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Are you making your sales goal?
I was reading a blog post (http://blog.bridgegroupinc.com/blog/tabid/47760/bid/13823/Why-are-50-of-sales-reps-missing-quota.aspx) and it claimed that 50% of sales reps are missing their quota. Why do you think this is? Do you find this to be true at your company? Do you think that social media sites are competing with sales reps or helping them? Are your sales managers helping reps get better, or simply firing them if they don't hit their numbers?
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2 Answers
Hey Erik,
In a recent CSO Insights study, it did mention that only 51% of reps are making their quotas, and a mere 44% of forecasted deals are won. There are a number of reasons this can be true. I don't think that social media sites compete with sales, if used effectively, the information gleaned from social media sites can only help give sales people and sales teams a better understanding and clearer picture of who they are dealing with. Since social media has come into the picture, marketing has been all about "relevancy" but guess what, Sales need to be all about relevancy too, and I think social media can help them be more relevant.
We've notice that a major problem Sales Managers and Reps have is forecast accuracy and pipeline management. If only 44% of the deals that are projected are won, then there is a major issue in the process of determining which deals you think will close, and how accurately you are tracking these deals.
Sales managers need to have a dynamic view of the pipeline so they can mentor their sales people in real-time, not be surprised at the end of the quarter. I think pipeline analytics is one of the biggest problems sales teams have, they don't have dynamic, up to date information about where deals are.
Barbra makes some great points. I'd like to add to her post:
Part of the problem I've seen is with marketing and sales working in silos. The woeful communication between these 2 groups is more rampant than I'd ever thought possible - and certainly troublesome. The organizations that continue to grow are those where marketing and sales have taken down the barriers and are working hand-in-hand.
The sales-marketing dynamic bleeds directly into the social media world. Again, the successful companies are using social media to do several things:
* Drive traffic to their websites to learn more about their products/features/benefits
* Build the brand through blogs & discussion groups
* Offer a portal through which suspects can become prospects - and studies show that these are hot leads with a 3x (or higher) conversion rate than other leads
The issue comes in when sales feels disconnected from these marketing efforts, and doesn't understand their application, use, benefits, or methodology enough to be able to then take advantage of them.
Marketers - don't speak condescendingly to your sales team; help them understand the use of these incredibly powerful tools.
Sales - don't shoot the messenger! Understand that there are new ways to now skin the cat, and embrace them.
Sales managers are so pinched for time today that they're just not getting the field time they need to understand where the gaps are. They're buried in reports, meetings and other "administrivia" that they can't see past their next meeting. As a result, salespeople who might be successful are floundering, forecasting is off, results are down, and everyone's frustrated. Sounds like doom & gloom, but there are solutions out there. Consider outsourcing or hiring interns to handle stuff that really should be delegated so that the sales manager can then do the things only she/he can do.
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