The Definitive Answer to Every Sales Team Problem That You Have Ever Had

"My sales team is under performing." "My turnover rate is through the roof." "Our customer satisfaction KPIs are not meeting expectations." "My sales team has a bunch of time wasters in it, should I fire them?" "We’re not filling our funnels with closable prospects." "Our lead-to-sale conversion rate is too low." "Our average conversion time is too high." "Customer retention is falling." "What can we do?"

What caused this disconnect? How do we solve it?

When it comes to a step-by-step, definitive book on "Repairing the disconnection within your sales organization" it doesn't exist so don't wasting you time and money looking for it.

I'll explain...

Let's say you're a captain of industry and you also consider yourself pretty handy. If required, you can change your own oil, replace a broken faucet or maybe even cook a great meal. So, when your $75k BMW starts making engine noises and ends up getting towed home, are you really going to pop open the hood and proclaim, "No worries, I've got a book on engine repair and a screwdriver." And I'm not talking about a year, make and model specific Chilton's manual either, just a simple book covering the basics of internal combustion.

Of course you're not, that would be completely ridiculous. You're going to take it to a certified BMW mechanic or at least someone who's competent, with a lot of relevant BMW experience. So why then, when it comes to fixing problems within your sales organization would you treat the situation any differently?

Assessing and executing on a plan for sales team problem resolution or the maximization of a team’s performance isn’t as easy as, “This is the problem, So this is the fix” – we all know this. Understanding and utilizing goal relevant KPIs which conform to your industry specific sales funnel and can identify gaps, increase the predictability of revenue generation and can establish relevant activity expectations are crucial.

When making an in-depth assessment and creating specific metrics for the evaluation of an organizations sales process, you are presented with hundreds of variables and an exponential number of possible outcomes. All of which can be influenced by even minor changes to any part of the process resulting in unnecessary data and corporate analysis paralysis.

Effectiveness with analyzing results requires a passion for research, an immense love of metric related data and a conscientious understanding of the "sales psyche" that would render even Doctor Sigmund Freud green with envy. These are the qualities and skills wielded by great sales leaders and tools which they utilize to build successful teams and identify potenital disconnections before they occur.

Over the last 25 years I’ve sat through plenty of BS laden, mind numbing, mumbo-jumbo filled, team building, hand holding, new-age, over-priced, fancy-shmancy presentations that promise to offer the world to you in 126, beautifully designed PowerPoint slides. I know crapola when I step in it and why would you put your trust in someone who would just walk in, do a quick looksee and then put together an effective plan to resolve a broken sales process.

You say that you wouldn't do this but companies do it all the time, and they end up wasting mind boggling amounts of time and capital on trying to “quick fix” disconnects within sales teams. When it's all said and done, a lot of the time they end up worse off than they were when they started.

It doesn't have to get worse before it gets better - but so often it does.

Why is this?

I'm not sure why but today's SOP is that when non-sales specific management is presented with declining sales figures, they immediately turn to standard practices of problem resolution. Which works for everything else in business BUT is not the ideal solution for identifying or resolving sales related issues. All hands meetings for problem identification, myopic sales process analysis, extraneous actions items resulting in the implementation of new procedures & incorrect or irrelevant KPIs and then capping it off with performance evaluations base on an unmitigated understanding of the unique workflows. All are items which are goal irrelevant, micro-managerial and are not conducive to the improvement of sales team functionality and cohesiveness.

I've witness more than a few executives panic when these initial changes had little to no effect and sales continued to drop off. From that point it doesn’t take long before the management team begins their "witch-hunt"; and then mark my words the finger pointing and excuses will ensue:

its the WRONG marketing message; we're working with POOR leads; the economy is DOWN; our competition is offering it CHEAPER; we DON'T HAVE the right solutions; BAD logistics cost us the deal, etc;

These are all the excuses commonly given in panic mode, following these will never lead you to the root of the real problem.

Continued poor decision making.

When problem resolution falls short of the expected results, the next solution which always seem to be the easiest for upper management to agree upon, is to hire a new sales leader. I will agree that 90%+ of the time, problems within a sales organization can be traced back to unqualified or unprepared leadership. 

Now, for some reason many non-sales specific executives, when looking for that perfect fit sales leader, become easily star-struck by "spiffy" over-priced, professionally built resumes showcasing a lot of high-end education and "interesting" work related titles which have as much real-world relevance and determination of leadership skill as being "Knighted" by the Queen of England does.

Sir Michael Gambon may be impressive as the wizard Dumbleore in Harry Potter but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to follow the guy into battle just because he’s a “Knight”.

A personal rant.

Can anyone tell me why it is that startups believe candidates with an Ivy League education and a few years of experience are going to move the needle faster and more efficiently than a massively qualified expert with over 20 years of global experience will?

"Hey, all you PE/Startup guys - I'm not the only one that thinks you're acting benighted in your simpleminded hiring strategies right now either."

What team morale?

Normally, several months go by with the sales needle moving wildly back and forth before the realization sets in that the new high-profile hire isn't going to totally resolve the sales disconnect, so the next "logical" step becomes, “Our plan is solid and our sales leadership is the "best" so it must be our salespeople!”

Clever idea there Mr. non-sales upper management, let’s plant the seed of demotivation within the team who interfaces with the customers and who were a part of the functionial organization before the disconnect occurred. Look at this way:

You now have a team of people who's fear of losing their jobs is now their only motivating factor to work harder. How could this not improve overall sales functionality?

That was sarcasm because it’s not very often, if ever that this course of action resolves any of a company’s problems in relation to stopping a decline in sales. Yes, replacing members of your sales team may be required at some point but it’s never a good idea to apply the shotgun approach to problem resolution within a sales organization.

Public perception.

Remember, your salespeople are the "face" of the company seen by your customers. They are the measure of health within any organization and this perceived health measurement is a factor utilized by many customers regarding their level of loyalty to you, your products and solutions. Disagree all that you like but this is a very significant consideration and one which a lot of executive leaders fail to heed or even completely believe in. I've had dozens of customers over the last 25 years tell me that they knew before vendors took massive nose dives or even went under solely on what they "got" from their sales contact.

Now, I hate to be the conveyer of disappointing news but we've gotten this far into what is a major undertaking and we've only lightly scratched the surface in regards to sales team problem resolution.

And I'm guessing that you're still asking, "Sam, when do we get this answer that you promised to every sales team problem that we've ever had?"

I lied to you.

I know that you were hoping for the be all end all of answers here but I intentionally misled you when I said that I had the answer. What can I tell you? There is no singular pearl of wisdom which will fix every sales team problem that you have ever had, because first you have to ask the right questions.

When it comes to questions & answers about sales and the disconnects which occur within teams, there's only one item which I can share that works more often than not - Hire The Right People. The question which you need to ask is; Have we found the right ones? The right ones that have relevant real-world sales leadership experience, the right ones that exude massive amounts of passion for success and the right ones that possess the knowledge & ability to utilize all of that to make the right assessments and then successfully execute on the solution.

When you hire a professional to lead your sales organization and I do mean an A player, your Rockstar, that elusive Purple Squirrel, LION or whatever the new, hip term for the awe-inspiring sales leaders is today, the majority of your sales related questions/problems are going to get answered and be resolved.

With over 25 years of expert sales and marketing experience I am currently interested in exploring new opportunities. I would appreciate the chance to speak with you about how my experience can benefit your organization. Although, I may not have had every answer to every question you may have ask, I am amazingly skilled at developing solutions for finding them.