When sales teams fail to reach goal, it’s crucial for sales leaders to diagnose what the root cause is for poor sales performance. Through our Sales Team Science diagnostic tool, we’ve identified repeatable patterns that slow teams down and reduce sales performance.
Common scenarios include:
- Misaligned sales methodology shows up in inconsistent deal progression.
- Prospecting inconsistency creates pipeline volatility that forces sales teams into reactive selling.
- Sales coaching structures that lean heavily on pipeline inspection and limit sales skill development.
- Sales manager to sales rep disconnects weaken accountability and dilute shared language across the team.
The good news is that these are all solvable.
This blog outlines strategies sales leaders can deploy immediately to improve sales performance and establish consistency at scale.
5 Proven Strategies to Improve Sales Team Performance
1. Use a Sales Assessment to Uncover the Gaps
Sales leaders build momentum faster when sales strategy decisions are grounded in real data. Data-driven insight helps leaders focus on the behaviors that drive sales outcomes, rather than chasing symptoms week to week. A targeted sales diagnostic also clarifies where gaps exist across the sales organization, particularly between what leaders believe is happening and what salespeople experience in the field.
Sales Leader Action Steps:
- Deploy a targeted sales diagnostic or sales competency assessment
- Use the results to identify your top three sales behavior gaps
- Prioritize initiatives based on patterns that show up consistently across the team
A strong sales plan begins with a single source of truth. Once the organization shares the same view of sales performance constraints, sales coaching priorities become sharper, sales enablement becomes more focused, and sales managers gain confidence in what to reinforce.
2. Define Your Sales Process
Sales process becomes valuable when it is experienced as a shared operating system, supported by clear stage definitions and reinforced in weekly execution. Sales teams gain speed and consistency when sales process steps align to buyer milestones and when sales managers coach to those milestones with structure and clarity.
Sales process visibility matters because it standardizes how opportunities move forward. Consistency matters because it builds trust in sales forecasts, improves sales pipeline quality, and strengthens sales coaching precision during deal reviews.
Sales Leader Action Steps:
- Audit how your sales team defines each sales stage
- Align sales process steps to buyer milestones and decision points
- Create stage checklists or deal review guides tied to your sales methodology
- Reinforce the sales process in pipeline calls, sales manager one-on-ones, and sales team huddles
A practical implementation approach begins with stage clarity. Sales leaders can facilitate a short working session to define what “good” looks like at each stage, including required outcomes, required stakeholder alignment, and required next steps. Once those expectations are visible, managers can reinforce them through weekly inspection and sales coaching.
3. Build a Sales Prospecting System
Sales diagnostic insights often show prospecting as a primary performance constraint because sales pipeline health begins with disciplined early-stage execution. Prospecting influences every downstream metric, including opportunity volume, conversion rates, win rates, and overall revenue stability. A strong sales prospecting system creates repeatable pipeline generation and reduces the pressure that shows up late in the quarter.
Prospecting becomes reliable when it is treated as an operating rhythm rather than an occasional activity. A system also supports role clarity, so that sellers understand what “good” looks like for outreach volume, first meetings, and early-stage conversion.
Sales Leader Action Steps:
- Define weekly prospecting KPIs by role, including outreach volume and first meetings booked
- Create prospect profiles and value-message templates per segment
- Coach early-stage funnel strategy as a core discipline, reinforced weekly
A high-performing prospecting system includes clear segmentation, clear messaging, and clear weekly expectations. Sales leaders can strengthen adoption by pairing KPIs with a simple inspection routine, such as weekly prospecting scorecards reviewed in one-on-ones and sales team huddles. This builds accountability while creating a shared language around pipeline creation.
4. Train Sales Managers to Coach Behavior
Frontline sales managers drive consistency across the sales organization through coaching cadence and behavioral reinforcement. Sales teams scale faster when sales managers coach the behaviors that produce results, supported by a framework that gives reps clarity on what to improve and how to improve it.
A sales coaching culture grows when sales managers lead structured conversations that focus on repeatable behaviors, including how reps prospect, how they run discovery, how they advance opportunities, and how they respond to resistance. When coaching stays anchored in these behaviors, development accelerates and sales effectiveness becomes easier to replicate across the team.
Sales Leader Action Steps:
- Implement weekly sales manager-led one on ones centered on behaviors
- Train managers to use a sales assessment or competency-based feedback during sales coaching sessions
- Reinforce one core selling skill each week, such as objection handling or discovery
- Make sales coaching trackable by setting manager KPIs tied to rep development
A sales manager enablement plan benefits from simplicity. Sales leaders can choose one coaching routine for the quarter and reinforce it until it becomes habitual. A weekly cadence that includes behavior review, sales skill reinforcement, and targeted action commitments to establish continuous improvement without overwhelming the sales team.
5. Align, Reinforce, Repeat
Behavior change becomes durable through repetition, shared language, and sales leadership rituals that keep the organization focused on execution. Sales teams build consistency when reinforcement lives in weekly rhythms, scorecards, and coaching conversations. A next-quarter plan becomes sustainable when it is operationalized through recurring habits rather than one-time initiatives.
This reinforcement model also strengthens culture. Sales teams that celebrate consistency develop stronger execution discipline, better peer accountability, and greater confidence in how performance is built.
Sales Leader Action Steps:
- Review one STS data point in each sales leadership meeting
- Select one behavior to reinforce each week across the team
- Build scorecards around leading indicators that guide execution
- Celebrate consistency and sustained behaviors as part of the sales team’s operating rhythm
A practical way to activate this section is to set a quarterly reinforcement calendar. Each week has one priority behavior, one sales manager coaching focus, and one leading indicator tracked publicly. Over time, that rhythm builds clarity, reduces friction, and strengthens execution without requiring major structural change.
Take Your Sales Team’s Performance to the Next Level
Sales performance does not improve through motivation alone. It improves when sales leaders use these best practices to create clarity, reinforce the right behaviors, and build sales training and processes that sustain execution.
If you want a clearer picture of where execution friction exists in your sales organization, and a data-driven roadmap to fix it, contact Tyson Group to diagnose your team’s sales performance gaps and build your action plan for sales success.
