9. Not Doing Strategy Reviews

Focus on selling activities if someone is not meeting a goal. All salespeople want to meet their goals. No one comes in to work and puts in an honest effort with the hope of losing. Salespeople want to win deals, and it is management's job to help them find a way to cross the goal line.

This bit of wisdom is often attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "If I had nine hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first six sharpening my axe."

Salespeople can stay busy chopping with a dull axe by doing activities with no strategy in mind, and doing so without strategy analysis leads to bad numbers adding up quickly. Simply spending 30 minutes reviewing the forecast against strategy increases the win ratio.