Mistake #1
To improve revenues, businesses add to the size of the sales team.
The intention is good – to drive more sales – however, underperforming individuals, poor training efforts and lackluster hiring practices are not weeded out of the business first. This leads to greater expense and a negative impact on margins.
Increasing the team certainly gets you more “feet on the street,” but sadly this strategy doesn’t improve overall performance if all those feet are headed in the wrong direction.
Mistake #2
As an alternative, businesses increase marketing and advertising spend.
Again, the intention is good – to drive more leads – and few marketers would complain about having more budget to achieve their objectives. However, often not enough time is spent analysing, testing and refining current processes so that existing programmes are working hard as possible.
Put another way, yes, you may need to spend more to achieve more, but greater investment at the top of the sales funnel can’t overcome deep-rooted process issues at the middle and bottom of the funnel, e.g., problems with targeting, qualification, sales handover, lead follow-up or closing.
Mistake #3
Lastly – and one of the most difficult issues to root out of some cultures – businesses rely too much on “gut feel” or optimism when it comes to setting targets and predicting performance.
Rather than implementing structured, reliable and scalable systems, they assume that new sales will simply come as a matter of course. They probably will, but at what cost?
Only if you have a good handle on what makes your sales engine tick over, are you likely to achieve targets month in, month out. If you’ve ever asked, “Why did my sales team miss their target?” – we should talk.
Wonderland can help.