Root Cause Analysis
Attempting to dramatically change/improve the productivity of your salesforce, without conducting a thorough root cause analysis, is an exercise in hoping that your efforts will produce positive results. In my experience, too many sales improvement initiatives are launched as a result of a senior executive saying (sometimes in a very loud voice), “Do something about sales… now!”
In his/her efforts to do something about sales, the person who executes on this order is tempted to bring in the cure that is in vogue. This may be sales training, it may be a new CRM system, it may be a sales enablement system, it may be a series of lectures on SEO work; you name it. I’ve even seen sales improvement initiatives that involved outdoor camping exercises.
In other words, there’s an entire smorgasbord of sales improvement ideas, activities and solutions for a decision-maker to select from. But, without diagnosing the root cause of the sales productivity problem, you run the risk of executing the initiative and missing the goal of creating a permanent, measurable improvement in the ability of the sales team to produce profitable revenue.
Your root cause analysis needs to look at many variables, far too many to list in this short blog article. But suffice it to say that, unless you clearly understand what the causes are of your dissatisfaction with your sales team’s performance, you should not initiate anything that may miss the mark.
As always, I wish you…
Good Luck and Good Selling!!!
