Businesses often struggle with low sales, and there are several reasons. Fortunately, there are solutions for each of those reasons. Keep reading to learn about the 15 common causes of low sales and how to fix them!
Causes of Low Sales and How To Fix Them
Don’t just sit back and wait for sales to decline. Instead, stay ahead of the game by staying up-to-date with your competition. When you see your numbers drop, you should immediately investigate why. There are several reasons your retail sales figures may fall, and finding out why can be tricky.
Luckily we have compiled a list of 15 common causes of low sales results and what you can do to fix them.
1. Unseen Insight into Losses and Wins
How can you duplicate winning deals if you do not know the characteristics of winning deals? How can you avoid making the same mistakes? Analyze the sales results and find out what works and what doesn’t. Then, you can learn how to win more deals.
2. Shifts in Senior Management
When a company makes a major change in leadership, it can have a ripple effect on the entire company. These changes can confuse longstanding employees and cause new problems for newer ones.
3. Compensation confusion
Are your sales reps familiar with the details of their compensation plan? Your sales team might feel demotivated if sales incentives have been recently modified or are extremely complex.
4. Marketing has lost the ball
It will affect your retail sales numbers if your marketing team doesn’t have enough qualified leads. You should examine whether marketing has changed gears. Perhaps they have cut back on a successful Google Ad Campaign. You’ll see a return to growth in your numbers if you can get to the root cause.
5. Failure to Follow-up
It’s important to follow up on every prospect, no matter how big or small. Look at your CRM and see which of your recent sales opportunities have been neglected. If any of your sales reps neglect your most recent business, it could result in less revenue.
6. Recruiting incompetent people
Finding sales reps with the skills you need can be hard. However, if you hire someone passionate and willing to learn new skills, you may be able to train them. Look at your current team and see if you have the right people. If not, then it may be time to revamp your recruiting strategy.
7. Ignoring your competitors
Are you experiencing a decrease in revenue while your competitor’s sales are up? This strongly indicates that your marketing and lead generation efforts need improvement.
8. Unclear goals
Are your sales reps clear about the goals they need to achieve each month, quarter, and year? Your team might not be as motivated if they do not know what goals they have to meet each month, quarter, and year. Consider implementing a sales leaderboard to motivate your team to achieve competitive goals through gamification.
9. Failure to train your team
You won’t see the retail sales results you want if you do not invest enough time in training your team on how to become better salespeople. To ensure your workforce’s long-term success, you should provide extensive training on products, retraining on new products, and sales training classes.
10. Poor management of sales pipeline
You are not in control over your team if you don’t know every detail of the sales pipeline. Google Analytics can be used to track key metrics like the success rate of deals, pipeline growth, and other crucial metrics.
11. Poor time management
Your sales team should keep track of their daily activities and record them. This will allow you to track your sales rep’s progress and see how many meetings they booked, how many times they demoed, and, ultimately, how much money they made.
12. Marketing clashes
If your sales team’s numbers are low, or if your sales and marketing teams aren’t on the same page, you need to work on improving your relationship.
13. Tolerating bad sales performance
Is your team a true meritocracy or a mere revolving door? It can be hard to decide to fire someone and even more difficult to find someone to replace them. It’s not easy, but don’t let your team suffer and allow a poor performer to bring down sales.
14. Product downgrading
Sometimes price cuts can backfire. You can damage your margins while not increasing profits if you lower your price too much. Talk to marketing about raising the price or changing the product’s image on the market.
15. Wasting much time on unqualified leads
Marketing isn’t interested in submitting unqualified sales inquiries. Even a large number of leads won’t help your team. Your sales reps will waste their time chasing down prospects that aren’t interested in your product or have no purchasing power. Before you hand them over to sales, ensure you have a plan to qualify leads thoroughly.
Conclusion
If you’re struggling to increase retail sales, don’t despair! There are several things you can do to turn things around and improve your business performance. You can get back on track and achieve your bottom line by taking a closer look at your business and addressing the causes of low sales results.
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