The reasons you won't hit your sales targets

Hitting targets feels like chasing a unicorn on a roller coaster! Two out of every three reps are failing to meet quota.?

Sales underperformance is plaguing companies everywhere — and the problem is more acute than most revenue leaders realize.

How acute is this problem??

First, your cohort of top performers is shrinking.?

It used to be that the top 20% of reps were high performers (“superstars”); in 2023, that number has decreased to 4%.?

And second, it used to be that the bottom 10% of the team was the group of lowest performers, nowhere close to meeting the quota. In 2023, that number has increased to 28%. (WbD)

Therefore, I got insights from the crème de la crème of the sales universe.

I asked some prolific sales leaders:

What might be the reasons salespeople might not exceed their quota this year???

Enjoy their insightful answers:?

• Antoine Dignat, CRO at Leyton

Not enough salespeople read sales books and do not listen to podcasts.?

You cannot imagine how many people have not read a book about sales in their life. They just come to work, and they expect it to work. That's crazy. The lack of sales kills leads to turnover. That's expensive.

Good sales managers should know what's best for their people and what skills they need. Then, connect them to the right people and resources to help them.

• Mario Lambert, VP of Sales at Populus Group

Salespeople have a tendency to feel busy.?

Salespeople should be more proactive vs reactive. Reactive salespeople can have a full calendar by letting their day ‘happen to them,’ which doesn’t drive targeted results. Proactive salespeople have a plan for their day that feeds into them hitting their goals. Being intentional drives results. Being busy without focusing on the right things might drain time and energy towards what is most important.

• Frida Ottosson, VP of Sales at Cognism

Reps are wasting their time on deals that are not going to close.?

They are not dequeuing deals early and spinning their wheels. We lose deals because we did not challenge the status quo enough. I help them see patterns and help them abandon deals. If they are not excited, it's probably not a good deal. We're doing a lot of early deal reviews because that's where you make the biggest impact. Inspect deals very early instead of in the late stages. It's already too late.

• Will Phillips, Head of Sales at PatSnap

We all know closing ratios are getting worse. Multi-threading is the game,?

Especially in enterprise selling, you need to find very influential people within the organization, not just the economic buyers. If we take this multi-threading approach, our close ratio rises from 20% to 40%. It's crucial to speak to power, but we also need to engage people on different levels. You need to capture a motivated champion. If you do not do that properly, that means in 6-12 months, you will not have closed any deals.?

• Lauren Chisholm, VP of Sales at Vena Solutions

Being the status quo rep is no longer enough.?

When the economy changes, you need to uplevel your skills. Buyers no longer know how to buy. There are more approvals, more buying processes, etc. They might make a decision but still not be able to buy.

• Brian Arava, Director, Sales Development at K2View

When SDRs are struggling, it can stop us from exceeding our targets.?

Sales leaders need to identify where the issue is for each individual, analyze their data, and practice with them. I used to be in the army. You need to practice to get better at shooting.

• Julian Muniz, Director of Sales Development at Impact

A lot of things that worked this year will not work anymore.?

It's because of the email deliverability changes and call connection rates issues. I coach my reps on looking at open emails and use gifting strategically.

• Matthew Buchalski, VP of Sales at RealPagenbsp;

Everybody has been talking about selling to business outcomes that customer cares about but now we need to train our people to have these P&L level conversations and tie our product to that.?

Our entire sales process has to be around how the CFO evaluates our product. Companies are scrutinizing investments. You just have to be better.

• Simon McDermott, CSO at Cloudfresh

You need to see how real your pipeline is.

What do you do to understand whether the opportunity is real or not? Sales is about reducing risk in the eyes of the customers. If it's not obvious, revenue is a team sport. You need to have weekly collaborative calls with marketing.

• John Modesto, VP of Enterprise Sales at Zycus

People who say they are good at discovery sometimes are not.?

It's not just a pre-demo meeting. We say you need to “peel the onion” in discovery. You need to understand what the pains are and what the cost of inaction about not solving it is. It needs to open the door to a top executive. You need to build a business case with your champion.

Years ago, I did a study on wins and losses. It was crystal clear what the number one reason for losing a deal was: “Vendor did not understand my needs well.” That's where the separation gets made.??

• Alex Falcon, Regional Sales Director at Bishop Lifting Rentals

The hardest part about sales is getting out of the car.

What I learned is to set up a daily process to follow. That turned into a weekly process, and that turned into a monthly process, and that turned into an annual process. That wins championships. If you stop your process you will have a gap.

Progress equals Happiness. Happiness equals success. All of this starts with a consistent process.

• Dave Island, Senior Sales Director at Cambium Networks

In sales, we have the luxury of sales training only if things are good.?

If we make our numbers, we invest in getting better. If we do not, we do not invest. It's a really dangerous way of thinking.

The most costly issue in sales is losing deals. You want to increase your win rate by focusing on your sweet spot on the market, but if you go beyond that to grow further, your win rate drops again.

• Chris Hardy, Senior Sales Director at XPEL

Salespeople are typically way too fearful to ask for the business.?

It might be a fear of rejection. I do not think people are good at dealing with rejection overall. I think that's part of the reason twenty percent of salespeople close eighty percent of the deals.

I do not believe in selling on products, features, and benefits. People find that information online way before they talk to salespeople. You are boring them. You need to be a partner in decision-making.?

• Matt Barron, Director of Sales amp; Alliances at Neudesic

It's your weighted pipeline. How large is our pipeline, and how qualified is it?

Everybody is peppered with cold emails and AI-generated content. Buyers suffered from info fatigue. If we do not capture prospects attention, we are in a big trouble.

Boring buyers with who we are and what we do? People do not like being in meetings, so get to the point and dive deep, asking good questions so you are not guessing if and how you can help them.

• Alexander Gibbs, Sales Director at Verkada

The first-line sales leaders have to play the role of rep developers.?

Especially, when you grow from 200 to 700 salespeople. The faster we develop them, the faster we reach our targets. If I do my job properly, my reps hit their numbers, I train them and retain them.

We have a leadership development program that allows reps to get first hand experience of being a sales manager before they formally go after the position. This allows them to understand if they feel it is the right fit for their career before jumping in head-first.

• Ikka Vertanen, Sales amp; Marketing Director at LINK Mobility

In terms of missed revenue, it's discovery.?

If you do discovery wrong, the deals get postponed. In general, it's easy to do discovery wrong. It's easier to talk about yourself than about others and to understand their needs and motivations. We win deals because we are a company that wants to help. Customers feel we are coming from the right place when we do discovery well and focus on them.

• Martin Desrosiers, SVP Global Sales at Flytxt

That means charisma is more important in sales than ever.?

We can no longer go to locations as clients are not as open to in-person meetings as they used to. If you have charisma and know how to make people feel good, people want to talk to you and it's easier to get important information across the account. Even though you can have these great conversations, customers would still ghost you because of other priorities. Sales is like singing. For some reason everybody thinks they can sing and sell. However, it requires a lot of talent and skills.?

• Alexander Kunin, VP of Sales at Anodot

Executives may drop the ball on follow-ups that are timely.?

Simply fast action is needed but all are busy and pulled in different directions. For example, Marketing sponsors an event, and leads are generated. How quickly are those leads being followed up with? Customers love fast and effective service. We need to constantly over-deliver on service to our customers. We no longer just compete on technology. We compete on service and customer satisfaction.

• Ben Hull, Sales Director at Item24 America

You need to qualify leads before they get a quote, and you utilize internal resources.

If you do it well, you can easily see a 50% win rate. What helped us was that we bought a sales training program after COVID-19, where we met for 90-minute weekly sessions for two years.

You also need to balance your compensation. If you reward all sales opportunities the same, your salespeople will take the easiest path.

• Brad Davis, Director of Sales amp; Marketing at Charter Wire

It's a waste of spending time and choosing to work on deals that are not in your sweet spot.?

If somebody can do the job more efficiently, we are not going to focus there. We have a strategic marketing role that is constantly looking at our competition in the market and refining our ideal clients and unique value proposition. It's an ongoing thing. Sales leaders must ask whether reps are working on the right things instead of asking when the PO will come in.?

• Noel McCluskey, Global Head of Sales Development at Finastra

Wasted time. In sales development, it's becoming increasingly difficult to break through the noise. If you do not get the prospect's attention, then prospecting is a waste of time. For example, the length of emails directly influences the response rates. It's too lazy to send long prospecting emails today. Before you reach out to anybody, find one reason why they should talk to you.

Also, the slow response time to leads is an issue. Do you react in minutes or hours? In 2 days, it might be too late.

• Maryam Garifulina, Sales Director at Cloudflare

Buyers got really annoyed by mass emailing.?

The market does not trust salespeople sending messages about how awesome they are. Sales cycles are growing because people are uncertain and think they might need budget somewhere else. You need to lead with pure value and a clear math about saving or making them money. It's not that easy to calculate and not many salespeople ask about this. We need to ask a lot of good questions.?

• Jason Lewis, Area VP, Sales at HighRadius

Not coaching reps on building champions and multi-threading.

I do that. We are winning deals because we are listening and we dig deeper in the root cause of the business problem and the future state where the customer wants to get.

It builds Champions. Champions are built, not found. You build more than one. You've got to find an emotional connection to the project. Multi-threading is earned.?

How can you execute against sales underperformance??

Here is a short video answer from our chat with the great Kevin Dorsey:

Here is my personal answer to that question:

1) Analyze.?

Analyze the team’s key performance metrics to identify what should be improved to drive the right impact. For instance, is NRR too low? Then the skill to focus on is customer retention. Are contract values too low due to excessive discounting? Then the skill to focus on is making more effective trades during the negotiation stage. Pick just one metric, which will have a large impact on the business if it can be improved.?

2) Train. Once the skill gap is discovered, train your employees on this singular skill.?

The keys to success:?

a) Keep a maniacal focus on one single skill. Don’t be tempted to address any other adjacent or “quick” challenges.?

b) Keep it simple. Don’t start with a complex skill (e.g., enterprise stakeholder management), which could take months or years of practice to achieve mastery.?

c) Keep it clear. This training session should be no more than one to two hours, with employees leaving the session knowing exactly what metric is being monitored and what ‘good’ looks like.?

3) Coach. This is what makes the new skill “stick.”?

The keys to success:?

a) Repetition and reinforcement. This must be done weekly, over four to six weeks.?

b) Frontline Managers must be front and center in these coaching sessions. Their commitment and presence shows the rest of the team just how important these coaching sessions are.

This is a repeatable method to achieve results where it matters and drive more durable revenue growth.?

What might be the reasons your salespeople will not exceed their quota this year??