Converting sales is a difficult task for any business, but for some it is much more difficult. Whether you’re a B2C or B2B company, your sales team works tirelessly to meet your quota and help the company achieve its goals. However, no matter how hard they work, their sales team can’t seem to attract enough willing buyers. You know what they say, work smarter, not harder.
It doesn’t matter how much effort you’re putting into the sales operation; It won’t make a difference if you’re going in the wrong direction. There are reasons why your business is struggling to make sales, and you need to understand them before coming to a solution.
You have not adapted to change
The economic climate changes every time a new wave of innovation and technology arrives. So if your business isn’t generating as many sales as it used to, it could be because you’re using outdated systems. Ever since the proliferation of social media, analytics, and big data came onto the scene, things have changed.
To stay ahead of the competition, it is critical that your business adapt to these changes. Take big data and analytics, for example. Many companies have not yet embraced the importance of data and the trends that can be derived from it. Once you do, you will begin to understand many things; why a sales campaign failed, why you’re losing customers, and what makes a powerful marketing campaign.
You are putting a cap on commissions
For your sales team, motivation is knowing that on a good day, they can take home a big commission without worrying about the cap. Limiting commissions can prevent your sales team from closing more sales and striving to exceed a specific quota. Numerous studies show that capping commissions can hurt your bottom line and overall productivity.
The results of these studies conclude that companies should eliminate caps on commissions. Once the respective companies did, they saw their revenues increase by nearly ten percent. So don’t worry about paying big commissions to your sales reps, because they probably helped your company make big profits.
You’re not following every lead
Sales reps seem to lose enthusiasm for following up on every lead they come across. Instead, they only work for those they feel they can convert. These guesses make things very confusing, especially since your sales team is relying on their intuition rather than an objective factor.
Keep track of how long your sales team has followed up with old leads. The reason for low sales could be that they are ignoring certain leads, resulting in your business closing fewer sales. It’s crucial that you remember how every consumer is a potential customer in one way or another, so it’s best to never ignore a potential customer.
Inadequate Marketing
All parts of a company must work together to drive sales and increase customer retention. A company’s marketing department plays an integral role in giving sales reps the leads they need. It often happens that a marketing team is unable to deliver qualified leads to sales reps.
This step hurts your company numbers and you need to improve by improving your marketing efforts. This process may involve launching a well-planned Google AdWords campaign and other solutions that have the potential to drive sales.
You are not aware of the competition
Even though you’re looking at your competitor’s numbers, there’s a chance you’re not learning what they’re doing right. A large part of your understanding should come from what our competitors are doing. You should invest in research and data on rival companies that have better sales numbers than you.
This investigation can provide you with valuable information to determine what you are doing wrong. Although you don’t have to imitate your competitors, there is always something you can learn from them, and that’s not a bad thing.
No training programs
The only way for a company to get ahead is if it invests a lot of time and resources in upgrading its employees. It’s unrealistic to expect your sales reps to learn new things in such a demanding job. When they’re following up with leads throughout the day, your employees won’t be interested in learning about new findings from sales research papers.
This is why you need to develop your skill set by bringing in the right expert. Sales mentors are one way that large corporations are increasing their numbers. Hiring a sales expert is a valuable initiative you can take to improve your company’s numbers. A sales mentorship also boosts morale and helps your reps develop stronger relationships with their colleagues.
Your sales team lacks a process
In every company’s sales department, leaders must develop a process that reps must use to make a sale. When there is no sales process, your reps could be trying to chase leads without examining weaknesses. At this point, your team may be implementing a random process, so even a casual one will yield better results.
However, instead of letting reps do what they want to do, sales leaders should start by establishing an informal process for how they should get things done. Once you follow up with leads in a systematic and consistent way, you can move from an informal process to a formal and dynamic one.
conclusion
So now that I’ve listed what your company’s sales team might be doing wrong, it’s time to recap what you should be doing to resolve the issue. For starters, you need to adapt to changing industry climates by implementing new technologies and software.
Next, you need to rethink capping commissions and improve your marketing strategy. After that, you should learn about your competitor’s solutions and try to understand the theories behind them. Assign focused and dedicated sales leaders to your department so they can implement a sales process. Also, most importantly, there should be sales training and mentoring programs to improve the productivity of your sales reps.
