The old sales playbook is dead. Twenty to thirty years ago, Joey Nalevka explains, the formula was brutally simple: "Show up to work, maximize your compensation, go home."
But if you're still leading with that mentality, you're missing the mark with today's sales teams.
Joey should know. As a 3X CRO and Head of Sales at companies like Square, Houzz, and Groupon, he's seen firsthand how the game has changed. Now, he's sharing the proven framework that helped him build winning cultures across multiple high-growth companies.
The reality is that most sellers nowadays are millennials who want something fundamentally different from work. They're not just looking for a paycheck - they want to make an impact on the world, gain recognition from their peer groups, and have access to better leads. So how should sales leaders adapt their approach to train and motivate these modern sales reps?
The shift in what motivates sales teams isn't just a nice-to-have consideration, it's a business imperative. Joey's experience across multiple companies has shown him that the leaders who adapt to this new reality are the ones who build teams that consistently win.
"When you lead large teams, you want to remove yourself from having to make every decision," Joey explains.
This insight forms the foundation of his scaling philosophy. The goal isn't to be the bottleneck that everything flows through, but to create self-managing teams that operate around shared principles.
The challenge is that many sales leaders are still operating with outdated assumptions about what drives performance. They're focused on compensation plans and quotas while their teams are looking for purpose, recognition, and growth opportunities.
Joey's framework rests on three core pillars that work together to create a self-sustaining culture of excellence: transparency, communication, and being in the details. Each pillar addresses a specific aspect of modern sales leadership challenges.
The first pillar might seem counterintuitive to leaders who are used to keeping information close to the vest. But Joey's approach is radically different:
"I'm giving them the same information I have to make decisions."
This means sharing with your teams:
This level of transparency serves multiple purposes. First, it removes guesswork from your team's daily operations. When sales reps understand the "why" behind decisions, they can make better choices independently. Second, it builds trust in a way that traditional command-and-control management never could.
Think about it from a sales rep's perspective. If you understand how your leader evaluates opportunities, manages resources, and makes strategic decisions, you're equipped to represent the company more effectively with prospects. You're also more likely to make decisions that align with company goals without needing constant supervision.
The second pillar focuses on how you show up as a leader. Joey emphasizes that communication isn't just about what you say - it's about consistency, presence, and recognition.
Key elements of effective sales coaching communication include:
But here's where Joey's approach gets particularly interesting. He uses recognition as what he calls a "secret weapon" for viral motivation. His strategy is simple but powerful: "I will recognize someone on Slack for doing a great job. Then it's being sent around to the whole team."
The ripple effect of this approach is remarkable. When team members see their colleagues being recognized for specific behaviors, everyone wants to do that same thing. Behaviors naturally align with strategy without the leader having to be directly involved in every interaction.
This creates a self-reinforcing culture where excellence spreads organically throughout the team. Instead of the leader having to constantly push for certain behaviors, the team begins to model and encourage those behaviors among themselves.
The third pillar addresses one of the most common pitfalls in sales leadership: becoming disconnected from the daily reality of your team's work. Joey warns about what he calls the "Ivory Tower effect," where leaders become so removed from frontline activities that they lose credibility and effectiveness.
Warning signs of the Ivory Tower effect include:
To avoid this trap, Joey schedules his weeks backwards:
This approach ensures that he stays connected to frontline reality and can make decisions based on actual market conditions and team needs rather than abstract reports and metrics.
"If you don't spend time with your team, they don't know who you are and what to follow," Joey explains.
This regular interaction isn't just about gathering information, it's about building the relationships that make leadership possible.
Beyond the three pillars, Joey emphasizes the importance of having one clear definition of success across your entire organization. He once joined a company where seven different sales reps claimed to be "number one" because there was no unified success metric.
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This creates chaos in several ways. Sales reps don't know what to optimize for, managers can't make fair decisions about promotions or recognition, and the team lacks a shared sense of direction.
Joey fixed this by establishing ONE North Star metric that governed everything:
When everyone is measured by the same standard, it eliminates confusion and creates alignment throughout the team. It also makes recognition more meaningful because everyone understands what achievement looks like.
Success in implementing this framework isn't just measured by revenue numbers, although those matter. Joey looks for indicators that the culture is taking hold:
These cultural indicators often precede improved sales results, making them valuable leading metrics for sales leaders.
Joey Nalevka's framework for building winning sales culture recognizes that the fundamental motivations of modern sales teams have evolved. By focusing on transparency, consistent communication with recognition, and staying connected to frontline details, sales leaders can create self-managing teams that consistently deliver results.
The key insight is that scaling successful sales teams isn't about finding ways to control more people—it's about creating the conditions where people can excel independently while staying aligned with shared goals. When sales reps understand the decision-making process, feel recognized for their contributions, and see leaders who are engaged with daily realities, they naturally begin to model the behaviors that drive success.
This approach works because it addresses what modern sales professionals actually want from their work: impact, recognition, and growth opportunities. Leaders who adapt to this new reality don't just build better teams—they build sustainable competitive advantages that compound over time.
In this episode of SellMeThisPen Podcast, Michael and Joey dive deep into the frameworks and strategies that have helped scale sales teams at some of the most successful companies in tech. They discuss the evolution of sales culture, the importance of transparency in leadership, and practical tactics for building self-managing teams that consistently deliver results.
Joey Nalevka is a 3X CRO and Head of Sales with experience at Square, Houzz, and Groupon, as well as a background at McKinsey. He doubled sales in a major Canadian telecom call center, earning him the nickname "The Million Dollar Pilot Guy." Now he focuses on helping sales leaders build winning cultures that scale effectively across growing organizations.
