Closing sales is the main objective of every commercial area, but it is not the only one. It is also important to attract the largest number of business opportunities through qualified leads managed by the marketing area. However, these objectives may not be being met as they should be and may cause bottlenecks at some stage of the business process.
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When problems arise, it is an unequivocal sign that something is wrong in my sales area. Therefore, it is necessary to identify these signs or indicators, so that management can generate the appropriate solutions that minimize risks and provide greater security to representatives to achieve more sales closings.
The proposal for this article is to detail the general indicators that could show that something is not quite right in your company, which is why it will be necessary to take a course of action to guarantee a better functioning of your sales area.
Discover below the 5 key indicators of a commercial area in trouble.
Understanding that each commercial process is different, unhealthy pipelines imply that it manifests poorly qualified opportunities, or with few closing opportunities in the final stages. This means that an imbalance is noticed either because of a poorly qualified lead or because the sales representative is executing an inefficient process that hinders the closing of a deal.
If, for example, we are dedicating time to a poorly qualified lead, reality shows us that it is a forced business; therefore, we waste our time, as well as the time of the leads we manage.
By not having processes that allow functions to be delegated, all the work can fall to one person. In this case, it could be that the director of sales had a team that, rather than generating sales opportunities, seemed like sales assistants instead of representatives, the visible face of the company. When it is not possible to delegate, these types of fluctuations are generated within the commercial team slowing down the progress in the commercial process, and this derives in the closing of sales.
For example, the companies that tend to be more susceptible to this type of problem such as the impossibility of delegating are SMEs, since they have a natural propensity to suffer from formalized processes.
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High team turnover can be a key indicator that something is not right in my sales area because it implies a lack of stability in the commercial staff that does not stay for long periods. Faced with these types of indicators, one would have to ask why turnover is happening, why the staff of the commercial area is leaving, and leaving sales processes halfway through to be taken up by another representative, with all the inconveniences of adaptation and learning that this entails.
For example, the fact that the potential customers notice a parade of personnel before their eyes do not speak very well of the stability of a company, since at least the managed lead prefers to deal with a few trusted people who have known their root problem instead of starting over indefinitely in a kind of loop and receiving disparate commercial proposals that do not close.
Then, a domino effect occurs in which different sales representatives, in order not to lose the opportunity of the commercial agreement, try to manage a discontinuous sales process to the same potential customer and this potential customer finally gets tired of maintaining that commercial relationship.
Another indicator that something is wrong in my sales area is not reaching the objectives. The reasons can be anything from low traffic of qualified leads from marketing to poor lead management by sales representatives.
Hiring poorly trained salespeople can reduce the chances of achieving such goals, but if you decide to provide them with the necessary effective sales training, and customer-focused sales techniques, the risk is reduced over time, as the reps' learning and experience increases. Consequently, the induction process will offer improved results.
However, if this is not the reason and instead it is the scarce entry of qualified leads that generate sales opportunities, the recommended action may be to optimize the lead nurturing process from the marketing area with content that adds value, or that the sales area hunts for its leads through BDR employees specially trained to find business opportunities that close sales.
Although it sounds contradictory to the previous indicator, reaching the objectives without effort is also a sign that something is not right in my sales area. While it's true that achieving business goals is the primary goal of sales, the fact that it's too easy to do so takes a bit of credit away from every sales rep's job.
The goal to be achieved must be intellectually challenging, because only when a job allows us to question the habitual way we have of doing things, can we learn to reveal the best version of ourselves.
The companies that succeed are not those that do not demand their employees beyond their possibilities or demand so much perfection that they are fired for the slightest mistake, but those that are for them like an institution of professional and personal training that helps them be better at what they do.
When a company remains in the comfort zone of achieving the same goals, sales teams run the risk of becoming stagnant and generating sales opportunities that are less and less profitable and secure. While the employees will feel little motivated because they will not have a challenge that drives them to excel.
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These indicators that something is wrong in my sales area are just a summary of all that could be found in a sales team, since each company is different, its objectives are different and possibly its processes will be as well.
However, an important aspect that should be common to all of them is to have formalized processes that add greater visibility to the value chain. From then on, it will be easier to delegate, have an efficient pipeline, maintain a permanent sales team and achieve attainable but challenging goals, the kind that makes us grow.