Sales Targets: Why My Best Sales Executives are not Meeting them

The success of most companies lies in their ability to meet their sales projections consistently and even exceeding them. However, meeting sales targets is also one of the biggest challenge faced by many companies and their sales executives.

Previously, if sales targets were not met, you simply motivate your sales executives with incentives (or punishments). You could provide additional commission or dangle that promotion to encourage them to spend more time and effort to close deals.

Nowadays, even the most driven sales executive may not be able to meet sales targets. Why?

Evolution of  buyer-seller relationship

Gone are the days where buyers rely on information provided by sellers. With the Internet, buyers easily know more about the products or services, including prices proposed by competitors. Such transparencies form the basis of change in the buyer-seller relationship. How can sales executives adapt to these changes?

Certainly, sales executives can adapt by embracing this evolution, and make use of the Internet to their benefit.

Building customer relationship with customer online

Previously, the first point of contact is a cold call to a prospect by phone. Now, the first point of contact may be from the customer, or from a website visit. Sales must be aware of this and make themselves available when such situations arise. For example, sales executives can:

• turn on their online chats to receive inquiries from customers
• ensure that the online content for their products or services provides callback requests
• provide expertise advice on their company websites in anticipation of customers initial queries

Such online customer engagements can be complex, and it may benefit sales executives to work closely with marketeers to improve this process.

Developing Lead Generation programs

Lead generation programs simply provide qualified prospects for your sales executives to work on. Some companies have the benefit of a fully functional marketing team to generate leads; others simply rely on the sales team to take on this marketing role. Either way, you can determine if such programs are available in your organization by asking:

• Are we waiting for the phone to ring most of the time (from new prospects)?
• Do we receive any emails from new prospects?
• Have we been attending industry events to meet new prospects, only to find that most attendees are from competing companies looking for new customers?

If any of your answers is “Yes”, then it is important you start looking at developing lead generation programs.

By working with qualified leads from Lead Generation programs, your sales executives will be able to shorten sales cycles and meet sales targets. It is also important to understand the processes on how prospects can be qualified as leads and nurtured into sales.