5 Signs Your Sales Team Is Not Selling

Surveys have reported that salespeople only spend about a third of their time actually selling. Additionally, employees in general (sales or other) only report about 3 hours of productive working time per day.

So is this an issue we learn to accept or is it a problem that needs addressing?

I vote both and here is why:

Surveys have reported that salespeople only spend about a third of their time actually selling. Employees in general (sales or other) only report about 3 hours of productive working time per day.

So is this an issue we learn to accept or is it a problem that needs addressing?

I vote both and here’s why:

1. If you want happy employees that stick with your company, then forcing them to sit at a desk, blocking all access to the world outside of their area of responsibility and breathing productivity litanies down their necks probably won’t get you there.
2. Especially in sales, more productive time means more money for your organization and for your sales rep so teaching them how to use their time efficiently helps everyone win.

It is important that you are empowering your teams to use their time wisely and to address concerns when they aren’t doing this. To understand if a salesperson is not using his/her time effectively, you need to look for these 5 signs. Each sign masks a deeper skill deficiency that is preventing your rep from being as productive as possible.

How To Know If Your Sales Rep Is Not Spending Their Days Selling?

There are 5 telltale signs that your sales rep is not using his/her time wisely. If your rep is doing any of these things you should address the root cause immediately so you can empower them to spend more time selling.

Sign #1: They Are Known To Say Things Like “I Just Want To Sell!” In Frustration

Typically, this phrase is uttered after a correction that the CRM wasn’t updated correctly, they didn’t follow up on a lead per the Marketing/Sales SLA or something similar. Especially as the manager issuing the correction, it can often feel like it is an excuse that they rep needs to get over and just follow the rules like everyone else but in reality it was probably the tipping point.

Marketers and the C-Suite want rules to be followed so they can see the data and test how changes positively impact the business. Sales folks just want to provide value to the customer and make some money doing it. This is why too many rules or time-intensive rules can frustrate a sales rep.

Solution:

Examine the rules you have in place and see if you can automate them further or if it makes sense to reassign the responsibility. If you can’t remove it from your sales rep, then educate the team on the value this rule provides them.

Pro tip: If you can’t articulate the value to sales, then you may want to reevaluate the necessity of the rule at all.

Sign #2: They Are Constantly Asking Other Departments Or Managers For Support

If a rep is always asking marketing for content to support the sale, an engineer to answer a customer’s question, or a manager to sit in on customer meetings, then they are spending more time waiting for answers then selling. They are also keeping your customers waiting, giving them more than enough time to find another solution provider.

Asking a lot of questions is expected as you onboard, but at some point your reps need to fly solo. If they still require a great deal of support well into their employment then one of the following root causes is true:

1. They don’t truly understand the product or solution they are selling
2. They are responsible for selling too many types of solutions and they can’t possibly know everything about them
3. They don’t know how to find their own answers

Solution:

First determine what the root cause is from the above list. Then implement one the corresponding solutions below:

1. Implement product knowledge training and role play it with the team regularly so they are always preparing to answer your customers’ questions immediately and with confidence and ease.
2. Consider grouping your reps by product areas to simplify the number of solutions they need to learn. In some situations, you may have low-performing offerings that can be eliminated as well.
3. If you don’t have a central database of information, develop it and instruct all departments that contribute to it on how to use it properly. Then, instruct your sales team on how to use it to find the information they seek. Finally, stop answering their questions. You can remind them to look in the content library, but don’t give them what they ask for. Sometimes a little tough love is necessary when breaking a habit and when you want to give in remind yourself that these interruptions not only prevent your reps from selling but they cause the rest of your team to deviate from their responsibilities.

No matter the source of the issue, once you have identified it and began the work to correct, you will need to evaluate why this wasn’t addressed from the beginning in your onboarding plan and integrate it more clearly.

Sign #3: They Are Consistently Rushing To Meet Quota

End of the sales period is stressful and you should expect your rep to feel a little more rushed then normal, however, they shouldn’t be overly stressed and fighting to make their numbers. If this is consistently the case, then it is likely they either do not understand the sales cycle they are working in or they are not planning effectively for it.

This is similar to sign #3 in how it can impact the greater organization. If your sales team or even a single rep is consistently stressed out it will naturally show through to everyone they interact with and can impact the atmosphere of your entire organization in a very negative way. Constant negative feelings about work will lead employees to start considering their options, leaving you with higher turnover and decreasingly productive teams.

Solution:

One-on-one quota meetings can keep your reps on track and allow you to catch issues in advance so that everyone has time to correct. These meetings allow you to get a qualitative feel for their pipeline, determine the accuracy of their forecasting and empower them to plan accordingly.

Pro tip: Consistency is the keyword in this issue. The unexpected is inevitable from time to time and you cannot mitigate risk 100%. Reps will have bad sales months or quarters but if you can reinforce in your one-on-one that the causes were unforeseeable and everything was done to plan for a great quarter you can keep morale high and reduce the chances of letting their emotions result in a slower start in the next quarter.

Sign #4: You Are Constantly Following Up On Their Tasks

As the sales leader, if you are constantly getting notifications for past close date or lead follow up reviews, this is a sure sign that time management may be an issue.

In some cases, this could mean sign #1 is about to show and you will need to address the number of tasks or leads your reps are responsible for. The difference between a systemic issue and a personal time management piece is usually if all your reps are experiencing this issue then it may be the former but if only a few experience it then it is more likely the latter.

Solution:

This solution will really vary on the rep and his/her personality and learning style. Your rep may benefit from a training class or one-on-one time management training during your weekly meeting, however, it is more important that your rep decides on the solution. The best way to address this issue, is to follow the steps below:

1. State that you have noticed a lot of their tasks are not being completed on time and invite them to discuss why they believe that is happening.
2. Acknowledge their observations and ask if they have any ideas on how to improve.
3. Again, acknowledge each improvement idea and discuss the pros and cons of each and use examples from your own experiences.
4. Allow them to come to a decision on how to improve their time management skills and ask them how you can support them in this decision and include time frames such as a specific time to find a class and enroll, time to debrief the class, time to review how your rep is implementing the new skills, etc.

Allowing your rep to determine their path forward will increase their accountability for their success and the likelihood that real change will be made.

Sign #5: Other Departments Are Complaining About Sales Stepping On Their Toes

This could mean that sales is sidestepping marketing to create their own collateral or doing their own post-sale follow up, duplicating the efforts of your customer success team. No matter the exact action, if you have a sales rep that is taking on tasks explicitly owned by another department, that means they are not focusing as much as they could on selling.

This is also a likely sign that they don’t trust the department they are overstepping.

Solution:

This is a more extensive solution then the previous ones because it involves getting to the root of the issue a rep has with another department and more importantly it involves the long tedious process of bringing all groups together to rebuild trust.

The best way to start though is through one-on-one conversations with the rep to understand the cause. You can follow the steps from sign #4 to elicit the reason. Once it is determined, it is best to take this issue to the other department manager on how to proceed, keeping in mind the different personality types involved.

Pro tip: This issue is best to prevent than to resolve and that can be done through regular open and honest conversations between departments that rely heavily on each other. In the instance of sales, a monthly marketing, sales and customer experience meeting to address upcoming campaigns, challenges, etc can help build trust and awareness so as to prevent issues of overstepping in the future.