The 12 Most Costly Sales Strategy Mistakes

by Rick Page, Founder and CEO, The Complex Sale, Inc.

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Research shows that less than half of all forecasted opportunities will close. A recent survey by CSO Insights found that 23.6% of forecasted deals are typically lost to no decision and another 30% are lost to the competition.

The good news is that there is something sales managers can do to improve these statistics if they work more closely with salespeople to impact win rates early enough in the process. Organizations with consistent coaching practices experience 10-15% better win rates than those that don’t. But if coaching yields such big returns, why aren’t most sales managers doing it more often? It needs to be a habit, a discipline.

In his book The Score Takes Care of Itself, Bill Walsh, Super Bowl winning coach of the 49ers and contributor to the Harvard Business Review, said that if he managed recruiting, training, coaching, and strategy, good outcomes would result a large part of the time.

by Rick Page, Founder & CEO,
The Complex Sale, Inc.

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The greatest expense in any company is lost sales. We don't realize it because it never hits our books - it hits the other guy's books. If you had to write off lost sales they would become visible and your CFO, CEO, and the analysts would be clamoring for better hiring and sales training.

Research from CSO Insights and 2011 showed that less than 50% of forecasted deals actually were won. About 24% stalled and bought nothing from anyone. About 30% were lost to competition. This is a huge failure rate on deals and sales reps that thought they were going to win.