Why 57% of Sales Professionals Won’t Hit Quota

A massive 57% of sales professionals are set to miss quota. (Forbes)

It’s easy to blame external factors—economic shifts, skill shortages, supply chain issues. And while these challenges are real, there’s a hidden culprit that rarely gets mentioned…

Inconsistent proactive sales habits.

And here’s the truth bomb: this isn’t just a challenge for underperformers—it’s a challenge for EVERYONE, even those of us who live and breathe sales.

1. High-Performance Sales Habits: Small Actions, Big Results

The challenge often isn’t that sales teams don’t know what to do; it’s that we get caught up in the day job, the emails, the client calls, the customer service issues, and we, therefore, struggle to be proactive. 

We all need to understand the art of building sustainable, proactive sales habits. 

If you do 10 minutes of proactive sales each day, that’s 50 minutes a week, 200 minutes a month, and if you have five sales professionals, that’s 1000 minutes as a team. You cannot tell me that your sales would not start to soar if you had 1000 minutes of proactive sales activity a month. 

2. Go back to basics

One of the biggest mistakes when I started Sales Redefined, was focusing too much on the big, juicy, complex sales strategies such as new products, new verticals, new markets. With 100% confidence, I can say that if you want to find the pot of gold, then target the low hanging fruit.

 Also, common sense isn’t common practice. 

80% of sales take 5 follows ups or more, yet 44% of people only follow up once. Need I say more? 

Another goodie is Follow Up Friday! Most of our clients have implemented it as a positive, back to basics habit and have a tonne of fun with it along the way. 

3. A positive accountability culture 

No sales professional likes an overload of reviews and cadence. 

The goal is to create a positive culture of accountability collectively as a sales force to raise the bar. 

One of the quickest ways to change a habit is to hang out with people where that behaviour is the norm. How can we raise the standard, set the bar and spur each other on, especially on the days when we don’t feel like it?

The 4 Disciplines of Execution methodology suggests having a scoreboard and weekly check-in, as we all know we play differently when we keep score. 

The task for sales managers is to do this in an uplifting and positive way that the team can embrace (remember, no one likes a micromanager). 

So, What’s the Fix?

Success in sales isn’t about knowing what to do—it’s about doing it consistently.