Diagnose: Where's the disconnect between sales strategy & performance?

It’s a familiar situation to many companies. Your market is changing, your proposition needs to too. You’ve set your course, defined your sales strategy, kicked off with your sales team.

Perhaps you’re deploying new technologies and use cases, new revenue models like subscription or annuity, moving into new geographies or facing rapidly changing competitive landscapes.

You’ve set the targets and KPIs. You’ve delivered the product / service / proposition training. You’ve given the sales team plenty of collateral. They know what’s expected of them.

… BUT…

You’re just not seeing the pipeline moving in the right direction. The right sales growth is not happening or not happening fast enough.

The sales team are telling you that the product isn’t ready for market, that it doesn’t fit their account base, that it’s too early or too late, it’s too expensive, they don’t have enough internal resources or the right collateral, the quote systems aren’t configured right, or any one of a number of other reasons they’re not getting traction. But what’s true? Some of this, all of this or none?

Attitude can be cause or effect of a block. A sales person may have all the knowledge and skills but are prevented from acting by a lack of confidence or a fear of stepping outside their comfort zone. In other situationm it may be the lack of knowledge and/or skills that creates a lack of confidence.

Of course, different teams and different individuals will each face their own capability challenges in stepping up to a new way of selling or a new and different proposition.

We also need to consider the Internal environment. Are systems, processes and measures getting in the way?

• Are there operational processes preventing change e.g. the way resources are requested and allocated or the way quotes are produced?
• Are sales measures conflicting with the new behaviours e.g. your new proposition is a long, complex sale yet all focus is on measuring business closed this month.
• Is the rest of the organisation equipped to deliver and support new propositions e.g. do you have sufficient skilled pre-sales, bid management or implementation support? Is marketing generating the right kinds of campaigns?
• Do incentives and commissions prioritise and reward new propositions or ways of working?
• Do the team have the collateral, tools and systems needed?
• Are there cultural factors (often linked to what’s measured) that are pushing back on the changes you’re making? For instance, how salespeople’s time is viewed or the nature of relationships between sales and supporting functions etc.

The good news is that you don’t need everything lined up to start making progress – though the better joined up you are the faster you can move.