Missed your sales target this year? Here is why!

Sales teams who actually hit their sales target has been gradually shrinking in the Caribbean within the last 3 years or so.

The 2019 Selling Power survey of 400 sales teams found that nearly one in five teams 75% of salespeople are missing target. 

Whoa! So why are so many salespeople missing target?

It's natural to want to blame sales but sometimes hitting targets is actually dependant on a number of reasons and factors that are not under the full control of sales professionals.

Here are five (5) reasons for missing targets:

1. You are not coaching, mentoring or training

For sales managers who have been in their role for a very long time and around the same core group of sales reps, it can be hard to admit or even examine the shortcomings of your sales team.

I am sure you hold regular meetings and motivate wherever you need, but coaching and training should actually be strategic.

Training and Re-Training are most crucial in competitive industries where consumers have a wide variety of choice.

Strategic investments in your talent through training can ensure the organisation is fully able to deal with market challenges, all the while readying itself for the return of better times. 

Mentoring takes a high-level perspective, strategic thinking, much like training. The difference is that while training concerns improve knowledge and skills, mentoring looks at a sales rep’s overall career and the trajectory. 

Be careful with using or implementing a Corporate mentorship programme with too many internal resources. Some times they don’t work.

There's is something serendipitous to finding a mentor-mentee relationship that works. It can't be forced, but it can be facilitated. HR managers play a key role here in finding the right mentorship for employees.

2. Operational issues

In many organizations, C-Suite executives do not measure how some persistent operational problems actually affect the customer experience and result in the company losing sales.

Some of these operational issues include but are not limited to:

i. Poor procurement practices and inventory management ( you can't sell what you don't have).

ii. Logistics issues - persistent late deliveries or poor coordination of resources.

iii. Poor customer service (especially from non- sales or CSR departments - Finance, Operations, etc)

iv. Terrible PBX system - customers wait too long on the phone or get cut off regularly.

v. Insufficient parking for customers on or near your premises.

vi. Quality control issues with products.

vii. Compliance issues that affect the organisation.

viii. Lack of new products that fit the current market needs.

ix. Lack of automation - too long a process from order to receipt of invoice.

x. Lack of feedback and updates to clients about their orders....and the list goes on.

Leaders have the responsibility for recognizing and solving business problems and executive-level leadership should be aware of the issues employees face that affect their ability to meet the needs of customers. 

3. Not addressing the sales performance gap

As anyone with a sales force knows, not all salespeople are created equal. 

For the majority of selling driven organisations, a high percentage of the annual sales revenue is generated by the same minority of top sales performers, quarter after quarter, year after year.

Some individuals are natural salespeople and love their job, while others just use sales as their entry-level position to move on to something else.

For someone looking to improve the bottom 80% of their sales force, there needs to be an audit of each member of the sales team.

Research has shown that the performance gap in many B2C, transactional type sales, between average and star performers was 59 percent - but in complex sales environments, such as B2B products and services, the gap was almost 200 percent - more than three times as wide. 

Gaining a true understanding of your team’s unique selling behaviours and tactics is the all-important first step toward narrowing the performance gap and shifting your whole team upward and onward.

4. Your Sales and Marketing Teams are Disconnected

I am really passionate about this one! I have seen some organizations perform really well when they align sales and marketing.

Sales and Marketing both work towards the same organisational goals which are all about securing new business, retaining customers and helping that company grow.

So how can you start improving the relationship between these two teams?

Start with regular meetings. One of the biggest issues between the two departments is determining what's a qualified lead.

Yes, both functional areas go hand in hand and support the achievement of organizational goals.

According to HubSpot, when they are strategically aligned, they increase customer retention by as much as 36%.

5. Sales teams are demotivated

Let me start by saying that after leading a few sales teams in my career, motivating any group of sales professionals to do more or go above and beyond has a direct correlation to the relationship they have with leadership.

If the sales manager has a bad relationship with his or her sales rep, he/she will struggle to motivate them!

If any member of the C-Suite team undermines instead of empowers the sales manager or the sales reps directly, the team will also struggle.

Not only do demotivated sales teams affect sales results, but other resources in other areas can affect sales if they have a direct impact on output or customer service. High absenteeism of production workers or delivery drivers, for instance, can cause sales reps to make promises to clients that the organisation cannot fulfill.

Leaders need to recommit to their staff, especially their sales and customer service teams if they want to see improvements in the organisation's performance.

If you want to improve the success of your sales team, it’s time to make motivation a priority.

I can certainly add some more to this list! And I am sure you can too!

With all this in mind, to be successful in 2020, we need to delve deeper as C-Suite executives and senior managers into the effectiveness of your own management styles.

It is important to identify key triggers in your sales process and perhaps your supply chain and you will be sure to notice some of the reasons you are missing your sales targets.

 Once these issues are identified, you are ready to make changes, move forward and once again begin meeting your goals.

Are you ready to regain the market share you may have lost in 2019?

Then let's get a sales and marketing audit carried out and get going!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

The Stammering Communicator

Debbie-Ann Jollie is a Marketing Strategist and Business Development Consultant with more than 15 years of experience combining sales, marketing and branding strategies for corporate clients and first-time entrepreneurs that help grow their businesses. In her not so spare time, she enjoys her friends and family, sipping on Jack Daniel's Honey ('cause vodka gives her a headache) and taking naps on Sundays.....