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Complacency is hindering business growth and costing your sales teams new opportunities, valuable accounts, and profitable relationships. Here are three signs of complacency in your sales teams and how to squash it.


Your sales reps didn’t start off their career saying “I just want to be good enough.” Most worked their asses off as they progressed through their sales journey.

They also didn’t start out with the goal of hanging on, doing enough just to ‘get by’, or ‘figuring out’ how to survive until they could inherit another sales reps accounts. Well, at least not in the beginning?

Yet, over time, most succumb to COMPLACENCY.

They learned that mindset and behavior. They learned to settle. The mind can be convinced of almost anything especially if it is being told the same story over and over again.

3 Signs Of Complacency In Your Sales Teams

If you aren’t worried about the problems nor the signs… why should your sales team be worried? As Alfred A. Montapert said: “Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.”

A Below Average LinkedIn Profile

I dare you… Look at each and every one of your sales reps LinkedIn profiles. Do any of them provide a clear path for visitors (your prospects or clients), sharing why they are the credible experts they so adamantly believe they are?

Your honest impression of what you just saw is the exact same thing your clients and future clients think… absolutely nothing! Zero, zip, zilch! Your thought process has been affected by spending 30 seconds spanning crappy LinkedIn profiles.

With the buying journey virtually starting out as an online search or visit to a website, my question to you is… How much business are your sales reps potentially missing out on because their LinkedIn profiles have a broken window?

Your sales reps come to work wearing business attire then why on earth do they look like this online? Would you decide to do business with any one of your sales reps based solely upon viewing their LinkedIn profile? First impressions do matter.

Question: What are you doing to replace the mindset of complacency ?

Below Average Business Growth

Has their complacency led to resting on the past fruits of their labor?

Sure, your sales reps must proactively manage their current account base. I do think it is fair to state that 100% of your client base isn’t going to turn over in a given year. They must take into consideration deals getting pushed or even worse losing an account.

Take notice and think about this one. If anyone of your sales reps lost one of their top 5 accounts, how would they get to their budget numbers?

Sales reps always must be on the look-out for new opportunities. You never know what may happen. This means ALWAYS BE PROSPECTING!

Losing sucks and so does a complacent mindset towards business growth. A healthy relationship funnel combined with a healthy sales funnel sure takes the sting away.

Here’s the deal, nobody on your team got to where they’re at by being average. So why now allow them to sit back, cruising through sales life each month? Where’s the hustle? Where’s drive? Remember back to the beginning of the journey, everybody worked their asses off.

Question: What would you do if your sales team had no current clients to sell to? How well would all of them succeed? Scary proposition, huh?

Below Average Relationships Within Current Accounts

If I had a dollar for every time I heard sales reps utter these words, “I have great relationships inside my accounts. Don’t worry about it I own this account they aren’t going anywhere,” I would be a freaking millionaire. Then KABOOM the account is pulled right out from underneath their complacent little noses.

How many people do your sales reps truly know inside every single one of their accounts? Of course, we want to stay close to key decision makers but what about the influencers, stakeholders, department heads, lower level management or even gatekeepers?

The more you know the more you grow. One never knows who knows somebody who knows somebody. Failure to spend the time to truly build effective relationships is a long term recipe for disaster.

Quite often, relationships are too shallow and narrow. Contracts are signed, solutions are implemented, end users are trained but few relationships are developed outside of the day-to-day contacts. These are highly risky operations.

Plain and simple: complacency is putting your organization at risk of losing their most precious asset, your clients.

 

About the author

Larry Levine

Larry Levine is the international best-selling author of Selling from the Heart and the…

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