If it feels like your sales engine is working harder than ever but moving more slowly, you’re right.
Across industries, revenue teams are burning through resources, chasing increasingly elusive buyers, and struggling to hit targets. This isn’t just a post-pandemic hangover or a reflection of economic uncertainty—it’s something deeper. Sales is broken.
And it’s not because your competitors are smarter, or because the economy is tough. It’s broken because the way we sell hasn’t kept pace with how people buy.
Consider this: the average quota attainment rate sits at just 43%, and in SaaS, even fully ramped reps typically achieve only 50–60% of their targets. The gap between effort and results is widening.
Here are the four big reasons sales teams today are stuck—and why the fix starts with rethinking the system entirely.
Lack of Process and Training
Too many sales teams rely on individual talent and ad-hoc tactics instead of a repeatable, scalable process. Without a clearly defined methodology—and ongoing training to support it—sales performance becomes inconsistent and dependent on a handful of top performers. Reps waste time reinventing the wheel, and new hires struggle to ramp quickly.
Why it matters: Without process, you can’t scale—and without training, you can’t sustain.
Sparse Market-Share Expansion
Most teams sell into the same familiar markets year after year, even as those markets get crowded and competitive. Without a proactive strategy for entering new verticals, geographies, or customer segments, growth stalls—and agile competitors step in to claim untapped opportunities.
And here’s the reality: almost every rep I talk to is seeing low single-digit conversion rates from outreach. Fifty attempts a day might yield just one or two conversations—nowhere near enough for a healthy pipeline. More isn’t fixing it. Attention is the new currency, and today’s buyers are distracted. Breaking through is harder than ever, and the burnout factor is real. Expanding market share means finding new, modern ways to get attention—because the old playbook no longer works.
Why it matters: If you’re not expanding your market, you’re surrendering growth to someone else.
Meager Wallet-Share Expansion
Landing the deal is just the beginning. Too often, teams stop there—missing the chance to deepen relationships and grow revenue within existing accounts. Whether due to a lack of coordination between sales and customer success or simply a lack of ownership, upsell and cross-sell opportunities go untouched, leaving money on the table.
Why it matters: Growing existing accounts is faster, cheaper, and more profitable than chasing new ones.
Lack of Leadership
Without strong, consistent leadership, sales efforts become fragmented and reactive. There’s no single owner for alignment, accountability, or development. In fact, 73% of sales managers spend less than 5% of their time coaching—leaving reps without the guidance they need to grow. Meanwhile, complex sales environments require navigating multiple stakeholders, long sales cycles, and cross-functional coordination; yet, much of this work goes undocumented, creating blind spots and poor forecasting.
Why it matters: Leadership turns strategy into execution—and execution into results.
The Bottom Line: Sales doesn’t have to stay broken. Over the next six months, we’ll unpack each of these challenges in detail and demonstrate how modern tools, including AI, can address what’s broken, build stronger teams, and unlock sustainable growth.
Because the future of sales won’t be won by those who work the hardest—it will be won by those who adapt the fastest.
