In my interim sales management and consulting assignments I have found 53 reasons why sales commonly falter in most companies. I will be publishing them over the coming five weeks in installments; this is the first. If you can’t wait to see the "rest of the story," take advantage of the offer at the bottom of our home page for the full list.

1. Killed your momentum? If sales go into a slump, look to your company's actions and find out what your company did or did not do three to six months ago. There are common momentum killing mistakes that can ruin your forward thrust but typically don’t show up as sales slowdowns for several months. One or a string of these and you have a recipe for disaster. Common momentum stoppers: changes in sales incentive plans, territory reorganizations, senior management changes, premature product deaths, and promotional programs eliminated to redirect money to the bottom line (talk about an oxymoron). Knowing what you did to kill the momentum is the first step in recovery.

2. Mid-year coach replacement? Did you make significant changes in sales management? Changing the coaching staff (especially sales management) in mid season isn't the best way to motivate a team. If you made the mistake, or had no choice in making it, get the new manager in front of every salesperson so that they know who the new coach is and what he or she stands for in their life. Of course, if the sales manager is the problem, changing the coach can invigorate the team.

3. Advertising blackout? Did the company stop lead generating activities about three months before the slump? If so, crank up the promotional machine to pull yourself out of the dive. When you stop lead generating activities you send yourself into a sales lead blackout and you're spiraling downward. Unfortunately it will take from three to six months to repopulate the pipeline, but you have to start somewhere. Start generating inquiries and leads (qualified inquiries).

4. Changed the incentive compensation? Has management has made changes to the incentive compensation plan? Move the food dish and salespeople will wander about trying to figure out how they will make a living. You should only make incentive compensation changes at the beginning of the year. If you made this mistake, go to the salespeople and make sure all of them know how they will be compensated. Explain why you made the changes. If they need a calculator to figure it out, you have made another mistake.

5. Senior management shuffle? Have there been significant changes in senior management, e.g., the president of the company? Sometimes changing the ultimate coach for the company will cause a downward blip in sales. Don’t make this sort of change in management without explaining it in detail to the salespeople. After all, they are the revenue creators for your company and they must feel good about the company’s future and leadership. This isn't something you can avoid, but you can mitigate it.

6. Lost sales reports? Find out why you are losing sales; make lost sales reports mandatory. OK, so maybe you don't have lost sales reports, then start. It's never too late to find out why you're losing more than you're wining.

7. Old proposals? Go back to every proposal (or a statistically significant sample) that you have made in the last six months and interview them to find out why sales are down. Why didn't they buy from your company? Was it price, the salespeople, delivery, features? Find out and fix it.

8. Why are you winning? Find out why you won the sales you won. Interview people that have bought from you in the last year and try to find out the dominant reasons for your sales success. Do more of the right things. Don’t assume you know the answer. Ask others.

9. Sales lead follow-up less than 75%? Look at the follow-up of sales leads over the last three to four months. Is there a problem? If you are not getting at least a 75% reported follow-up and disposition of sales inquiries, you have a problem. Follow-up has to be mandatory. If salespeople are only following up 25%, you are leaving 75% of the sales on the table for your competitors. The reason to set the bar at 75% is that typically 25% of the inquiries are being worked and are not yet into to the sales stages.

10. Resellers playing you for a fool? Is your channel using your leads to sell another company's products? Do a mystery buyer program by calling your independent sales channel and see who they recommend for your products. Fire those that don't recommend you.