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10 Reasons Why Sales Managers Lose Their Jobs

After years of The Sales Consultancy getting called into improve companies’ sales, experience suggests there’s a good chance your team could be off the standard required. That’s why I list below my 10 Reasons Why Sales Managers Lose Their Jobs. Check you and your team against these common mistakes in sales.

Nobody does it on purpose, everybody’s busy. Of course. But if you’re losing sales, you’re losing revenue, you’re losing profits. And you need to do something about it.

Check yourself and/or your team against these common mistakes…

Mistake No 1
Not having clear sales goals in the first place

Whether it’s a campaign, implementing an annual strategy, a given month, a week, a day a meeting , a cold call — there’s a distinct lack of goals and outcome focus. This means a lack of direction right from the start. Sorry — but if you don’t know what the ultimate aim is of all sales activity you carry out, how will you ever know if you’re on the right track?

Mistake No 2
Procrastination

People are reluctant to start taking the action they need to achieve their objective, whatever the scale of the goal they have set. You need to take ACTION right now. Not ‘I’ll just finish this other job’ or I’ll just tidy my desk first’ or ‘Oh there’s not enough time to ring that person tonight’. Things drift, get delayed and all the time the competitors are making progress on their goals! The key? — finding out why people procrastinate!

Mistake No 3
Poor presentations to potential customers and clients

A one way pitch from you is likely to work less and less these days. You might hit the target sometimes but often your words will not be engaging for them and in any case it’s too much of a one way communication from you. That’s not a connection, that’s a speech! There’s a way you can connect with EVERYONE you want to do business with. It’s easy to learn, massively effective and you need to know it.

Mistake No 4
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result

There’s often a distinct lack of new ideas at companies whose sales are stagnating or falling. Upon examination people are usually doing the same as before, but miraculously expecting a better result this time round. It’s not going to happen. The truth is the world of Sales and Marketing is changing faster than ever — leaving many companies behind. It’s your job to make sure your company keeps up.

Mistake No 5
Too much talking — not enough listening

Very common generally in business, extremely common in sales. Modern selling is not about pitching and overcoming objections, it’s about rapport and building connections in a whole new way. Watch your team during client and customer meetings — the chances are they’re doing most of the talking. Ouch! All that lost revenue! They should try listening more.

Mistake No 6
Not putting yourself in the customers/prospects shoes

It’s really easy to think about you, your company or how good your product or services are. That’s the issue, alongside making assumptions about the client and customer before the relationship begins. So no one bothers to find out what a customer or prospects REALLY wants next. Only when you truly understand what’s going on in their head, can you truly match it with your offering.

Mistake No 7
The wrong mindset

Many sales people dread cold calling, prospecting, power hours, whatever you want to call it. Result? Very ineffective calls of course. You need people who relish these calls. If you haven’t got them, you either need to change the people, or change the mindset. Change the mindset, it’s cheaper! And it’s achievable. How good would it be to have a team who looked forward to cold calling!

Mistake No 8
Not getting feedback from your customers

Hardly anyone gets proper feedback from customers. Sure the odd form gets filled in, but what are they really thinking?. LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN, then LISTEN some more. Your customers like you. That’s why they use you. Find out the reasons they use you then go find others that have the same buying criteria. Your customers will also tell you what you can do to make you even better to deal with. When was the last time you asked them?

Mistake No 9
The team lacks motivation

Or as sometimes happens some of them are motivated and some aren’t. Well they’re all different of course. What is one person’s fabulous incentive means nothing to their colleague. There’s a reason why that is, do you know it? Companies often have the wrong incentives, the wrong appraisals and the wrong reward systems and then are baffled why half the team are flat. This can be solved quickly and easily.

Mistake No 10
Not talking to the customers that stopped using you

When was the last time you talked with a lapsed customer? You absolutely must know the reason they went elsewhere or you’ll start losing other clients in exactly the same way. Many companies have no idea why particular clients stop using them.

Which of the above reasons might be holding your sales back?

Until next time.

Leigh

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About the author

Hi I’m Leigh Ashton of The Sales Consultancy

Whether you’re a small business or a leading brand, an area manager or a Chief Executive, whether you’re new to sales or an experienced sales professional. Even if you’re not in sales at all but want to understand it, you’ve come to the right place.

The World of Sales is changing.

Today’s conventional sales training doesn’t address the psychological barriers that get in their way.

My approach takes your sales team through a process that:

* Helps them identify their psychological barriers and gives them the tools to overcome them
* Teaches them how the mind works so they can keep motivated and stay focused
* Gives them the ability to identify the psychological patterns of their clients and prospects so they connect with them at a deeper level and close more sales

And at a higher level…

* It creates more success in other areas of their lives so they are happier generally…and happier sales people generate more sales

Wherever you are on your personal sales journey what’s the best course of action for YOU.

– Sales Training – that actually gets results
– Leadership and Management
– Personal Coaching and Mentoring
– Sales Mentoring Programme
– NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and how it can help you accelerate your success
– Keynote Speaking