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RandyLahey profile picture

RandyLahey

Account Executive

Politicker
Acclaimed Answer
Valued Contributor
+6

What are some seemingly simple things that can totally derail a sales team if broken?

Happy friday my fellow savages.
TLDR: What are simple things that if broken, threaten to destroy morale and upend your sales team?

Our entire national sales team is currently experiencing an issue with our internal order/sales tracking software. 

This means our numbers as they relate to our quota achievement are out of sync. Naturally, this is causing major frustration across teams. 

We have high volume, so yes there's lots of data to process but I can't help but feel the fix is relatively straightforward. Yet it remains unfixed. 

This has me thinking; what are some other examples of things seemingly so simple, but if they break, or stop working, can truly derail a sales team? 
🏰 War Stories
18

34 comments

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Kosta_Konfucius
Politicker
9
Sales Rep
A wifi/computer that doesn’t have the bandwidth to have a good connection for constant video calls

Ruins every meeting
Revenue_Rambo
Politicker
6
Director, Revenue Enablement
Blows my mind how many reps I know who will complain about having shitty wifi, but wont spend the extra $20/month to upgrade to faster speed.
Kosta_Konfucius
Politicker
5
Sales Rep
Its not a plus but a need. You literally can’t do your job
RandyLahey
Politicker
3
Account Executive
Oh man this seemed so obvious I didn’t even think of it…
antiASKHOLE
Tycoon
2
Bravado's Resident Asshole
Yeah, this is such a crucial piece.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
5
🦊
💯
1
Retired Sales Professional
🤣
J.J.McLure
Politicker
4
Owner at *redacted*
1- Managers giving special treatment to certain reps. eg. Not having to use the CRM, allowed to give bigger discounts on regular deals
2- Screwing around with commissions
RandyLahey
Politicker
1
Account Executive
Both great suggestions JJ
BTQ
Politicker
4
Account Manager
Email spam filters. I can't tell you how many times my emails get blocked from interested prospects and I have to track them down via phone
GDO
Politicker
1
BDM
that sounds horrible
RandyLahey
Politicker
0
Account Executive
Don't you love adding to your workload with mindless manual data harvesting?
Phillip_J_Fry
Opinionated
4
Director of Revenue
Communication. I've been in orgs that makes me feel like I'm in Office Space. 9 different bosses swing by to talk to me about cover pages on my TPS reports.
CadenceCombat
Tycoon
4
Account Executive
Inbound lead rotation.

If it feels like the system is being manipulated, I’m going to invest as much time as it takes to figure out how / why I’m being fucked over instead of prospecting or closing deals.
RandyLahey
Politicker
2
Account Executive
Funny, that’s happened to me in the past as well…deeply demoralizing.
Revenue_Rambo
Politicker
3
Director, Revenue Enablement
Believing that everything requires "training".
Some thing just need a damn email and a few instructions. Constantly taking a sales team off the floor to "train" is a complete waste of time and drain on resources.
RandyLahey
Politicker
2
Account Executive
Friction always helps sales rep sell right?
HappyGilmore
Politicker
3
Account Executive
Having a demo org that lags in speed. It can be a little embarrassing to be on a call and have the demo product not work/be slow as molasses.
RandyLahey
Politicker
3
Account Executive
Yeup that’s a good one! Our software always lags when we share our screens on Zoom. Not a great look.
HappyGilmore
Politicker
3
Account Executive
Had one recently where it was working just fine, but clicked on something within the platform only to find out nothing was working.
It's always a treat seeing demo org issues come through in Slack
wolfofmiami
Opinionated
3
🐺
the coffee maker
RandyLahey
Politicker
1
Account Executive
Solid choice.
jefe
Arsonist
3
🍁
Similar to what you're experiencing, my first thought was anything related to compensation.
RandyLahey
Politicker
2
Account Executive
Utterly demoralizing…
pirate
Big Shot
3
🦜☠️ Account Executive
Decelerators
SoccerandSales
Big Shot
2
Account Executive
Whatever you use for contract creation being out is one of the worst
RandyLahey
Politicker
3
Account Executive
Oh I had at this at previous role it drove me nuts. They wouldn’t pay for Adobe Pro to boot…
SoccerandSales
Big Shot
3
Account Executive
BRUTAL
BigShrimpin
Catalyst
2
Account executive
promoting the top rep for their performance and finding out theyre a terrible manager
RandyLahey
Politicker
1
Account Executive
Classic! Let's burn out the top rep, make them manager, make them make less money, then bring them back down to AE/AM.
FoodForSales
Politicker
1
AE
commission caps
Justatitle
Big Shot
1
Account Executive
lack of demand gen work
pizzawithasideofsales
Opinionated
1
Senior Account Executive
Discrepancies between “official processes” that salesops/enablement wants to push vs what reps are doing to actually close deals — this gap makes it really hard to scale and understand why certain reps are preforming and others aren’t
unclespacejam
Politicker
0
ur dad’s brother
Colleague who helps “train” our new hires by having them do all of his qualification calls/ demo calls and then has them pass up opps so he can run their credit card. Fuckin scumbag thinks he’s the real deal

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