The Question Before the Question
Before a firing conversation even starts, SHRM’s own framework asks a shop to sort the situation into one of two categories: an ordinary performance issue, which calls for a documented improvement process, or what SHRM classifies separately as a fireable offense, serious enough that skipping straight to termination is appropriate. Treating every underperformance problem as automatically the second category is where a shop’s exposure starts.
A closer missing target because qualified conversations are not reaching their desk is a performance issue. A closer who misrepresents a factor rate to a merchant, or falsifies a submission, is a different category entirely, and conflating the two is the first mistake this decision tends to produce.
What a Performance Improvement Plan Is For
SHRM frames a performance improvement plan as one step inside a broader progressive discipline policy, not a standalone document handed over on the way out the door. The organization’s own guidance argues it is a step that should not be rushed into too quickly, meaning a PIP issued as a formality on the way to a termination already decided is not really what the tool was built for.
The practical value runs the other direction too. SHRM frames documented progressive discipline as the way an employer proves, via documentation, that it made a good-faith effort at correction before a termination, a real protection for the shop if the decision is ever challenged later.
Why “Underperforming” Needs a Number Before It Needs a Conversation
A closer paid on points earns close to nothing while they are not closing, which means a purely commission-driven pay structure can make underperformance look self-correcting, the closer’s own paycheck already reflects it. That is not the same as having an actual, agreed-on standard to measure against. Vague dissatisfaction is not a documented performance record.
A realistic standard also has to account for where a closer sits in their own ramp. Cross-industry sales research, covered in our companion piece on new-closer ramp time, puts realistic ramp windows for comparable B2B roles at months, not weeks. Measuring a closer against a bar set for someone six months into the role, when they are six weeks in, is not a performance problem. It is a timeline problem.
Check the Input Before You Check the Closer
Our companion guide on hiring MCA closers makes the case directly for the hiring decision: a closer working a broken input pipeline, stale data, recycled leads, cold unqualified dials, is going to underperform regardless of skill, and adding pressure or documentation to that closer without fixing the input is treating a pipeline problem as a personnel one.
That same diagnostic applies before a firing decision as well as before a hiring one. What share of this closer’s day is spent on qualified conversations versus raw dialing? Has their output tracked with a change in what is reaching their desk? A firing decision made without asking those questions risks removing a person and leaving the actual problem in place.
What Documentation Protects You
Dated notes on specific, communicated expectations, not a general sense that someone is not working out, are what SHRM’s progressive-discipline framework is asking for. A closer told plainly what the bar was, given a real window to hit it, and who fell short anyway is a documented case. A closer let go after one bad month, with no prior conversation, is not.
That documentation matters most exactly when it feels least necessary, in a small shop where everyone already knows informally that someone is struggling. Informal knowledge is not a paper trail, and a paper trail is what protects a shop if the decision is ever questioned later.
When to Skip the Progressive Process Entirely
SHRM’s own framework carves out a separate category for conduct serious enough to skip a performance improvement process altogether. In an MCA context, that reads plainly as anything touching submission integrity or how a deal was represented to a merchant, misrepresenting a factor rate, falsifying bank statement data, backdating a form. These are conduct problems, not performance ones, and treating them with a PIP timeline risks looking like the shop tolerated the behavior.
Everything short of that belongs in the first category: a real, documented chance to improve, measured against a realistic, ramp-adjusted bar, with the input pipeline checked first. Skipping straight to termination for an ordinary performance issue is the exact shortcut SHRM’s own guidance warns against.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- SHRM, PIPs: Write, Implement and Time Them Precisely
- SHRM, The Traditional Progressive Discipline Paradigm
- SHRM, Performance Issue or Fireable Offense? Know When to Skip the PIP