and finding out this information so you do have proof, or whatever you’re gonna call it, so that you can get rid of “the poison.” So I want to know, Dennis, what is your one thing that you want people to walk away with? One thing.

Dennis Collins: One thing. It’s your decision. Do you have a leadership problem, or do you have a sales problem? My view, based on this conversation, and just my experience for decades in the arena, it’s most always a leadership problem. Leadership is allowing something to happen that doesn’t need to happen, that should not happen. The poisoning, is one of those things. I’m just throwing up the caveats because every time someone walks in your office and says, “Oh, Leah is poisoning the well,” you can’t accept that at face value. You have to do diligence. You have to figure it out.

Leah Bumphrey: But it’s part of a culture… Part of a culture, that most everybody who’s listening, wants to build, because they’re still listening to us. You want to build a culture where there’s a common goal, and where everyone’s working together. WizardAcademy.org, that’s why they sponsor us. Because when you go there, you get that feeling of a tribe. These are people who are connected for a reason. And if in your business you have people who are connected and working, and then you have this one maverick… Well, if he’s doing a great job and selling stuff, and not poisoning the well, great. But if he is, if she is, deep-six ’em. 86, isn’t that it?

Dennis Collins: Well, Leah does… Hey, Leah does not mess around, Paul, does she? Man, I’m telling you, she’d be a tough boss, I think.

Paul Boomer: I love her.

Dennis Collins: I think she would. Tough.

Leah Bumphrey: Gypsy blood. Gypsy blood.

Dennis Collins: I think she’d be… I think she’d be fair, but tough.

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