a tendency to push the sales cycle ahead of the client’s buying cycle is a frequent mishap<\/strong>. Salespeople in this situation begin to focus on close dates and fail to solve what the customer is trying to fix, accomplish or avoid. This leads to clients who don’t understand your value proposition because your team is not offering up a solution. Ultimately, those in this situation end up discounting to win or losing the sale.<\/p>\nIn challenging times, it is even more important to make sure there is rigor and diligence to uncover the root of client issues, identify key buying influences and their wins, understand how the decisions will be made and how such activities will be funded. Now is the time to make sure your team is more diligent about understanding the buying process and less concerned with trying to slam dunk sales.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Exactly.\u00a0 All sales managers need to be aware of this overshift because it can have a devastating effect on your revenue.\u00a0 Salespeople tend to push harder, drive faster and prematurely close when their forecast is soft.\u00a0 I was working with one salesperson who had a glowing forecast filled with deals, but he was become pushy in one account.\u00a0 His drive to close it was so overextended that he appeared desperate.<\/p>\n
He was.<\/p>\n
His forecast was smoke and he knew it.\u00a0 He used the inflated forecast to buy more time.\u00a0 That may have seemed like a good idea to him, but he was flushed by his sales manager.<\/p>\n
That was an extreme case, but the subtle version of this push is damaging too.\u00a0 Salespeople push prospects to the point where they either disappear or angle for deep discounts.\u00a0 As a sales manager, it is important to keep a pulse on your salespeople and place an emphasis on post-call debriefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Salespeople are finely-tuned into the economy since it can have a direct impact on their wallet.\u00a0 The fact is many salespeople who falter during an economic downturn get let go.\u00a0 That is a lot of pressure to handle even for strong salespeople. ManageSmarter.com offers up this article – Chronicles of a Sales Leader: Tough Times Call for Solid Leadership – that provides guidance to sales managers in handling salespeople who are under pressure.\u00a0 The author’s first point is perfectly stated (my bold): 1. Don’t abandon the client. As pressure to hit your numbers increases, a tendency to push the sales cycle ahead of the client’s buying cycle is a frequent… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[49,4],"tags":[668,669,1750,667],"class_list":["post-1576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-sales-management","tag-managing-salepeople","tag-managing-salespeople-in-a-downturn","tag-sales-management","tag-sales-management-in-a-recession"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-pq","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1868,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/01\/a-filtering-economy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":0},"title":"A Filtering Economy","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This economy is tough for everyone but especially for salespeople.\u00a0 Money is tight, companies are delaying decisions and jobs are on the line.\u00a0 Yet, through it all sales must continue\u2026and they do. One, well, macabre thought through this time is that this economy is a tool that separates the order\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Assessing"","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1347,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/12\/managing-a-remote-salesforce\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":1},"title":"Managing A Remote Salesforce","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We talk about this topic at length because it is more than a trend.\u00a0 ManageSmarter.com's Long-Distance Teambuilding addresses this topic in a real-world manner: \"Sellers by nature like to be in a team environment\u2014they want a high-five and a talk around the water cooler,\" says Cowitt, vice president of national\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Communication"","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1764,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/10\/recession-retention\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":2},"title":"Recession Retention","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The economy is foremost on almost every business leader's mind right now, and rightly so.\u00a0 Many leaders look to entrench their company in a full defensive posture.\u00a0 This approach has to be incorporated, to some extent, during these economies.\u00a0 However, this is an excellent time to be aggressive in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1970,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/03\/the-enormous-forecast\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":3},"title":"The Enormous Forecast","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Shrinking revenue reports are the fear of most sales managers.\u00a0 This fear is further intensified during this economy.\u00a0 There are salespeople who are attempting to leverage this fear by submitting an inflated forecast.\u00a0 These salespeople provide forecasts that are filled with large deals that are welded to the 90 days\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Management"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":143,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/06\/getting-rid-of-the-dead-weight\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":4},"title":"Getting Rid of the Dead Weight","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We see many sales teams that have a handful of under performing salespeople on the team. Often, the sales manager rationalizes something to the effect of a warm body is better than no body. I don't subscribe to that thinking and neither does Jack Welch as you can see in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Management"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1469,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/satisfied-salespeople\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":5},"title":"Satisfied Salespeople","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Clayton Shold over at Saleopedia offers up some stunning survey results from a recent SalesDog.com survey.\u00a0 Check this out (my emphasis): Despite the job pressure, 70 percent of respondents reported being happy with their management, while 64 percent of those taking the survey said they felt adequately recognized for their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Management"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}