Leadership was convinced the revenue problem was a people problem: salespeople who were not hungry enough, managers who were not holding anyone accountable. The data said something different.
The situation
Leadership had a sales force that, on paper, should have been performing better. Quota attainment was inconsistent, new business was not materializing fast enough, and deals were taking too long to close.
Weak motivation, weak management, or both.
What the analysis found
We put the entire sales force and sales management team through our Custom Analysis, an evidence-based diagnostic that measures selling skills, sales DNA, management effectiveness, and the systems surrounding both. The results reframed the problem entirely.
100% of the sales force tested as motivated, with the large majority driven by intrinsic motivation. People who push themselves rather than needing to be pushed. That is an asset most sales organizations would love to have.
Our analysis rated sales leadership's overall impact as Some Impact. Recruiting effectiveness and motivating effectiveness were both reasonably strong. The gaps in coaching and accountability were real, but fixable, not catastrophic.
The actual problem was that nobody had given this team a way to win.
Taken together, these findings pointed to a sales force with real will and no shared way. Motivated people, running on instinct instead of a process, rarely reaching the people who could actually buy, and unable to agree on what they were even selling.
Based on the specific weaknesses identified, the absence of a formal sales process, and the trainability of the individuals assessed, our analysis calculated a $56.9 million organic revenue opportunity achievable within approximately 28 months, without adding headcount, territory or spend.
Against roughly $60 million in current annual sales: essentially the potential to grow the business by nearly what it does today, just by closing the skill and process gaps already sitting inside the existing team.
The common mistake
When revenue is soft, the reflex is to blame whoever is closest to the number, usually the salespeople's drive or their manager's grip. But an unmotivated team and an unequipped team look identical from the outside and require completely different fixes. This company did not need to find better people or crack the whip harder. It needed to give the people it already had a decision-maker-reaching, consistently-executed way to sell.
Measure before you assume. The data is usually more specific, and more fixable, than the story leadership is telling itself.
Start the conversation
Tell us what is happening and Lori will tell you what the data would likely find. You will hear back from her directly, usually within one business day.
Typically answered within one business day
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