YOU COULD BE FIRED! COMMON REASONS YOU WON'T MAKE YOUR SALES NUMBERS

The fourth quarter is upon us and most sales professionals know where they currently are—and where they need to be by year-end. According to some studies, 40 percent of sales professionals will miss quota. Learn some of the common reasons for this and what you as a sales professional can do to help change the outcome (and keep your job).
 

Your funnel and forecasts are not realistic.

We’ve all been in a sales situation where we felt it necessary to “fluff” the numbers in order to please our managers but as we get toward end of third/beginning of fourth quarter, we know we’re not going to hit that number. Avoid relying on this doomed practice by asking the right questions at the outset:

• What selling actions actually have to occur in order to position an opportunity or prospect within that funnel stage?
• What are our customers’ buying actions that validate these selling actions so that we can accurately place this piece of business, or this prospect, in this position of the funnel?
• What activities and actions am I doing that moves those opportunities with velocity down the funnel?

When these things occur, it increases that forecast accuracy.

You’re using a spoon for sales tactics when you need a fork.

You’re guilty of being too nice to the customer. If you’re not probing them enough—poking them with that proverbial fork—they may end up keeping you on the line, hanging indefinitely. Ask yourself, Do we have an identified action commitment with every interaction that we have with our customers so that they have some skin in the game? And then hold them accountable to those action commitments.

You are selling to the wrong customers.

You might be chasing after the wrong customer, i.e., selling to an organization that doesn’t align with your products and your services or not talking to the right person. If so, ask yourself, What is the ideal customer criteria, i.e.,

• Where do I win most often?
• What does that customer look like?
• Are my customers willing to pay for value-add?
• Are they committed to high quality?
• What’s the size of the organization?
• Do they have budget?
• What’s their time frame for buying-making decisions?
• Are they within the industry expertise and experience that your organization is key in?
   

Make sure you have developed an ideal customer profile and have determined how well those opportunities that you’re pursuing align to it. If they aren’t aligned, you’re just wasting time and resources.