1. Unstable Sales
One of the major reasons that your team needs professional mentoring is dwindling sales performance. Inconsistent sales can not only impact your business’s revenue but also lead to disorganized sales processes.
It can arise due to various reasons such as knowledge gaps within the team members and misaligned sales strategies.
Example:
Salesforce is a perfect example of a company that improved its deal closing rate almost by 25% by instigating a new sales coaching program offering coaching to employees on current market challenges and ways to overcome them. This also helped the organization to register their global appeal.
Recommended read: Custom vs off-the-shelf Sales Training : Which is Right for your Team?
2. Low team motivation
Low morale can deviate your team from achieving their targets and make them underperform. Motivation is the driving force that keeps employees going in their job and perform exceptionally.
Low goal clarity, lack of appreciation and recognition, employee burnout are some of the factors attributing to low motivation in sales team.
Example
A well-known Software solutions company, HubSpot, was facing the challenge of low morale and motivation in its sales team. The company introduced a training program to pair every underperforming team member with senior sales leaders. This idea of providing personalized coaching helped the organization to boost employees’ motivation within six months and increase their sales productivity by 20%.
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3. Challenges in closing deals
One of the most critical stage of sales is closing deals. Most of the companies struggle in this aspect due to knowledge gaps within the team, fear of rejection, lack of follow-up and ineffective communication.
Example
By training its employees on negotiation techniques and selling approaches, LinkedIn was able to increase its deal closing rate by 25%.
4. Unable to reach revenue targets
Revenue is the backbone of every company, and if your sales team is struggling to meet its revenue targets, it is high time that your team needs professional mentoring.
Some of the reasons leading to missed revenue targets include inefficient sales strategy, low team motivation, skill gaps etc.
Example
Renowned collaboration platform Zoom grew its revenue by nearly 25% by implementing sales mentoring sessions on market entry techniques and effective sales pitches.
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5. Not leveraging technology to its fullest
Since technology has now become an indispensable part of our lives, it’s essential for sales teams to utilize it to its full potential. With the emerging growth of tools and technologies such as data analytics and CRM tools, it is even more crucial for employees to leverage these to avoid missed opportunities.
While there are many reasons such as skill gap or ineffective employee onboarding that attribute to employees underutilizing tools and technologies, one of the major rationales is resistance to change.
Example
A well-known name in the field of CRM, Salesforce, had only 40% of its sales team adopting CRM back then, thus paving a way to incomplete data and unutilized features like forecasting and automation.
The company introduced a mentoring program to offer hands-on training to employees on CRM features and its integration with email marketing. This training program not only helped Salesforce to adopt CRM by 90% of the sales team but also led to 15% growth in its revenue.
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6. Diminishing employee engagement rate
Low employment engagement rate can create a negative atmosphere in the organization causing employees to be feel demotivated and low on energy.
Employees usually feel disengaged due to lack of appreciation and recognition, stagnant growth, and poor work life balance.
Example
Google, known for its team dynamics, introduced a training program for its sales employees on career development when its employees complained of lack of career clarity and disengagement from company’s mission. This personalized mentoring increase company employees’ engagement and satisfaction rate.
You may find it helpful: Your Guide To Effective Sales Organizational Structures in 2024
7. Struggling adapting to market changes
In today’s dynamic and competitive environment, it’s essential for businesses to continuously adapt to changing market trends and economic variations. Inability to adapt to market changes can make you fall behind your competitors and lose revenue in the long run.
Example
IBM sales team faced difficulty adapting to AI analytics thus causing them to lose competitive edge. The company came up with the idea of mentoring its sales team with predictive AI analytics which led to a significant 15% increase in its revenue.
8. High Employee Turnover Rate
Employee Turnover is a major issue impacting company’s costs and overall team morale. This can lead to poor client relationships and increased amount of work for existing team members.
Factors leading to high employee turnover rate are lack of career growth opportunities, overwork, inadequate benefits, and lack of employee appreciation.
Example
Amazon, one of the eminent and largest companies in the world implemented “Career Choice” sales mentoring program to foster employee career growth. This led to high employee retention rate and positive feedback from the participants.
9. Poor time management and task prioritization
Majority of the employees face issues in managing their time effectively when they have multiple tasks in hand. Effective time management and task prioritization help employees to achieve more in less time.
Poor time management can cause employees to miss their deadlines, feel stressed and have strained customer relationships.
Example
When some employees from sales team at Google complained about their struggles in time management and task prioritization, the company instituted a mentorship program named “Grow with Google” focusing on setting SMART goals, and Pomodoro technique and Pareto principle. This ultimately led to improved employee engagement and time management among employees.
10. Lack of confidence in customer dealing
Lack of confidence when dealing with customers is a red flag giving rise to poor customer experience and disrupted sales cycle.
Dwindling confidence can arise due to various reasons such as inadequate training and knowledge, fear of judgement and rejection and competitive pressure.
Example
In order to address confidence issues within its sales team, McKinsey & Company implemented a personalized sales mentoring program focusing on client interaction leading to enhanced confidence among employees especially in high pressure situations.
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