Why are underperforming sales teams hard to turn around?
Many sales teams work hard, remain busy, and still fall short of their targets. The reason for underperforming sales teams is rarely a lack of effort. It is usually how sales activity is guided, prioritised, and improved.
Sales managers are selected because they know how to get results, more than for their people management skills. Most organisations expect sales managers to provide that improvement through coaching. The expectation is that they can transfer their know-how to their team. In practice, this seldom works.
Salespeople do better with a coach who is not their manager.
Management is a full-time job. First-time managers often still have a personal sales target, making them part-time managers. Fighting fires comes first, so coaching is relegated to a low-priority task. Things don't get much better for full-time managers. They have a broad array of responsibilities, duties, and tasks that must be given attention before coaching.
Managers must manage first. Fulfilling the need to coach can conflict with their other duties. With large spans of control, there is no time to establish an effective coach-coachee relationship, let alone to prepare appropriately. The purpose of coaching is to develop skills, teach methods, and improve decision-making. As with all coaching, the results can lag behind the interactions.
Why sales managers struggle to coach.
Goals and objectives: Managers set targets and incentives. The annual target is broken down into quarters, months, or weeks. Coaching helps salespeople recognise and commit to the actions that lead to the achievement of objectives and goals.
Accountability: Management focuses on target achievement and deadlines. Managers can lack the time and coaching skills necessary to ensure a salesperson can get the required results. Coaching facilitates the necessary thinking and planning.
Decision-making: Managers review current opportunities and pipeline status. This encourages salespeople to defend their decisions. A coach concentrates on understanding. A coach who is not the salesperson's manager is better able to understand and influence the thinking and decision-making used to win sales.
Feedback: Management conversations tend to focus on numbers, targets, and activity levels. Salespeople are usually more comfortable discussing the customer issues they face with someone who is not their manager. Thus, an experienced coach is better able to help salespeople understand what to change and why.
Performance improvement: Regular coaching leads to improved sales performance, higher close rates, and increased revenue. Our research indicates that salespeople with a coach sell 13% more than those without coaching support. When the manager is the coach, time for coaching is often squeezed. Coaching takes a back seat and is sporadic.
Confidence is assumed, not nurtured: Managers expect salespeople to perform in front of customers. Coaching prepares them for those interactions through forethought, planning, and preparation.
Overcoming challenges: Team members are often reluctant to admit problems, especially when there is a management expectation of competence. Coaches surface the individual challenges and obstacles faced by salespeople and help them deal with them by teaching problem-solving methods.
Problems are addressed too late: Management tends to respond when deals are already at risk. Coaching identifies issues earlier, when there is still time to influence the outcome.
Qualification: Managers expect salespeople to adhere to the declared qualification criteria and enforce this through deal reviews. Coaching helps salespeople understand the subtext, derivative questions, and circumstances that determine whether prospects are likely to become customers.
Adapting to change: Managers point out new market opportunities and changing customer needs. Coaching helps teams adapt by developing and testing new strategies and tactics.
Training: Managers use training to influence behaviour and introduce new ideas, but without ongoing coaching, practices quickly lapse as habits are reasserted. Coaching carries learning forward by aligning it with real situations and turning knowledge into results.
Career development: Managers have limited options for advancing team members and so tend not to raise the subject. A coach uses career advancement as a motivator for learning and development.
Short-term: Managers must focus on short-term results because revenue shortfalls precede resource constraints. Coaching patiently develops thinking, planning, and decision-making skills that improve performance over time.
Can sales managers turn around underperforming sales teams?
Some sales managers do manage to overcome the difficulties of coaching while managing, at least for some members of their team, yet most do not. Test this for yourself. Add up the number of hours you spend coaching per team member per month. It might be difficult to disentangle. Coaching is mostly about listening, reflecting, and nudging. Some pipeline, forecast, and deal reviews might be counted as coaching, at least partially, but most are not. They are mainly about verifying accountability and assessing risk rather than developing a salesperson's abilities.
In practice, managers must manage first. Coaching requires time, preparation, and focus that most managers simply do not have. That is why sales teams without a dedicated coach often work hard, remain busy, and still fall short of their potential.
Article by Clive Miller
Clive Miller is a UK-based sales consultant, trainer, and coach with over 30 years’ experience helping B2B organisations improve sales performance and decision-making effectiveness.
Related Resources
- Sales Management and Leadership Articles
- How to Improve Sales Performance
- Turn Around Underperformance with Coaching
- B2B Sales Training Courses
Do you have an underperforming sales team? We can help you turn things around. Arrange a call with Clive Miller or Telephone +44 (0)1392 851500. Alternatively, email jimm@salessense.co.uk or use the contact form here.
