Why didn’t my sales plan work?

You don’t reach your goals, you do n’t get enough new customers, and you need to sell more . Is the sales team not closing sales? Marketing not getting enough prospects? What are you doing wrong?

As a director, you can often be so involved in your business that you lack a clear and objective view of reality. Next, we will give you some clues why your sales plan could be stagnant.

5 criteria to identify the problem of your sales plan

The key to finding out why your sales plan did not work is to detect where the bottleneck is , because, although we believe that the fault lies only with the sales team, bad or good results are not an isolated event. These are some criteria that you should start to analyze:

1. You do not make enough income : A  basic rule of the market is that everything is comotidiza. But what does commoditization mean ? For us, it is the worst enemy of companies that provide any type of product or service .
   A commodity good is something that does not have sufficiently differentiating characteristics between the different manufacturers of the same product. And when there is no good differentiator, we regularly choose one product over another based primarily on price .

   This leads companies to enter a price war that is very difficult to get out of. What differentiators does your product or service have? Do your clients perceive it? Imitating is easy, competing for a few pesos when you have the resources, too. But, innovating and supplying is difficult.

   If you don’t get enough income, it could be because you don’t add value during the buying process , from when a prospect visits your website until they decide to close the sale, for example.

2. You are selling to the wrong clients: We often hear managers say that they are not selling even though they have invested in campaigns and hired more staff. As novice marketers, we always think that customers are customers, however, we are not for all customers, nor are all customers for us .
   When we try to sell without knowing our competition we are losing money. When we try to sell without knowing who our ideal customer is and what buyers need, we are losing money. The key question is, have you identified your potential customers? 

   If you stick with selling to the wrong people, you won’t be able to sell anything .  The buyer is empowered, tech-savvy, impatient, and wants a personalized experience. How can we anticipate your needs?

   Creating profiles of the ideal client or  buyer persona  helps you put a face and name to your clients, along with their specific characteristics and demands. Remember that the exchange occurs with people and you must treat them as such.

3. Your sales plan is inefficient or simply does not exist :  Does anyone go to war unarmed? The absence of a sales plan is the cause of the two previous points. This serves to establish objectives and guide the actions of the teams to meet them . Without it, it is very likely that you are constantly wasting money, time and effort.
   How do you know if your sales plan is working? Metrics are essential tools to analyze the efforts of work teams. Measure the efficiency of your sales process with the help of this article and start evaluating options to correct it.
4. You have many salespeople but few sales: This is classic. Remember that quantity does not equal quality. Hiring more staff, waiting for sales to increase is a common mistake but just as serious as the previous ones. Does your company bear the operating expense?
   You probably have not considered that sales are not the only factor for growth, but also profitability. How feasible is it to get your business to sustain itself and generate profits by increasing the workforce?

   In sales, two plus two is not always equal to four. In our experience, increasing the efficiency of the sales team by automating stages of the sales process , as well as helping you attract prospects and channel them until they are ready to speak with a salesperson , helps make the strategy more profitable. 

   Find it worthwhile to constantly train your sales reps to act as advisors and recognize customer needs in advance. Also, provide them with the right tools to do their jobs. A CRM , is very useful to track prospects and recognize when they are ready to buy.              

5. You don’t get new customers :  Over 40% of salespeople say prospecting is the most challenging part of the sales process, followed by closing with 36%, and qualification with 22%
   This is mainly due to what we mentioned in point 2, when we refer to empowered buyers, whose demands demand new prospecting strategies focused on attracting them, rather than interrupting them . How? Anticipating your needs.

   If you lack a demand generation system , it is very likely that you will continue to lose money. In the Prospecting Techniques That Do Work article , you’ll find some useful strategies to align your buying process to the needs of your potential customers.

In sales, nothing is impossible. Once you have recognized the problems that your sales plan may be going through, you must direct your strategy to solve them .