Why your sales team may not actually be your sales problem

Follow the customer, not the target

Trace a recent lost order from the first enquiry to the decision. How long did the quotation take? Was the price competitive, and did the person quoting know the margin? Could the business commit to a delivery date and then meet it? Did anyone follow up?

Do this for ten lost opportunities and the pattern usually becomes obvious. In many businesses, a meaningful share of losses happens before the customer ever spoke to a salesperson about price. Slow response, uncertainty about availability and unclear terms lose orders quietly.

Common causes that look like a sales problem

Pricing without margin information. A salesperson discounting to win volume without knowing the contribution of the product is not being aggressive. They are being uninformed, and the business made that possible.

Product mix. If demand has shifted and the range has not, the team is selling yesterday's catalogue into today's market and being judged for the gap.

Delivery reliability. Repeated late delivery removes repeat business, and the effect appears in the sales numbers one or two quarters after the operational failure.

Quotation speed. In competitive markets, the second quote to arrive frequently loses regardless of price.

Collections. Where credit is extended without control, the business eventually restricts supply to customers who owe money, and the sales team is then blamed for the resulting decline.

Fix the constraint with the largest commercial effect

Once the chain is visible, the constraint is usually identifiable: the one step where the most value is lost. Improving it will produce more than an incentive scheme, a restructure or an additional hire, all of which are frequently attempted first because they are within the comfortable reach of a sales discussion.

There is also a fairness question. Holding a team accountable for an outcome they do not control damages trust, and the best people leave first.

A closing thought

Revenue is produced by the whole business. Where it falls short, examine the whole business before concluding that the people closest to the customer are the ones who need fixing.