Why your sales team isn't growing (and what to do)
When growth falters
Your sales stagnate around the same point. New salespeople don’t meet their targets. And your best people get frustrated. Recognizable?
Then you are probably at the stage where individual sales power is no longer enough. What worked in the beginning – a few strong salespeople bringing in customers on their own – is now holding back further growth.
Earlier we wrote that professionalization in sales starts with the entrepreneur himself. But after that, the organization must also move with them.
Strength of individuals becomes the brake on growth
In most SMEs, growth is primarily due to a few strong individuals. The entrepreneur himself, and a few key figures in sales, know flawlessly how to convince customers. They do so in their own way, driven, with great feel for the market and often with impressive results.
But exactly that success starts to pinch at some point. New people don’t make it, because what the best do can hardly be copied. Everyone works on their own little island. A culture emerges in which a few prosper while the rest struggle. That’s not scalable – and it frustrates both the entrepreneur and the team.
What was once your strength – entrepreneurial salespeople doing it their own way – now becomes the brake on further growth.
3 signs that you need structure
There is almost always a recognizable tipping point. The numbers are the first to reveal it: sales stagnating, profits falling behind, or targets no longer being met. But also pay attention to these signals: new salespeople fail to meet their targets within 9 months. Or: more than 70% of your turnover comes from fewer than 3 salespeople. Or: you increasingly hear “standardization doesn’t work for us”. The more of these signals you recognize, the more urgent structure becomes.
New employees immediately experience how difficult it is to connect without a clear structure. Successful salespeople get frustrated because they are the only ones getting results. And business owners see in the numbers that growth ambitions are not being realized.
One entrepreneur aptly summed it up, “It’s not scalable, we’re not moving forward together. You keep spinning in the same circle.” That’s when the old approach – handing out targets and relying on individual strengths – is no longer enough.
– Carlijn Cornelissen
Why targets are no longer enough
It used to work: everyone got their target, and at the end of the year you looked to see if it was met. But those days are over.
We live in a world where data, collaboration and strategy make the difference. At one client, they were increasing targets annually. On paper, that seemed logical, but profits remained the same. No one knew which customers were really profitable or where the effort should go.
Without insight, sales remains a matter of chance. And if your competitor is able to use every euro more efficiently because he does have insight, you are behind.
Reality check: grab your latest quarterly figures. Look at your top five clients in terms of revenue. Do you know their profit margin by heart? Do you know how much time you put in? If the answer is “no,” that’s your starting point. Because without this insight, you can’t steer.
The first step: insight and structure
Professionalization starts with insight. Where is it going well, where could it be better, and which customers really fit the course of the company? Anyone who wants to grow must know where profits come from, which efforts have the most effect, and how marketing and sales can reinforce each other.
They also understood this at the organization where profits were stagnant despite growing sales. So they analyzed their customer data. The results? A large part of their sales generated hardly any margin. Precisely the smaller customers were the most profitable. That insight changed everything.
They stopped blindly raising targets and mapped out their sales process. They defined clear roles, set measuring points, and focused on the right customers. Not to control, but to improve together.
Structure created direction and focus. Be aware that this is not a quick fix, but a structural change. It will take at least 6 to 12 months before you see the first results.
Why your best salesperson is rarely the best manager
The transition to a more professional sales organization also requires a different type of leadership. Many SMEs have a sales manager who was once the best salesperson himself. Someone who is a cooperating foreman, is close to the customer, and enjoys scoring.
But that role is changing. A good sales manager no longer gets his satisfaction from his own sales, but from the success of his team. He or she must be able to analyze, set up processes and make others better. That requires different competencies: more strategic thinking, less hunting instinct. The best account manager is rarely the best sales manager.
And changing the rules of the game halfway through the game without checking whether it still suits someone is asking for trouble. If you ask an experienced operations salesperson to suddenly become a strategic manager, the chances of success are slim.
On top of that, a professional sales manager looks not only at his own team, but also at cooperation with other departments. And that’s where marketing comes in.
Sales and Marketing: 2 sides of the same coin
Around the time the organization reaches its ceiling, the need also arises for sales and marketing to work better together. Whereas marketing used to provide mainly leads and external communication, it is now an indispensable link in the commercial strategy.
At a client in North Brabant, marketing and sales worked separately for years. Only when they started connecting the two worlds, did the dynamics change. Data from marketing helped sales to target customers more effectively. And insights from sales fed back into the campaigns. Marketing no longer became “supportive,” but guiding.
This shift does require something of your organization. Sales must learn to share data and be transparent about what works and what doesn’t. Marketing needs to get closer to the customer and understand what salespeople are up against. This requires understanding and time to get used to each other.
But the investment pays off. When both departments are working on the same goal, with the same data and insights, your entire sales organization becomes stronger. The modern sales organization is no longer a collection of individuals, but an integrated system that tells one story.
The human side of professionalization
Structuring is not a spreadsheet exercise – it affects people. Especially those who have been successful on their own for years. They hear the word “structure” and think, “control. But it’s not about control. It’s about clarity and grip.
At one organization, resistance came primarily from the most experienced salesperson. “Why change what works?”, he said. Yet his way was not transferable. By involving him in figuring out the new way of working, he eventually became the biggest ambassador.
It starts with creating an understanding of why professionalization is needed. Not by saying “you’re doing it wrong,” but by translating organizational interest into individual interest. Important here: structure does not mean lumping everyone together. You have to look at the task maturity of your team. The more experienced someone is, the more freedom. The less task mature, the more concrete direction. The goal remains the same for everyone, but the moments of measurement differ for each person.
And avoid positions of exception: when a successful salesperson is allowed to “keep doing their own thing” while others have to conform to the structure, it leads to frustration.
What you can do: do's and don'ts
Creating structure does not mean that everything has to be set in stone. What matters is that everyone knows where the company wants to go and what role he or she plays in it. Start small, learn along the way and build step by step. That works better than one big plan that disappears into a drawer.
Recognize this phase? These are your next steps:
START with:
- Taking stock: identify where things are going well now and where they could be better
- Checking profiles: look closely at competencies within your team
- Engage the team: make people part of the decisions
VERMIJD:
- Forcing and imposing from above
- Changing game rules halfway through without checking if that suits people
- Lingering too long on analyzing and planning
In conclusion
Growth rarely comes naturally. What worked in the beginning becomes at some point the biggest drag on growth. The strength of individuals is no longer enough; cohesion is needed.
Those who manage to find that balance between structure and freedom notice that results are no longer accidental, but scalable and predictable. And that gives peace, focus and room to really grow.
Get started right away?
Start with one action this week: map out where your sales are coming from and which customers are most profitable.
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