COMMENTS
Really true. Many Executives bury their heads in the sand.usually this is to do with sales. There are always reason why business is not doing well and as long as they have an excuse they do not want/need to be told where problems are.
You last comment here has be thinking. Sales does get a free pass. I am wondering why this is. Is it just that everyone else hates the thoughts of doing sales that they allow the sales team to suck because there is now way I am going to do cold calling? Or is it something else? Sales is the lifeblood of a business and if the sales team is weak, so to is the company. Over the years running a small business, I knew sales was the thing holding me back. Working with Rick & Kurlan, it is now the thing launching us forward. I am only sad it took us this long to find Baseline Selling.
This brings up another question. Are these sales people just blind to their potential or is Kurlan just too hard to find? Why aren't they taking action to become better?
@Rose - you nailed it. Excuse making and the other culprit - ego. The egos are too big to admit they have it wrong.
@Dale - Much of the problem is that the senior executives don't know what they don't know, and when they do know, it's more painful for them to admit they don't know, than to fix the problem. It's also more painful for them to fix the problem than leave it the way it is - resistance to change.
Back again to Sales being the only profession people can work in without any training: would you send an accountant or engineer or doctor out to work the way you do salespeople?
The most common mistake I see are salespeople trying to convert 100% of prospects--everyone they talk to--into clients. It takes a long time, if ever, to sink in that many prospects are not a fit because they:
* do not have sufficient, urgent need for what you provide
* lack the budget for your solution
* are not a personality fit (#1 reason, in my opinion--one bad customer can ruin your business by taking up time, energy and money!).
Teaching salespeople how to qualify is probably the top action you can take to make your pipeline estimates more accurate; however, you have to get past the head trash of the individual salesperson first to stop them from trying to turn every prospect into a customer.
Dave, you made some very valid observations.
In some cases, the pipelines are not accurate because of a 'culture' of pipeline indiscipline and cover up. Here the Sr Executives know ( before they get trapped in actually not knowing what they don't know ) that some of their favourite juniors routinely overstate.
Also, some sales professionals understate their pipeline to avoid the incessant chase and undue-focus.
To echo your thought, pipeline accuracy is a very sensitive tool that tests / reflects the maturity of the sales organisation.
The sales pipeline is now a convenient fiction.
A sales appointment is no longer the start of the Buyer Journey.
Buyers are, on average, 70% of the way through their sales process before they contact any vendor (Sirius).
That means the majority of your potential sales aren't in your sales pipeline.
And never will be, unless you pass the online audition.
@Peter - your comments are on point, but apply mostly to technology providers, and provide a convenient excuse for everyone else to trash the pipeline. Much of what you read, and most of what other people write is either self-serving or not applicable across all industries because they work in niches.
@Gopal - thanks for adding your point of view. Nice distinctions between those who overstate and understate.
@Jason - so salespeople still do that? Yes, the untrained ones do...