Are You Running a Sales Prevention Department Without Even Knowing It?

If you are like most (and this time of year especially), you're constantly searching for ways to boost performance, grow the pipeline, and close more deals.
But ask yourself this: Are you just throwing solutions at the wall and hoping something sticks?

Are you focused on the wrong things, band-aiding the situation instead of fixing the root cause?

If so, welcome to the Sales Prevention Department (SPD), where leadership causes the very problems they’re trying to solve.

Leadership’s Obsession with the Wrong Solutions

When sales performance slips, the reaction is often to add more to the top of the funnel, invest in generic training programs, more AI or find that magic tool to "close more." But here’s the reality: That’s band-aid thinking. Many times, what's broken is far deeper than what any of those tools can fix. Think of an iceberg, and you are focused on what you can see - and not what's underneath. Unless you're willing to dive into those details, no amount of new training or software is going to move the needle.

I'll be the first to admit - a few people have run from my discoveries. I see their body language, or leadership or enablement squirm when I start to dig deep. Yeah, it's not fun when someone presses on a bruise - not at all - and especially when they ask seemingly intrusive questions you've never been asked before. I don't take offense to it - I know that this deep discovery is jarring and not "the easy button".

I bet that they think "who is this chick" - and "why is she asking me these questions" - "I just wanted the cost of sales training!"

Here's the thing - when sales leaders jump right into asking me - "how much is this going to cost and we know we have to bring in a methodology so what does the training path look like, or "we have to bring someone in because we don't have time to train or coach" - I know what they are doing.

They are product buying. They are band-aiding things. They are....checking boxes:

• "Let’s add more leads."
• "We need another training program."
• "What vendor has the solution to our problems?"

None of this is based on what’s actually broken. Instead, it's a scramble to show you’re doing something, anything, to fix the problem without really fixing the problem.

This is why many people come to me and say that they put their team through foundational sales training or training that was delivered via an LMS and I ask - "so what metrics moved as a result, or what behavior changed"? and I'm met with this.
Silence. (Not kidding - this was an actual call a few weeks ago and the Sales Leader said...I cannot think of one metric that moved - after YEARS of foundational sales training).

Dig Deeper: What’s Actually Broken?

Before you start reaching for more solutions or jumping to asking how it will all work, stop and ask:

1. What specific metrics are underperforming? Is it conversion rates, conversions by stage?.... time-to-close getting a lot longer, rep productivity, reps having to discount to get the business or something else entirely? If you don’t know the exact numbers, you’re treating symptoms, not the disease. If you send someone on your team to vet a solution and the team member doesn't know these numbers and the rep doesn't ask - DON'T BUY.
2. Why are these metrics off? Really think here! Is it the rep, do they know what business problems we solve - unequivocally, are our reps leading a technical discovery, WOULD I BUY FROM THEM? If you can’t pinpoint what’s causing the problem, and the rep trying to sell you a blanket fix can't either - RUN. More leads or another tool isn’t going to solve it.

The Problem with "Easy Button" Thinking

I'm an active seller and a trainer - so I'm in an active sales seat selling into Sales Leadership and I could write a book on what I see (that tea is kept to myself tho).

SOME Leadership and enablement teams want the easy button—add more top of funnel, bring in a vendor for training, or install the latest software - I know, because I have to share why I'm asking these deep discovery questions over multiple and hear all the time - "no one ever asks us this".

I'm trying to help you determine if bringing in someone from the outside IS even worth it, if it will move specific metrics and if you should change at all.
I'm trying to help you avoid wasting money on the easy button that won't actually fix things - but it may provide temporarily relief.

The Sales Fixing Department: Where Real Leadership Happens

Leadership isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing what moves the needle. So if you're serious about solving problems, let's focus on the metrics that matter and avoid the temptation to stay at the top of the iceberg.

Start by identifying what’s broken, get real deep. Be leery of vendors who stay super surface level and don't want to get in deep to know your business.
In fact, run from these calls.

Ensure that any vendor you interact with truly understands your business problems, what's going on in your business, what happens if you don't make a change and how their solution will tie back to the metrics that you have to move.
Leaders in the Sales Fixing Department at minimum:

• Don't send someone else on the team to vet options, unless those vetting options HAVE intimately knowledge of the inner workings of the team
• Know the metrics that are lagging and are on an active journey to fix it - no matter what
• Get buy in from those who will have to change the most - often that's reps and middle management for active reinforcement
• Understand that a vendor/partner/3rd party has to conduct a problem-centric discovery that dives deep into your business problems, and that the vendor is able to articulate the root causes, the plan to fix them and how their product directly impacts your metrics. If they start with their product or stay in the technical side - MOVE ON. They don't get your business.

So, which side are you on—Sales Prevention or Sales Fixing? It's time to decide.