Sales Improvement: The No.1 Growth Lever Businesses Overlook

Ray lang
Feb 25
6 min read

Updated: Apr 1

A dynamic, high-energy Wild West-style illustration of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in sales performance. The Good—a confident sales leader—stands victorious, representing strong execution, strategy, and predictable revenue growth. The Bad—a frantic, disorganised salesperson—scrambles in defeat, symbolising weak follow-ups, missed opportunities, and a lack of structure. The Ugly—a desperate marketer clutching wasted ad spend—shows the costly reality of poor sales performance. Success isn’t about more leads—it’s about better sales execution. — **Your business doesn’t need more leads—it needs better sales execution.** If your pipeline is full but your revenue isn’t growing, it’s time to fix what’s broken.

Pt.6 Beyond the Funnel: Sales vs. Marketing | The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

You Don’t Have a Marketing Problem—You Have a Sales Performance Problem

Let’s cut through the noise—you don’t need more leads, you need better sales performance. More leads won’t fix the fact that your team isn’t converting the ones you already have. More traffic won’t solve the issue of prospects ghosting you after the first call. And throwing more money at marketing? That’s just pouring water into a bucket riddled with holes.

The real problem? Your sales process is weak. Your follow-ups are inconsistent. Your team doesn’t know how to handle objections. Your pipeline is clogged with unqualified leads that were never going to convert. And yet, you keep blaming the market and marketing.

Sales isn’t some "support function"—it’s the sharp end of the business. It’s what drives revenue. When done right, it fuels sustainable growth. When done wrong, it stifles momentum, burns cash, and forces you into a cycle of constantly "fixing" things that were never the real issue. Every metric that matters in your business—revenue, retention, growth—starts and ends with sales. Fact.

So, what’s the real fix? Focus, time, effort, and a robust sales process. It’s time to stop making excuses and start optimising the one thing that truly dictates whether your business scales or stalls.

The Reality of Poor Sales Performance (And Its Cost)

🚨 Symptoms of a Weak Sales Process:

High traffic, low conversions.
Sales reps struggling to close deals.
Long, drawn-out sales cycles.
Customers ghosting after the first conversation.
Wasted marketing spend on unqualified leads.

🚨 The Financial Cost of Poor Sales Execution:

📊 40% of sales teams miss their target due to poor sales performance management 📌Spotio

📊 Companies that fail to improve sales execution bleed revenue through missed opportunities and inefficiencies.

If your sales team isn't converting leads efficiently, no amount of marketing will fix the problem.

The 6 Key Areas of Sales Improvement

📌 Lead Qualification: Stop Wasting Time on Bad Prospects

The Problem:

Your sales team spends too much time chasing bad leads—people who were never serious about buying in the first place. They’ll take your calls, nod along, and then vanish. The longer your team spends entertaining them, the fewer high-value deals they close.

The Fix:

Implement a lead scoring system to prioritise prospects who are actually ready to buy. If a lead doesn’t meet the right criteria, move on—fast.

Best Practice:

Use the BANT method—Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing—to assess whether a lead is worth pursuing. But here’s the thing: most businesses don’t know how to ask the right questions to qualify leads properly. If you’re relying on guesswork or gut feeling, you’re already losing.

📌 Follow-Up Strategy: Fix the No.1 Reason Deals Are Lost

The Problem:

80% of sales require at least five follow-ups, but most exec's stop after one. Not because they’re lazy—but because they’re uncomfortable. The fear of rejection, the lack of a clear follow-up plan, and the assumption that “if they were interested, they’d have responded” are killing your pipeline.

The Fix:

Build a structured follow-up process that removes the guesswork. Sales shouldn’t be left to “feeling it out.” Every lead should have a follow-up plan that keeps the conversation alive until a clear yes or no is reached.

Best Practice:

Use CRM automation (HubSpot, Salesforce) to track follow-ups and ensure consistency. But here’s the kicker—automation only works if the messaging is right. If your follow-ups feel robotic or transactional, prospects will ignore you. Your follow-ups need to add value—not just “checking in.”

📌 Sales Conversations & Objection Handling: Confidence Over Scripts

The Problem:

Sales crumble under objections, struggle with pricing discussions, and sound robotic using outdated scripts. A script-heavy approach kills engagement, leaving prospects feeling like just another name on a list.

The Fix:

Train your team to handle objections naturally, with confidence and adaptability. Sales is about understanding buyer psychology, not reading from a script. There are only ever three reasons a prospect says 'no'—People, Product, or Price (The 3 P’s). When you pinpoint which one is causing hesitation, you move back through the process and fix it.

Best Practice:

Sales teams need autonomy and empowerment—not rigid scripts that kill engagement. Instead of scripts, use conversation frameworks that give structure without limiting flexibility. Use case studies, social proof, and value-driven conversations to guide prospects toward a yes.

📌 Shortening the Sales Cycle: Close Deals Faster

The Problem:

Sales cycles drag on for months, delaying revenue and killing momentum. Buyers hesitate, push back, or disappear altogether.

The Fix:

Pinpoint where deals are stalling and eliminate the friction. If a deal is stuck, there’s a reason—either your messaging isn’t clear, your offer isn’t compelling, or your prospect isn’t sold on the urgency.

Best Practice:

Offer fast-track options for high-intent buyers. Time kills deals—speed closes them. Create a compelling reason for prospects to act now, not later.

📌 Sales & Marketing Alignment: Stop Letting Leads Slip Through the Cracks

The Problem:

Marketing generates leads, but sales doesn’t follow up effectively. Each team blames the other, and leads slip through the cracks.

The Fix:

Align sales and marketing teams on lead hand-off processes and shared revenue goals. If these two teams aren’t speaking the same language, your pipeline is broken.

Best Practice:

Implement a Sales & Marketing Service Level Agreement (SLA) to hold both teams accountable. But here’s the thing—an SLA is just words on a page unless leadership enforces it. How are you making sure sales and marketing stay in sync?

📌 Data-Driven Sales Strategy: Use Metrics to Improve Performance

The Problem:

You can’t measure what you don’t know you should be measuring… and if you do, how do you know you’re doing it right? Most businesses either track the wrong metrics or don’t track anything at all—leading to gut-feel decisions instead of data-driven strategies.

The Fix:

You need a way to quickly, correctly, and efficiently calculate the right metrics—the ones that tell the real story behind your numbers. It’s not about drowning in data; it’s about developing habits that make tracking second nature. Keep an eye on our resources page—something big is coming that will make the headache go away.

Best Practice:

Conduct weekly sales performance reviews and adjust strategies based on data— not assumptions. But let’s be real—how often do you actually dig into the numbers? Sales data is only valuable if you use it to drive change.

📌 Keep an eye on www.saldevo.com/resources for something game changing coming soon!

How to Implement Sales Improvement in Your Business

✅ Audit Your Sales Process

Identify where leads are dropping off in the funnel.
Measure win rates, follow-up efficiency, and sales cycle length.

✅ Train & Coach Your Sales Team

Provide structured training on closing techniques and objection handling.
Use role-playing and real call reviews to improve performance.

✅ Automate & Streamline Sales Operations

Implement CRM automation for follow-ups, lead tracking, and reporting.
Reduce manual tasks so sales reps can focus on closing deals.

✅ Align Sales & Marketing on Revenue Goals

Ensure marketing is generating sales-qualified leads, not just volume.
Hold joint performance meetings to review conversion data.

✅ Measure, Optimise, and Repeat

Track lead conversion rates, win rates, and sales cycle efficiency.
Adjust strategies based on real-time data insights.

The Real Business Impact of Sales Improvement

If you think sales improvement is just about closing a few more deals, think again. It’s about building a revenue engine that actually works. A predictable, scalable, and efficient sales process doesn’t just increase revenue—it eliminates friction, strengthens team performance, and keeps customers coming back.

Still think marketing will fix it? The numbers say otherwise:

📈 Companies that invest in structured sales training outperform competitors by 50%

📈 Businesses that improve sales execution see win rates jump by 29%

📈 Optimising follow-up and lead qualification can boost deal closure rates by 67%

📌source Spotio

Bottom line? If you’re not actively improving your sales process, you’re leaving money on the table. And worse—you’re burning cash on marketing leads that were never going to convert in the first place.

The Truth: Sales Is Your Growth Lever

Too many businesses chase leads when what they really need is a better sales strategy. More leads won’t fix a weak follow-up process. More traffic won’t compensate for reps who can’t close. And a bigger marketing budget won’t save you if your sales team is flying blind.

Sales is the sharp end of the business. Get it right, and everything else follows. Get it wrong, and you’ll waste time, money, and momentum—guaranteed.

📊 Want to improve your sales performance? Start by tracking and optimising the right areas.

Struggling to convert what you've got? Sales team missing targets? Stop guessing. Stop wasting money. If your sales process isn’t working, you don’t need another hack—you need a fix.