When sales or growth targets are not met, it becomes the responsibility of executives, sales managers, or financial officers to identify underperforming individuals and provide them with training to improve or find new talent.
It is often a tendency to blame individuals when they are the ones conducting personal outreach, having unmonitored conversations, and sending emails with their chosen strategic messaging. However, instead of pointing fingers at people, it is important to take a closer look at the strategies being implemented.
Replacing and hiring new talent can be both time-consuming and costly for a business. That is why it is crucial to examine the strategies themselves when growth efforts fall short, rather than solely focusing on individuals.
Sometimes, it may appear as a reasonable assessment to blame individuals, but more often than not, the issue lies in implementing a plan that has little chance of success from the beginning. This often leads to a misguided approach of either pushing the salesforce harder or replacing them with supposedly better alternatives. However, the real problem for most business development teams is that they are targeting the wrong prospects, rather than having poor implementation or low-quality personnel.
Businesses invest hundreds of millions of dollars each year in replacing underperforming sales teams and providing sales training and coaching in an effort to close pipelines that either don't exist or are completely unrealistic. Additionally, thousands of hours are wasted managing CRM systems filled with contacts who will never make a purchase.
The costs of not aligning your product or service with the marketplace should not be underestimated. It is crucial to take a step back and evaluate both the tactics and the implementation.
Once you start examining the tactics, the mystery of growth becomes clearer. You will begin to understand why it is difficult to get in the door, why the close rate is low, and most importantly, why your ROI on business development costs is high.
Aligning your product or service with the marketplace is critical. It takes time and requires challenging the status quo. If you need growth post-COVID 19, now is the right time to make it happen.
In our world, every growth plan should be documented, challenged, and approved before spending a single dollar. Just as a side note, we spend thirty to forty hours building a tactical growth plan, while many salespeople spend only minutes or, worse, start making calls or sending emails without a proper plan.