Missed targets lead to more pressure. More pressure leads to rushed conversations. Rushed conversations lead to fewer wins. And before long, the entire team is working harder but getting worse results.
In this short Insights episode of Against the Sales Odds, Lance Tyson and Victor Bilgen break down the cycle that keeps sales teams from reaching their potential and shares practical ways sales leaders can interrupt it before it becomes the norm.
If your team feels busy but isn’t making the progress it should, this episode is worth a listen.
👉If you’re looking to elevate your selling strategy, shift your perspective, and compete where the decision actually happens, this episode is a must-listen.
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The Human Sales Factor – https://tysongroup.com/books#thehumansalesfactor
Selling is an Away Game – https://tysongroup.com/books#sellingisanawaygame
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Listen to the podcast here
The Cycle Sales Teams Get Stuck In
Breaking the Cycle: Why Sales Teams Get Stuck In Failure Loops
For years that I’ve been in the sales training business, I never have believed that was always the main problem. I thought it was always other things. There was a combination of things that was happening. It’s a little bit more complex than just saying, “Sales teams, you need to perform better in this training.” As we brought Victor on, he said there’s a way we can measure this and look at sales teams. I was just so excited and it’s transformed our company as far as I’m concerned. Victor, I’m excited about what you’re going to share. This is great. As we move on, Victor and I are talking about this. There’s a cycle that sales teams are stuck in. Victor, I’m going to have you talk about that a little bit as you use yourself and wean your way in here.
Hearken back to the story you just talked about. This has been an interesting past few years of just diving into this with you and the team and our shared clients that we have been working through. The story feels similar each time. You could say it starts with that we didn’t hit the numbers or maybe it was that we did hit our numbers and we don’t know why. We’re looking for the levers to pull and continue to grow and move forward.
A lot of times, what we find is that these organizations will then turn to some easy levers. We’re going to change our compensation and our goal structure. We’ll change our team structure, move people around and when we do that, who do we move around to the top? It’s our bestseller. Now, those individuals are going to be our leaders on the team. As that happens, people get moved up. They’re good at selling. It’s a different skill set to lead the team. Some of the areas that were actual root causes remain and the cycle repeats again year over year. Sometimes, even within the year, we’re seeing these things change rapidly and constantly.
It’s so interesting about what you are saying there too. When these high performing sales people get into management, it’s very hard for them to translate their high performance to other people. Sometimes, they intuitively do things. They don’t even know how to explain it, train or hold people accountable to it. I don’t know if you even want to comment on that as the cycle repeats.
Again, what makes a good seller is different than what makes a good leader. That transition, a lot of times, is a missed step that we find within there. Ultimately, as we get to the punchline of a slide like this, what we’re finding is that more often than not, people are treating symptoms. The root causes are usually one or two steps below where those symptoms are occurring. There are things that people need to understand. The levers they pull can be deeper and more impactful if you take a step back and look at those things.
What makes a good seller is different than what makes a good leader. That transition, a lot of times, is a missed step.
The Architecture of Success: A New Lens On Sales Effectiveness
It’s so interesting. As Victor started to design this vision and as we talked, we came up with this concept of, how do we look at it? What’s that lens? As Victor and I were talking, I said there’s seven different elements to some architecture. It’s what the culture is with sales. That’s like sales leadership and how we communicate. What does the sales management look like? What’s the process for sales management or holding people accountable?
What’s the process itself look like? What’s the methodology? Methodology informs a sales process. Let’s look at the talent. Which seems to be the biggest thing that goes after these high performing sales teams? When you look at an enablement like your tech stack, what’s the result or the effect of the performance? Victor, talk a little bit about that lens and that architecture. The organizations are looking for the best result. There are organizations that measure outputs but never fix the inputs, as you said. Decision makers deploy training. Let’s look at the architecture.
As you pointed out, this has been a lot of iteration talking through these things. Testing it and looking at how it’s working within larger sales organizations. Ultimately, what we found is that there’s an equation to what you can look at to drive sales effectiveness and sales outcomes. A lot of times, organizations and leadership will focus on the inputs, specifically sales talent. Train my people to be good sellers, but as you look at this, there’s a lot more to consider when you take into consideration. Our perspective is that sales is a team sport.
We look at it in this way where you’ve got your inputs or your people elements. The way that you set the tone and culture, which we call sales leadership. The way that you manage goals, the cadence to which you connect with your team, which we see is sales management. The motivation and talent and capability of your actual sellers, which we look at as sales talent. What we found though and the reason we look at this way is, if you just affect that first rung. You still can’t effectively predict the outcomes of your team.
Organizations are looking for the best result, but many measure outputs while never fixing the inputs.
There’s a lot of variability in how the team drives their execution, which is why we then will look at key drivers within the team. Sales methodology, when we talk about that, asks what’s the approach the tactics that your team uses to sell your product or service? Within the sales process, we try to ask, how do you line up your internal sales stages to the buying stages of your customer? Sales enablement talks about the idea that you’re investing in technology and how well that technology is changing the way that you sell.
The big picture here, though, is that none of these things are individual levers. If you say, we need to do better, so we need better data. Let’s buy a new CRM or improve our reporting. You focus on sales enablement, but you still haven’t looked at the upstream things around how you would manage that technology. It just becomes another thing that people are focusing on and it becomes a distraction. Ultimately, that’s why we look at this as a flow. You want to be able to identify where the root is on where you’d want to drive better sales outcomes. They work together to drive sales effectiveness.
Fixing Inputs: Why Addressing Talent Alone Isn’t Enough
Victor, if you go back where you got the people’s input. That symptoms, in most situations, are more the same. It’s different. It seems that sales leaders attack that third wrong on the people’s side mostly. They say it’s the town. The town is the problem. Now, that town could be the problem because of how you hired it. It could be the people you’re putting in there.
Sales is a team sport.
Very rarely, we find as an organization that they work with sales management and sales leadership. It was interesting. In 2026, we launched a new program called high performance sales coaching tied to some of our assessments. For some reason, it’s taken off because it’s presented in the right way. That’s a big part of that problem because they usually address the sales town. Did you want to comment on that or make an observation on that?
It goes back to the previous takeaways as well. It’s the easy lever. We’re not selling because my sales people need to upskill. A lot of times, what that overlooks is the complexity of the sales environment and the complexity of what they are trying to sell and how that structure would allow for more consistency across your sales reps. Some people are going to hit because they’re great. Others will need to have that infrastructure to make sure that if there’s a pitfall on price or other things, that they feel supported and enabled.
Important Links
- Victor Bilgen on LinkedIn
- The Human Sales Factor
- Selling is an Away Game
- Download our Playbooks
- Schedule a call with one of Tyson Group’s member
- Check out Tyson Group’s Open Enrollment Programs
- Lance Tyson on LinkedIn
- Lance Tyson on Instagram
- Lance Tyson on X
- Subscribe to our Newsletter
