Sales Barriers
How Business Owners Compound their Sales Obstacles
Presidents, Business Owners and CEO’s all have, for the most part, good intent. In fact we all do what we do because we believe that it is the right thing to do. Unfortunately it is not always the most effective thing to do.
Sales ineffectiveness and pipeline bottlenecks ultimately create a situation where companies work harder and longer yet fail to gain real traction. This in turn results with the organization being stuck atop a sales plateau.
As opposed to dealing with the real root cause of sales barriers which in turn leads to bloated pipelines, which leads to a complacency in the mind of the sales team, business owners instead begin a process which is a series of common mistakes. This process is not relied on because management intends to set out to sabotage the company. We will first outline the process, and then we will detail the mistakes.
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This process is relied on because many at the top fall prey to several issues.
- Business Owners become conditioned to the excuses, lies and reasons for deferring change by the sales team. They come to believe that 50%, 60% or 70% efficiency is the best they can achieve. In other words the Business Owner accepts 50%, 60% or 70% effort, yet they are held accountable to 100% of the salaries, commissions, bonus, benefits, advertising and marketing and other expenses necessary to maintain the sales team.
- Business Owners fail to change their sales team’s minds, resulting in failure to change their routine.
- Business Owners do not realize that in order to get someone to “think” differently, they first must get them to “feel” differently.
- Business Owners want and desire change, yet fail to uncover their sales team’s “incentive” to change.
Business Owners, regardless of their past selling experience, if any, do not know the answer to the most important question: WHY?
Why do sales people go from wanting to move mountains to hoping to meet quota?
Why are sales people not as effective or proactive at prospecting to open new opportunities?
Why don’t sales people consistently and diplomatically confront objections?
Why do sales people consistently fail to clearly differentiate your unique products and services?
Why do sales people rely on price slashing, resulting in margin decay?
The answer to these vitally important questions uncovers the actual root cause of sales failure.
Mistake # 1 Business Owners impact their margins by adding to their sales team, opposed to solidifying their existing team currently producing at 50%, 60% or 70% of their potential. Relying on past hiring criteria in order to increase the number of feet on the street also does little more than compound the problem.
Mistake # 2 As opposed to dealing with the actual problem: poor qualifying and closing skills, poor follow up on leads previously developed, Business Owners again negatively impact their margins by investing into more advertising and marketing campaigns. They simple want to spend more, to get more leads, to have more opportunity to close LESS!
Mistake # 3 Business Owners rely on optimism inherent in most sales people or their gut feel regarding a sales candidate as opposed to system and structure.
The goal is not to rely on hope that new rainmakers will simply appear, again at a significant cost to the company, but to close the gap of inefficiency found in the less-than productive sales team. As opposed to putting their financial future into the hands of a system, they put their financial futures into the hands of sales people who have consistently proven that their own personal routine is flawed. Presidents and Business Owners, do you want to give your sales people the tools to realize untapped potential and increase your bottom line?