So why is your sales team not hitting targets? In my experience it comes down to one or two habits in how they sell: weak qualification, discounting too quickly, objections surfacing late, deals stalling after the first meeting, no shared strategy, patchy follow-up, or what your reps quietly believe about price and rejection. Every one of those can be coached, and I'll walk you through each of them below.
Can I paint you a picture? It's the end of the quarter, the number is short, and everyone's around the table. Someone blames the economy. Someone blames marketing for the leads. Someone swears blind the big one is "just about to land." Everyone nods. And then everyone walks back out with the same pipeline and the same habits they walked in with.
I've sat in that meeting more times than I can count, and I have a soft spot for every person in it. They're good salespeople, stuck inside a pattern they can't see from where they're standing. Let me show you what changes when they can, with a team I worked with recently.
"You're the most expensive in the market"
This was a team selling complex, high-value solutions into organisations with serious budgets. Lovely people, a strong product, and not the cheapest in their industry. Not by a long shot.
So week after week, they heard some version of the same thing. You're too expensive. You're the most expensive on the market. Why would we spend that when I can get one way cheaper that seems to do the same job?
If you've ever been on the receiving end of that, you'll know the feeling. Your stomach drops a little, and every instinct says either defend the price or drop it. But the real problem was the customer's perspective, and the product had very little to do with it. They were looking at one number, the price, and nothing else. So that's where we started.
We began in the customer's world. We looked at their current solution and asked: where is this business missing out? Where is it not growing, because it doesn't have what my client sells? And then the hopeful version of the same question: how would it grow if it did?
We went looking for the invisible costs, the ones that never make it onto paper because nobody thinks to write them down, even though everybody's paying them. Next to them we put the gains, including the ones you can't neatly calculate but can absolutely feel in a business.
Then we changed three things about how the team sold.
First, discovery stopped being a box ticked in the first meeting. We stretched it right through to the end of the deal, so the conversation stayed on what the customer would gain as well as what they'd pay.
Second, we built eight to ten test closes into every deal. Small, easy check-ins along the way, so objections came up early, while they were still small and manageable, instead of landing all at once at the finish line.
Third, and this was the big one, we got the decision maker into the room early. It's lovely when the technical buyer and the people who'll use your solution every day fall in love with it. I mean that. But if the person who signs the cheque isn't there, they never hear any of that value. All they see is the price staring back at them from the proposal. So we did everything we could to bring the economic buyer in sooner, and to show them those invisible costs while it still counted.
We also got much clearer on who the team went after. Sharper ideal customer profiles, far less scattergun prospecting. And there was one rule I held them to, kindly but firmly: never walk out of a call or a meeting without an outcome. A real one, with a date and a next step attached.
And hey presto. Meetings started turning into deals that, honestly, wouldn't have happened the old way. Decision makers were coming into the room much sooner, often by the second meeting. The team was far more targeted in the customers they went after, and they were getting real traction and action. Deals closed faster. And they won deals they never expected to win, because they used what we'd practised on live calls instead of leaving it behind in the training room.
What changed underneath it all is simple to say and harder to do. They stopped selling the product and started selling the result.
So, what about your team? Here are the seven patterns I see most often in B2B sales teams and Irish SMEs. As you read, keep one or two real deals in mind, and notice which of these sound a little too familiar.
1. The pipeline is full of deals that will never close
A full pipeline feels like a warm blanket, right up until the cold sets in. When qualification is weak, your reps are carrying deals that were never really there: a friendly chat, a "sure, send me over a proposal," a buyer with no budget and no say.
The forecast looks healthy right up to the last week of the quarter, and then it quietly melts away. Be honest with yourself for a second: how many deals in your pipeline right now would survive a hard look?
One rep I coached made a simple change: fewer statements, more questions. Instead of explaining everything the product could do, he asked the prospect what was getting in the way of his team's productivity, what that was costing him, and what would change if it were fixed. And something shifted. The prospect started solving his own problem out loud, connecting the solution to the thing that was really bothering him. By the end of the meeting, he was selling it to himself. That's what good discovery does. Suddenly the buyer is hearing the answer to their own problem.
What's usually underneath is a discovery problem, and very often a who-are-we-actually-talking-to problem. When the team in my story got clearer on their ideal customers, their pipeline got smaller and better at the same time. Good qualification simply means giving your best hours to the people who are actually buying.
2. Discounting has become the default
The buyer says "that's a bit more than we expected," and before the sentence is even finished, the rep is reaching for a discount. Sound familiar? I see it all the time, and I understand it. Nobody wants to lose the deal.
But a discount at the first push-back tells the buyer two things: your price was never real, and there's probably more where that came from. It also quietly teaches your team that price is the only lever they've got.
Here's what I've noticed over the years. When a rep can't put into words the value the customer gets, they'll defend the price with a lower one, every single time. That's exactly why we spent so long on invisible costs with the team above. If you want to go deeper, I've written about how to handle price objections without discounting.
3. Objections surface too late, so the close becomes a fight
A lot of sales training treats objections as something that happens at the end. The rep presents, asks for the business, and then all the concerns come pouring out at once. Now the rep is defending, the buyer is resisting, and what should have been a decision has turned into an arm-wrestle. Nobody enjoys that, least of all the buyer.
I teach it the other way round: test close as you go. That's why the team above had eight to ten small check-ins in every deal. Each one brings a concern to the surface while it's still small and easy to talk through. By the time you reach the end, there's very little left to wrestle over, and the close feels like the natural next step.
Another B2B team I worked with kept losing deals at the proposal stage. Once they started test closing in the very first meeting, they walked away from every conversation knowing more: who was really deciding, what mattered most to the buyer, and what still stood in the way. That gave them far better footing for the final close, whatever was happening outside their control. You can't hurry a budget or a timeline, but you can still seal a deal.
So if your team keeps falling at the last fence, look back at what they didn't check along the way. There's more in my guide to how to handle sales objections.
4. Deals stall after the first meeting
The first meeting goes brilliantly. The buyer is warm, nodding, asking all the right questions. Your rep comes back buzzing, and then… nothing. Emails go unanswered. The deal sits in "proposal sent" for weeks, gathering dust.
Nine times out of ten, that lovely meeting ended without an agreed next step. I mean a date, a time, who else will be in the room, and what will be decided. "I'll send you something" doesn't count, and neither does "let's touch base." It's the rule I gave the team in my story: no outcome, no leaving. A meeting without a next step is a pleasant conversation, and pleasant conversations, God love them, don't pay commission.
This is one of the easiest patterns to fix, because you can see it. Have a look at your CRM today. Any deal with no next meeting booked is already starting to stall.
5. There is no shared sales strategy
Most teams have a sales process: discovery, proposal, negotiation, close. What's usually missing is a shared way of actually talking to the customer at each stage. Ask five of your reps how they open a first meeting and I'd bet you'd get five different answers. One leads with a demo. One leads with price. One sends a brochure and says a little prayer.
When everyone does their own thing, you can't coach it, you can't forecast it, and you can't see where deals are breaking. What I mean by a shared strategy is a common set of questions that uncover what matters to the buyer, a way of framing value in their terms, a habit of test closing, and a clear next step. It gives the team a spine, and it gives you something to coach against. That's what I build with teams in in-house sales training: one approach, applied to your own pipeline, so everyone's speaking the same language.
6. Follow-up is left to mood and memory
Plenty of deals quietly get abandoned along the way. The rep followed up once, maybe twice, heard nothing back, and quietly moved on, telling themselves they didn't want to be annoying.
I have real sympathy for that. Nobody wants to be the pest. But follow-up is often the difference between the team that hits target and the team that nearly does. It needs a rhythm: agreed follow-up points, a reason to be in touch that actually gives the buyer something useful, and an honest call on when a deal is genuinely gone. The best follow-up feels like walking alongside the buyer while they make up their mind.
7. What your reps believe about price, rejection and being pushy
This is the one most sales training skips, and in my experience it's often the one doing the most damage.
You can teach a rep the perfect qualifying questions, but if they believe asking about budget is rude, they won't ask. You can teach them to hold their price, but if they privately think your product is too dear, they'll fold at the first sigh. You can teach them to ask for the business, but if a "no" feels personal, they'll avoid asking altogether and call it being respectful.
Behind nearly every skill gap I see in sales, there's a belief sitting quietly underneath. I don't want to be pushy. They'll think I'm only after the money. If they say no, I've failed. No script in the world will override that. This is where my NLP coaching background really earns its keep. In 1-to-1 sales coaching, I work on the thinking underneath the skill, so the skill actually shows up when the pressure's on.
And here's a thought I'd love every salesperson to carry with them. There's a world of difference between pushing someone and helping them make a decision they already want to make. When your reps truly feel that difference, something in their confidence settles.
How to diagnose why your sales team is not hitting targets
You don't need a consultant's report to find the pattern. You need a few better questions and a bit of patience. Before you reach for a new CRM, a new commission plan or a motivational speaker, try this. Sit down with your team, take the last handful of deals you lost or that went quiet, and gently trace where each one started to slip.
You'll find the answers cluster. They nearly always do. And once you can see the cluster, you know exactly what to coach.
Two coaching questions to try with your team this week
Bring these into your next 1-to-1 or pipeline review, on any deal that's gone quiet, and see what comes back.
"What's the next agreed step, and who agreed to it?"
Watch the little pause before they answer. That pause is where the coaching happens.
"How did the buyer describe it, in their own words? What's it worth to them?"
Listen for whose words come back. If your rep repeats the brochure, they haven't really heard the buyer yet. If they can tell you what the buyer is trying to fix and what that's worth to them, that deal has a real chance.
I'd love to know what you find. The answers to those two questions will tell you more about your pipeline than most forecasts do.
TL;DR: why your sales team isn't hitting targets
If you've skimmed down to here, I don't blame you one bit. Here's the whole thing in a nutshell. When a team keeps missing its number, the cause is usually one or two of these, far more often than effort or the market:
- weak qualification
- discounting by default
- objections surfacing too late
- deals stalling after the first meeting
- no shared sales strategy
- patchy follow-up
- the beliefs reps hold about price, rejection and being pushy
Find the one your team is running, coach it on live deals, and the numbers start to move.
More sales guides
- How to handle sales objections
- How to handle price objections
- What is value-based selling?
- Consultative selling techniques
- Types of salespeople
- The top 3 sales skills
- Sales training vs sales coaching
- 6 questions to ask your sales team
Sales team not hitting targets: FAQs
What do you do when your sales team is not hitting targets?
Diagnose before you motivate. Look at the deals you recently lost or that stalled, find where they broke down, and look for the pattern: qualification, discounting, late objections, no next step, no shared strategy, weak follow-up, or unhelpful beliefs. Then coach that one pattern on live deals, rather than running a generic training day and hoping it sticks.
Is a missed sales target always the team’s fault?
Not at all. Markets shift, products have gaps, and targets are sometimes set with very little reference to reality. But those things affect every team in your market, and some of them still make their number. So put your energy into what your team can control: the quality of their conversations and the discipline around them.
How do I know if it’s a skills problem or a mindset problem?
Ask your rep to explain what they should do in a given situation. If they can't, it's a skills gap, so train it. If they can explain it perfectly but don't do it on a live call, it's a belief or state issue, so coach it. Most teams have a bit of both, which is why I nearly always blend training with coaching.
How quickly can sales performance improve?
Often faster than managers expect. Some habits, like ending every meeting with an agreed outcome, can change within a week if the manager holds the line. Deeper shifts, like how a rep feels about price or rejection, take coaching over time. The team in my story didn't change overnight, but once the new habits took hold, the results followed.
If any of this sounded a little close to home, I'd be glad to talk it through with you. I run in-house sales training in Dublin and across Ireland, built around your own pipeline.
👉 Book a free 15-minute call with me and tell me what's happening in your pipeline
📘 Read next: 6 Questions Sales Managers Should Ask About Their Sales Teams
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