It’s good to have a maverick — as long as your maverick is a superstar.

What no business can tolerate, however, is a sales team with 50 different people who do 50 different things in 50 different ways. The superstars are always going to lead the way. But the goal isn’t a few high performers who stick out from the rest. The goal is to build an army of superstars — or at least an army of salespeople who are living up to their true potential.

The only way to get the maximum contribution from every salesperson is to install a consistent framework of fundamentals that serves as the minimum bar for every single member of the team. Then, the best and brightest sellers will take that framework, expand on it and make it even better.

When you create a uniform structure based on the science of selling, your best salespeople will view that structure the way an artist views a blank canvas.

Success in Sales: The Certainty of a Scientist and the Vision of an Artist

Sales is an art and a science. The science of selling is based on the fact that people go through a process when they purchase anything. That process is different for every business and product. It is up to the sales leader to meticulously and scientifically examine that process, and then develop a team-wide foundational policy based on their analysis. Whether a customer buys from Salesperson 1 or Salesperson 2, that framework and philosophy never changes — from the initial meeting to the primary engagement to the first proposal to the follow up.

The artists — the salespeople — then take that scientific template and improve upon it using their own skills, qualities, strengths and experience. The science gives the sales team a methodology that acts as a strong foundation, but the brightest and most motivated of the bunch will take that framework and build on it with their own ideas.

There are no silver bullets in sales. Leaders must focus on fundamentals when creating an overarching foundation for the team to build on. Only then can the team’s average be raised, with less open space between the superstars and the weakest members.

Modeling the Masters: Rethinking How We Treat the New Guy

The team’s weakest members and the team’s newest members are often the same people. A new hire usually gets the worst chair, at the worst desk, with the worst computer and the worst call list — then is expected to succeed.

But initiation should set recruits up for success, not failure. Businesses serve themselves best by forcing new hires to model the masters. The newest member is best paired initially with the superstar seller. Then the recruit learns firsthand, from the beginning, that the most successful sellers are the ones who are structured, organized, who meticulously prepare and who have an extra dimension of creativity in their thinking.

This foundational experience is far more important than meeting a target the first month.

It is the job of the director to implement a consistent, scientific foundation based on best practices, which the team can then use as a starting point to build their own individual model. There is no silver bullet in sales. Trust is more powerful than price, and success is built on fundamentals, scientific methodology and bright, creative recruits who are given time to flourish.