.png)
The challenges of taking a sales organization to the next level often seem complex. But the primary difficulties most organizations face are easy to identify. At least 80% of the sales dysfunction we see when starting with new clients comes from five main areas.
Not enough Leads. Low Close Rates. Poor Sales Execution. Do we have the right people in the right seats? Lacking confidence in our Sales Plan.
Each challenge can be turned into a strength by starting with fundamentals and systematizing for success. This type of change requires asking great questions, having a clear roadmap, backed with a focused effort to build actionable Sales Playbook systems to solve your big challenges.
Not Enough Leads
Most companies want more leads. But a vital step is to focus on your High Value Targets. Start by breaking them into main segments. Define the qualifying and needs of each segment. Build HVT target lists for each segment. Build a list of your Centers of Influence (COIs) referral partners. Look for ways to consistently be valuable to them to engage and activate them. Coordinate marketing and sales efforts for value-based outreach. High payoff lead generation increases.
Low Close Rate
Low close rates crush sales results. Not only by losing deals but by sucking up resources. Closing starts with effective, ongoing qualifying so that any open opportunity remains worth pursuing. Begin with common needs you solve well. Define great qualifying questions thru the process at every selling stage. Be sure they remain qualified along the way to be worth pursuing. Identify their High Value Needs and your capability to solve them. Identify their compelling reasons to buy. Include their cost of not solving them. Make it easy to buy from you. Augment what they’re already doing vs. creating more work for them. Always ask for the business.
Poor Execution
A high-performance sales team has a proven winning system in place across the organization. Do you have proven systems and processes in place for the vital selling functions? Or are you “winging it?” Start by asking good questions. What’s working, what’s not? What are you missing? What’s changed in your marketplace? You can’t grow and scale chaos. Replace chaos with cadence. Define the one best way your high performers sell with key steps and processes that repeat. A foundational principle of developing a highly productive Sales Playbook.
The Wrong People in the Wrong Seats
Many sleepless nights for leaders come from wondering if you have the wrong people in the wrong jobs. If you’re questioning things like this it demands attention. Do you have the right people in the right seats? Doing the right things? Are your people in their highest and best use spots? Create a clear Job Profile for each sales position. Define the key traits and success measurements. Would you enthusiastically re-hire each person again for the roles they’re in? If not, get some talent evaluation tools like DISC and some objective help to assess the talent on your team.
Lack of a Sales Plan
Without a strong sales plan your organization believes in, individual roles and actions get unclear. Are you unsure how to grow? Not confident in your sales strategy to build results? Ask good questions to check your assumptions. What’s working, what’s not? What might you be missing? What has changed in your competition or marketplace that you could leverage to grow? Where are you vulnerable? Where are your competitors vulnerable? How can you leverage this? If you want help with this or other areas, we offer a free Q&A session to strategize your situation. Just contact us.
Making these changes are doable. World renowned sales coach and public speaker Jack Daly and I coauthored the bestseller The Sales Playbook for Hyper Sales Growth. We have created a high-performance Playbook selling system that helps develop high-performance sales teams. It equips them to grow and scale results by solving the big sales challenges.
At Leverage Sales Coaching we coach clients every day. We can deliver our Sales Playbook system faster than ever using our Leverage Playbooks app. Contact us. We can help.
Schedule a Leverage Playbooks demo or a Free Q&A Sales Strategy Session.
Dan Larson is the coauthor with Jack Daly of The Sales Playbook for Hyper Sales Growth. His latest development is the LEVERAGE Playbooks app. It’s a coach-led SaaS playbook development system for growth-driven companies. Designed to grow more leads, execute better, and close more deals. Visit him at www.leveragesalescoach.com, email at dan@leveragesalescoach.com, or call at (800) 565-6516.
.png)