Why is your sales team not converting leads into sales?

Got a great product but it just isn’t converting into sales? It’s a scenario we often see when we meet business directors for the first time.

Why is it that companies have initial success under their founders but struggle as soon as they attempt to scale?

In this article we take a look at the various challenges sales teams face when trying to turn their leads into successful sales. 

Here are a list of possible reasons for the failure to convert sales and how to address these issues:

A lack of leads

Your sales team may be failing because they believe there is a lack of leads.

You may be able to find out the average for percentage of leads to sales closed in your industry and determine whether or not your team has a lack of leads. Some industries with huge one-off bespoke items may only sell a few items per year and leads are likely to number less than 10. The quantity of leads therefore is very industry-specific and you should determine whether your lead quantity fits the pattern of your industry. Other industries with hugely dominant players may also see a low quantity of leads. Breaking through can be hard when the competition is entrenched or there are significant barriers to participation.

While lead generation can appear to be difficult there are always things to be done to generate leads through your marketing. Make sure you have allocated an actual budget to your marketing efforts. This should be in the region of 10-20% for new businesses while entrenched players may be able to reduce this to 6-10% (as they rely on word-of-mouth recommendations and repeat business).

Generating a steady flow of leads from your marketing is crucial to delivering success in your sales team. Ensure you are using all the options available to you, from content marketing, website SEO, email marketing, social media, pay-per-click advertising, sponsorship, exhibitions, referral programmes, and mass market advertising to deliver leads to your team.

Make sure you read our article on lead generation for more tips.

Inadequate lead qualification

Your sales teams might be focusing on unqualified leads that are unlikely to convert into customers, resulting in wasted time and resources.

Many bigger players are able to employ SDRs (sales development representatives) who are responsible for outreach, prospecting, and qualifying leads. These people typically search for leads and find out more information about them ensuring that the lead is a quality fit for your product or service. Their service can be invaluable to the sales person who needs all the knowledge possible to understand the customer problem and create a solution fit for your product.

Can you add an SDR into your team to improve lead qualification (and find more leads)?

If not, are you making use of services like LinkedIn to ensure that the lead is suitable for your business?

Is there a contact gathering service you could use that can assist with collection of information? There are multiple browser extensions available which can collect information from websites (some free, some for a small fee).

Insufficient product knowledge

Sales representatives may lack a deep understanding of the product or service they are selling, which can hinder their ability to address potential customers’ concerns and questions effectively.

Product knowledge is paramount if you are going to close consistently. Without deep knowledge of the product/service being sold, sales people will often flounder when faced with prospects who query why a product is useful to them or their industry. Specific use cases can fluster everyone and being able to deliver a competent answer could be the difference between a sale and not. Training can overcome specific issues such as this.

The following is a comprehensive strategy to address insufficient product knowledge in your sales team.

1. Conduct comprehensive product training: Provide regular, thorough product training sessions to your sales team, covering key features, benefits, and use cases. Ensure that training materials are up-to-date and address any recent product updates or enhancements.
2. Develop a product knowledge hub: Create a centralised, easily accessible repository of product information, such as user guides, FAQs, technical documentation, and case studies. This enables your sales team to quickly reference product details and answer prospect questions confidently.
3. Offer hands-on product experience: Encourage your sales team to use your product or service themselves, so they gain first-hand experience of its functionality and benefits. This will enable them to speak more authentically and persuasively about your offering.
4. Provide competitive analysis: Equip your sales team with information about competitors’ products, their strengths and weaknesses, and how your offering compares. This helps salespeople address competitive concerns and articulate the unique advantages of your product.
5. Encourage cross-functional collaboration: Facilitate interactions between your sales team and other departments, such as product development, engineering, or customer support. This can deepen your sales team’s understanding of the product and its real-world applications, enabling them to address prospect questions more effectively.
6. Leverage internal product experts: Identify product experts within your organisation and encourage them to share their knowledge with the sales team, either through presentations, workshops, or one-on-one coaching sessions. Could you add a customer-facing technical support person to the sales team? Someone with deep knowledge of the product who is able to answer tricky questions in the field. They can attend all customer demonstrations and work with the sales team to deliver product-fit solutions.
7. Keep your team informed of updates: Communicate any product updates, enhancements, or changes to your sales team promptly, and provide additional training as needed. This ensures that they are always equipped with the most current product information.
8. Establish a feedback loop: Encourage your sales team to share any product-related questions, concerns, or suggestions they encounter during their interactions with prospects. This feedback can help identify areas for improvement, drive product development, and refine sales messaging.
9. Create a culture of continuous learning: Foster a culture that values ongoing learning and professional development. Encourage your sales team to stay informed about industry trends, attend conferences or webinars, and participate in relevant training courses.

By ensuring that your sales team possesses extensive product knowledge, they will be better equipped to address prospect concerns, communicate the value of your offering, and ultimately close more deals.

Poor sales skills and techniques

Ineffective communication, lack of active listening, or an inability to build rapport with prospects can contribute to unsuccessful sales conversions.

Most sales people can be taught listening skills. Learning how to empathise with a prospect will ensure that they can understand what needs and problems are being experienced and how the product/service can address that.

Encourage your sales team to read sales training books. Some of the best include:

• To sell is human – Daniel Pink
• Secrets of closing the sale – Zig Ziglar
• Little red book of selling – Jeffrey Gitomer
• Spin selling – Neil Rackham
• The science of selling – David Hoffield
• Words that sell – David Bayan
• Emotional intelligence for sales success – Colleen Stanley
• The sales development playbook – Trish Bertuzzi
• How I raised myself from failure to success in selling – Frank Bettger

At BuddyCRM we regularly review the more interesting in our CEO Book Club review section. Every day is a learning day!

Along with personal reading, sales coaching from industry experts could mean a general improvement from the entire sales team.

Ineffective sales pitch

An unconvincing or overly aggressive sales pitch can alienate potential customers and lead to lost opportunities.

When constructing your pitch:

1. Tailor the pitch to your audience. Ensure that your sales pitch is customised to address the unique needs and concerns of the prospective client. A one-size-fits-all approach is less effective because it doesn’t speak directly to the individual customer’s pain points.
2. Focus on benefits, not just features: While it’s essential to mention the features of your product or service, it’s more crucial to emphasise the benefits they provide to the client. What will your offering do to solve their problems, improve their situation, reach their goals, and make their life better?
3. Demonstrate credibility and expertise: Establish trust by showcasing your company’s expertise, industry knowledge, and success stories. Incorporate client testimonials, case studies, or industry accolades to strengthen your pitch.
4. Keep it concise and engaging: A lengthy sales pitch can quickly lose the interest of your audience. Focus on delivering a concise, engaging presentation that highlights the most critical points and encourages further discussion.
5. Practice active listening: Be sure to listen to your prospects’ concerns and questions attentively. Addressing their issues directly and demonstrating that you understand their needs will help build trust and rapport.
6. Use storytelling to make an emotional connection: People are more likely to remember stories than a list of facts or figures. Use storytelling techniques to create an emotional connection with your prospects and help them envision how your product or service will positively impact their lives. Can you tell an anecdote about a similar situation to this prospect where your product significantly improved the situation? Adding humour will definitely help make your story memorable.
7. Continually refine and improve your pitch: Regularly seek feedback from colleagues, prospects, and customers to identify areas of your pitch that could be improved. Update your pitch based on this feedback and stay current with industry trends and developments.
8. Provide clear next steps: At the end of your sales pitch, make sure you outline the next steps in the sales process. This could be scheduling a follow-up meeting, providing a product demonstration, or sharing additional resources. Being clear about what comes next helps to maintain momentum and encourages prospects to move forward in the sales process. Following a presentation do not be scared to ask if there is anything that might prevent a sale going forward and if there are continued blocks, work to address those in follow-up meetings or proposals. Never leave a meeting without knowing what to do next for the prospect.

Inadequate follow-up

Not following up with leads promptly and appropriately can cause prospects to lose interest or choose a competitor’s product or service. Make sure the team have automatic workflows set up to remind them to follow-up leads and the deals in their pipeline. Research has shown you may need to contact a lead 5-12 times before closing. Persistence pays off!

Here are some strategies for addressing improving your team follow-up skills:

1. Establish a follow-up process: Develop a clear, documented process for following up with leads at various stages of the sales funnel. As an enquiry enters the process, it should be obvious and automatic what happens to the lead throughout your sales team’s connection with it. This should include how often they are contacted, how they are contacted, what is sent to a contact, and how this is sent. eg. email, mail, presentation, video, meetings, etc.
2. Use CRM software: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools like BuddyCRM will help your sales team track interactions with leads and automate follow-up tasks, such as sending emails or scheduling calls. This ensures no leads are neglected and helps maintain consistent communication.
3. Prioritise leads: Not all leads have the same potential value or likelihood of converting. Use lead scoring methods to prioritise leads based on their engagement, needs, and purchase readiness. This allows your sales team to focus their follow-up efforts on the most promising prospects. This does not mean neglecting or failing to follow-up but concentrating efforts on those leads likely to convert first.
4. Personalise communication: Tailor your follow-up messages to the specific needs, preferences, and concerns of each lead. Personalised communication shows that you understand their unique requirements and demonstrates your commitment to addressing them. While automation is helpful in the sales follow-up process, ensure that your communication directly talks to the specific needs of your prospect.
5. Set reminders and deadlines: Encourage your sales team to set reminders and deadlines for follow-up tasks. This ensures that important follow-up activities are not overlooked and helps maintain a sense of urgency.
6. Add value with each interaction: Make every follow-up interaction meaningful by providing new information, insights, or resources that address the prospect’s concerns or needs. This keeps the conversation relevant and engaging, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
7. Monitor and measure follow-up efforts: Track the effectiveness of your follow-up activities by monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs), such as response rates, conversions, and sales cycle duration. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and adjust your follow-up strategies accordingly.
8. Foster a culture of accountability: Encourage your sales team to take responsibility for their follow-up activities and to continually improve their skills. Provide training, resources, and support to help them excel in this area, and recognise their achievements when they successfully convert leads into sales.

Poor time management

Inefficient use of time and resources can lead to disorganisation, missed opportunities, and ultimately, unsuccessful sales conversions. When salespeople struggle to balance their workload, they may overlook crucial tasks, neglect leads, or fail to prioritise high-potential prospects. To address poor time management and enhance your sales team’s productivity, consider implementing the following strategies:

1. Set clear goals and priorities: Establish specific, measurable, and achievable goals for your sales team. This will help them focus their efforts on high-priority tasks and allocate their time more effectively.
2. Provide time management training: Offer training sessions on time management techniques, such as the Eisenhower Matrix, the Pomodoro Technique, or time blocking. These methods can help your sales team organise their tasks and work more efficiently.
3. Implement task management tools: Encourage the use of task management software or apps to help your sales team stay organised, track their tasks, and monitor their progress. Popular options include Toggl and Todoist.
4. Schedule regular check-ins: Hold brief, regular check-ins with your sales team to discuss their workload, address any challenges, and ensure they stay on track to achieve their goals. This can help to identify and rectify any time management issues before they escalate.
5. Encourage delegation and collaboration: Foster a team culture where salespeople can delegate tasks, share responsibilities, and collaborate on projects. This can help to distribute the workload more evenly and ensure that everyone is working efficiently.
6. Avoid multitasking: Encourage your sales team to focus on one task at a time, rather than trying to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously. There is no proof in the world that suggest anyone can multitask effectively.
7. Set boundaries and minimise distractions: Help your sales team establish boundaries and minimise interruptions during their workday. This could include setting specific hours for responding to emails or making appointment calls, using noise-canceling headphones, or creating designated work zones free from distractions. Blocking off time in a calendar to put to a specific use ensures your sale people cannot be distracted during that period.
8. Encourage breaks and self-care: Promote a healthy work-life balance by encouraging your sales team to take regular breaks, engage in physical activity, and practice self-care. A well-rested and focused salesperson will be more effective at managing their time and achieving their goals.
9. Review and optimise processes: Regularly assess and refine your sales processes to identify inefficiencies and areas for improvement. Streamlining workflows and automating repetitive tasks can help your sales team save time and focus on more critical, high-value activities.

Insufficient customer research

A lack of understanding of the target market, customer pain points, and preferences can hinder the sales team’s ability to effectively position their product or service. Conducting thorough customer research helps salespeople personalise their approach and tailor their sales pitch to address each prospect’s unique pain points. To enhance your sales team’s customer research efforts, consider the following strategies and tools:

1. Develop buyer personas: Creating detailed buyer personas can help your sales team better understand their target audience, including their demographics, preferences, and challenges. This information can guide salespeople in crafting personalised messages that resonate with each prospect.
2. Use social media for research: Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook can provide valuable insights into a prospect’s professional background, interests, and connections. Your sales team can use this information to establish common ground and engage prospects in meaningful conversations.
3. Leverage CRM data: The data in your CRM software (BuddyCRM) can store a wealth of information about your prospects, including their past interactions with your company, their purchasing history, and their preferences. Integrating your CRM with your other third-party software will provide even more information. The sales team can use this data to tailor their approach and address specific customer needs.
4. Analyse website analytics: Tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Microsoft Clarity can help your sales team understand the behaviour of prospects visiting your website, such as the pages they view, the time spent on each page, and their navigation patterns. This information can reveal the prospect’s interests and pain points, guiding the sales team in tailoring their pitch.
5. Utilise sales intelligence tools: Sales intelligence platforms, like ZoomInfo, DiscoverOrg, Clearbit, or LeadIQ, can provide detailed information about prospects, including contact details, company insights, and recent news. This data can help your sales team identify potential opportunities and craft more targeted sales pitches.
6. Conduct industry research: Stay informed about industry trends, challenges, and developments by reading trade publications, attending webinars and conferences, and joining relevant online forums. This knowledge can help your sales team better understand their prospects’ concerns and position your offering as a solution.
7. Monitor competitor activity: Keep an eye on your competitors by following their social media accounts, subscribing to their newsletters, and analysing their marketing materials. Understanding their strengths and weaknesses can help your sales team differentiate your offering and articulate your unique value proposition.
8. Seek direct customer feedback: Conduct surveys, interviews, or focus groups with existing customers to gain insights into their needs, preferences, and challenges. This information can help your sales team refine their approach and improve their understanding of potential prospects.

By investing time and resources in comprehensive customer research, your sales team can better understand their prospects, establish rapport, and deliver more targeted sales pitches, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates.

Competitive pressures

A highly competitive market or the presence of strong competitors with superior products, services, or pricing can make it difficult for sales teams to close deals.

1. Identify your unique selling proposition (USP): Clearly define what sets your product or service apart from the competition. This could be superior quality, innovative features, exceptional customer service, or lower pricing. This is the reason a customer should choose your product/service over competitors. Communicate your USP consistently and effectively throughout your sales and marketing efforts.
2. Focus on niche markets: Instead of competing head-to-head with larger players, target specific niche markets where your offering can address unique needs or challenges that competitors may not be catering to. This allows you to develop a reputation as an expert in that niche and attracts a more dedicated customer base.
3. Build strong relationships: In a competitive market, building strong relationships with your prospects can help differentiate your company from others. Invest time in understanding your prospects’ needs, providing personalized solutions, and fostering trust through transparency and reliability.
4. Enhance your sales team’s skills: Provide ongoing training and support to your sales team, helping them develop advanced selling techniques, negotiation skills, and industry knowledge. A well-trained salesperson can effectively communicate the value of your offering and handle objections more confidently.
5. Leverage customer testimonials and case studies: Showcase the success of your existing clients by sharing their testimonials and case studies. This can help establish credibility and demonstrate the real-world impact of your product or service.
6. Adapt quickly to market changes: In a competitive landscape, the ability to quickly adapt to market changes and customer preferences can be a significant advantage. Stay informed about industry trends, customer feedback, and competitor activities to make data-driven decisions and refine your offering accordingly.
7. Offer exceptional customer support: Providing top-notch customer support can differentiate your company from competitors and contribute to customer loyalty. Ensure that your support team is responsive, knowledgeable, and proactive in addressing customer concerns.
8. Collaborate with strategic partners: Form partnerships with complementary businesses or industry influencers to expand your reach, enhance your credibility, and offer additional value to your customers. These partnerships can help position your company as a leader in the market and drive more sales.
9. Optimise your sales process: Continuously review and optimise your sales process to identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or areas for improvement. Streamlining your sales process can help your team close deals more efficiently and effectively.

Following these strategies can see your company differentiate its offering enough from competitors to make it a compelling buy in the eyes of your buyers.

Inadequate sales tools and technology

Outdated or ineffective sales tools can hamper the sales team’s ability to track leads, manage customer relationships, and automate routine tasks.

Is your team struggling with product knowledge of an old ERP system or using multiple Excel spreadsheets? These tools aren’t fit for the purpose of managing customer relationships and hinder effective communication with prospects. Equip your team with the right tools and technology to reduce admin, speed up responses, and ensure follow-up throughout the customer journey.

All sales teams should use a CRM to manage their relationships. The best such as BuddyCRM, provide tools for contact management, workflows, automation, mobile access, lead management, sales pipelines, quotes, email marketing, support tickets, and more.

Modernising your sales force with a sales tool that makes their job easier means they can spend more time converting leads and selling.

Misaligned sales and marketing efforts

A lack of coordination between sales and marketing teams can lead to inconsistent messaging, unclear value propositions, and ultimately, a reduced likelihood of successful sales conversions.

Addressing these challenges and providing ongoing support, training, and resources to sales teams can significantly improve their ability to convert sales and drive business growth. Here’s a list of ideas to assist with aligning sales and marketing:

1. Establish common goals: Define shared objectives for both the sales and marketing teams, and ensure that their performance metrics are aligned with these goals. This fosters a sense of collaboration and encourages both teams to work together towards the same outcomes.
2. Facilitate regular communication: Encourage open and frequent communication between sales and marketing teams by scheduling regular meetings, setting up shared communication channels, and promoting a culture of transparency. This helps to keep both teams informed about each other’s activities and enables them to address any concerns or issues promptly.
3. Develop a unified messaging strategy: Collaborate on creating a cohesive messaging strategy that reflects your company’s unique value proposition, brand identity, and target audience. This ensures that both sales and marketing teams communicate consistent messages to prospects and customers, strengthening your brand image and avoiding confusion.
4. Share insights and feedback: Sales and marketing teams can provide valuable insights to each other based on their interactions with prospects and customers. Encourage them to share feedback, learnings, and success stories to refine strategies, improve messaging, and identify new opportunities. Have sales and marketing teams to learn from each other by participating in cross-training sessions, shadowing each other’s roles, or attending joint workshops. This builds a better understanding of each team’s challenges and responsibilities, fostering empathy and collaboration.
5. Align content creation efforts: Marketing teams should work closely with sales teams to develop content that addresses the needs, concerns, and interests of prospects at different stages of the sales funnel. This helps salespeople to better engage and nurture leads, ultimately leading to higher conversions.
6. Implement lead management processes: Establish clear processes for lead generation, qualification, and nurturing, with defined responsibilities for both sales and marketing teams. This ensures a smooth handoff of leads between the teams and maintains momentum in the sales process.
7. Leverage technology: Use CRM (BuddyCRM), marketing automation tools, and other technologies to streamline communication, track leads, and measure performance across both teams. This enables better coordination and provides valuable insights for continuous improvement.
8. Celebrate joint successes: Recognise and celebrate the achievements of both sales and marketing teams when they contribute to shared goals. This reinforces the importance of collaboration and creates a positive environment for teamwork.

By fostering collaboration, aligning goals, and facilitating open communication between sales and marketing teams, your company can create a more cohesive and effective approach to engaging prospects, nurturing leads, and ultimately increasing sales conversions.

The above has been a huge deep dive into the issue of fixing a sales team’s issues with converting leads into sales. By following through the various points from sales coaching, product knowledge, research, marketing, follow-up, preparation, and developing a USP, your team can begin to turn things around and become successful.