Failing at sales can be highly frustrating for entrepreneurs. You have happy clients; you deliver products and services well, but sales come up short no matter what you try.
This blog provides a framework to help you understand why sales may not be meeting your expectations. Three reasons that sales may be failing are:
- The sales leader is not equipped to coach
- There aren’t any processes and tools to coach to
- You have uncoachable sales reps
The Sales Leader is Not Equipped to Coach
The Problem:
Being a great football player does not make you a great coach; being a great salesperson does not make you a good sales leader. Coaching requires a different skill set: inspiring, guiding, and developing individuals to perform at their best.
We recently worked with a business that elevated their highest performing sales rep (lets call her Jen) to the sales leadership seat. We see this a lot, so this is nothing new! Here is what happened:
- Jen was promoted from her territory to the sales seat to replace the Visionary who was managing the sales team, and she proudly accepted.
- Jen began participating in sales calls with her reps, many times taking the lead at the beginning of sales cycles. The sales team was impressed at how good Jen was in front of their prospects.
- After 6 months, the leadership team reflected on the scorecard, and despite the new sales leader being in place, sales numbers went down, and they wanted to know why!
Here is what they realized:
- Jen’s previous territory now has a new rep in it, so the territory that previously drove the most revenue was at the bottom of the stack list.
- While Jen was impressive on the initial call and helped some reps close some big deals, many of the other deals were stalling because Jen did not have the bandwidth to drive them to closure.
- While reps were initially impressed with Jen, their performance was not improving, so they grew frustrated.
- In addition, the cost of sales was higher because the sales leadership seat created a new overhead expense.
Sales reps elevated to leadership positions who are great “closers.” Many often focus on closing business at the expense of developing their reps to be better performers. There absolutely comes a time for a sales leader to focus on closing the “whales,” but, as a rule, elevating and developing the entire sales team is significantly more impactful to the business in the long term than having a sales leader focus on closing.
The Solution:
The best way to solve this may be to consider keeping the sales superstar in a sales seat where they can make more money and continue to drive revenue for the business. Look at hiring or someone better equipped to make the whole team better. That person might already be on your sales team. Hint: he/she might not be the top performer!
Regardless of who is in the sales leadership seat, it is highly recommended to invest in leadership development, with a focus on coaching. Books like Coaching for Performance by John Whitmore can provide a solid foundation, but practical, ongoing training is essential. The GROW Coaching model is detailed in that book.
Consider bringing in external coaching experts or enrolling your sales leaders in programs that teach and coach them how to listen, ask insightful questions, and provide constructive feedback.
Download the G.R.O.W. Coaching Guide
No Processes and Tools To Coach To
The Problem:
Revisiting the football analogy, coaching without processes and tools is like a football coach without a playbook and a practice schedule. Even the best football coach in the world could only coach effectively with a game plan and a framework to prepare for games.
Nutshell research shows that Organizations that adopt a structured sales process experience a 15% boost in sales performance compared to those lacking such a process. Some symptoms that you may be seeing in your business if you do not have processes in place are:
- Low close rates
- No metrics to support needed business decisions
- Poor pipeline visibility results in unpredictable sales team performance, making business planning difficult
- Challenges onboarding reps
- High sales turnover
- Very long time to performance for new reps
- Reliance on “whales.” These are the big deals that might sustain your business because you don’t have a steady stream of smaller, more reliable deals with less variance.
- Tenured reps not continuously getting better
- Dissatisfied clients, specifically in the onboarding phase
- Sales team wasting time
Smaller sales organizations can achieve success without process for a time, but these challenges are magnified with each sales hire and scaling is nearly impossible.
The Solution:
A structured, consistent sales process drives predictable sales performance, making business planning much easier. So, implement processes! If they exist, then use and evolve them! Two processes that are needed for effective coaching are:
- Sales Process – A consistent, repeatable sales process designed to guide your clients through their buying process. This process should be crafted to align with how your specific clients prefer to buy. The process should be optimized in a CRM and include tools like checklists to enable coaching and maximize closure rates.
- Sales Management Process – A consistent, structured approach to planning, executing, and optimizing the business’s sales efforts is also needed. Ideally, this process aligns with the company’s goals and EOS™ or any other business operating system that the company uses.
Uncoachable Sales Reps
The Problem:
Not every sales rep is open to coaching. For whatever reason, sales reps are typically less open to coaching than teammates in other parts of the business. Ego, complacency, or a lack of trust in leadership are possible root causes.
If you have any reps on your sales team who resist feedback, think they know everything, consistently demonstrate a negative attitude, or don’t improve, there is a good chance it might be time to cut bait.
The Solution:
In the end, an uncoachable rep is, well, uncoachable. So, save yourself some time and money and do what it takes to find that out. Assess your sales team and ensure they are coachable.
Better yet, take the next step with the assessment and ensure they have the aptitude for their sales role (SDR, BDR, Account Manager, etc). Many assessments can also help you develop a development plan to help the rep continue improving. Add this to your Sales Management Process!
Connect with us about Assessing Your Sales Team.
Conclusion
Now you have an actionable, DIY framework to determine why your sales might fall short. You can always go it alone, but when it comes to sales, might it be a better idea to accelerate sales growth by asking for help from the experts?
