They don’t lie when they say that your sales team are the heartbeat of your company. These are the people at the centre of it all, who provide the lifeblood for every other aspect of your business.

They feed messages to your production team and help your marketing department s. And, of course, they keep money flowing around your entire business body. You could say, then, that a smoothly running sales team is essential to what you do.

That’s why it can come as such a blow when that sales team underperform. This is so serious that you could even soon start struggling. Your production team would have nothing to do, and your marketing department would have no guidance. In short; you’d end up in a hot mess in no time.

That’s why you’re probably keen to get underneath your underperforming team. You can’t fix the issue if you don’t know what’s causing it, after all. By getting to the bottom of things, you’ll be in the best position to bring out the best in sales team moving forward.

Before you go pointing the finger, though, consider that most underperformance here is down to you, not your team. And, here’s why.

You’re putting too much pressure on creating new leads

As a business owner, you may believe that creating new leads is a sign of sales success. As such, this is what you want your sales team to do. It may even be the thing which you judge them off. But, if you get funny when your salespeople fail to create a set amount of new leads, you push them away from closing.

That’s because sealing a deal is about revisiting leads which are already in place. If your team isn’t allowed to do that, they’re going to lose the leads which they do create. And, guess what? That leads to a total lack of sales.

While generating new leads is undeniably important, then, you shouldn’t push your team to focus on this. Instead, leave them a little leeway to spend time revisiting foundations they’ve put in place. The moment you allow them this freedom, you should find that your sales start to skyrocket.

You don’t have any sales processes

While some freedom is good, it is worth noting that you should put transparent sales processes in place, too. Leaving your team to wing it here is never going to serve your or their needs. That’s because this will leave everyone without a standard of sales.

It could see leads falling under the radar and a team which doesn’t know what you want them to do. As you can guess, that leads to some mayhem which doesn’t secure many sales. Instead, you would be far better off putting a transparent sales process in place.

One of the best ways that you can do this is to implement a CRM like Spire. This is the CRM that can increase your sales almost immediately because it provides a clear and organized system for your sales team to follow.

Much of the processes on a programme like this are also automated. That means less work for your team with more rewards. That in turn, can help them to reach more prospects and seal more deals.

Your review process is poor

A review process is what leads you to recognise an underperforming team. But, what if your reviews themselves are poor? Too often, managers get confused about how to assess their sales team.

It may be that you don’t know what you should look at. That can lead to focusing on leads rather than follow-ups, as mentioned above. It could also mean focusing on sales figures rather than deals which are in the pipeline.

In these instances, you’re never going to get the best impression of your sales team. That, in turn, can lead to low morale and decreased performance. Avoid that by looking at the broad picture each time you come to review your team.

Focus on everything from leads, sales, and deals in pending. Your CRM should make this easy enough, as it outlines everything clearly for you. This way, you’re sure to see that your team are doing a lot behind the scenes, even if it doesn’t translate every time.

If anything, you should then work with them to make sure the sales they’ve already set up come to fruition. Whatever you do, don’t accuse a decent team of underperforming because you didn’t take the time to get your facts straight.