Having spent the past twenty four years working in small and mid-size businesses as a senior sales & marketing executive or as an independent sales operations consultant, the question I hear over and over again from business owners is … “Why aren’t my company’s sales growing as expected?”

Based on my experience, I’ve identified 11 primary reasons why this happens.

11. The company does not schedule weekly sales meetings to gain market feedback and to guide, train and motivate the sales team

10. The company offers limited sales skills training and sales mentoring is non-existent

9. The company does not conduct an annual performance review with each member of the sales team

8. The company does not have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system in-place to record the sales team’s activity and results

7. The company does not have a sales pipeline management and forecasting tool

6. The sales team is not staffed properly

5. The company lacks a documented “sales process”

4. Sales performance metrics are not clearly defined

3. The sales compensation plan does not incent the desired behavior

2. The sales message does not differentiate the company from the competition

And last but not least …

1. The company does not have a detailed sales plan that is understood by everyone on the sales team


Smooth Selling Forever enables small and mid-size business leaders to generate significant, predictable, and sustainable sales growth. Based in the science of selling, when applied correctly and managed vigilantly, smooth selling produces revenue results in a systematic fashion.