Quarter after quarter the same reps miss and you are running out of patience. Before you performance-manage anyone out or blow the budget on more headcount, it is worth stopping to work out what is actually going on. Missed targets are a symptom. The cause is usually one of a handful of things, and only some of them are the rep's fault.
This is the diagnostic we run through when a client tells us their team keeps falling short. Work down it honestly before you jump to firing and hiring.
Is the target even real?
Start here, because it is the most common and the most uncomfortable. If the number was set top-down to please the board rather than built up from what the pipeline and the market can bear, the miss is baked in. No hire fixes a fantasy target. Be honest about whether the goal was ever achievable.
Are they getting enough of the right leads?
A rep can only close what reaches them. If the pipeline is thin, or full of poorly-qualified names that were never going to buy, even a strong salesperson posts weak numbers. Look at the quality of what is landing on the desk before you judge what comes off it.
Is it a skills gap or a will gap?
These look identical from the outside and need opposite fixes. A rep who wants it but keeps stalling at the same stage has a skill gap you can coach. Someone who has quietly checked out has a motivation problem no amount of training touches. Get this diagnosis wrong and you waste months coaching someone who has already left in their head.
Has anyone actually watched them work?
Not the numbers, the actual selling. Sit in on calls. Read the emails. Nine times out of ten the problem becomes obvious in an afternoon of watching, and it is something specific and fixable, like a rep who is great until the price conversation and then folds.
Is the manager coaching or just chasing?
A manager who only ever asks 'where are we against target' is applying pressure, not help. Pressure on a rep who already knows they are behind just makes it worse. If nobody is actually showing them how to close the gap, the gap does not close.
Or did the hire never fit in the first place?
And sometimes, after all the coaching and the honest looks, the person was simply never right for this sale. It happens. A rep who thrived selling one thing can struggle selling another, and no amount of management turns a mis-fit into a match. That is a hiring lesson for next time as much as a problem now.
Most of this you sort out in-house, and you should, because the answer often is not another hire at all. But when the honest conclusion is that the fit was wrong from the start, that is where we come in. We spend the time up front making sure the people we send you actually match the sale you are asking them to make, so you are far less likely to be back here in six months. Our breakdown of what drags sales performance down covers the wider picture. If it is the hire that needs fixing, here is how we work, or book a call and talk it through.
