Addressing Sales Performance Issues: Strategies That Work in 2025

Introduction

You had the right number of people. The pipeline looked healthy. Your team was putting in the work. But when the numbers came in, they didn’t add up. Again.

At first, it was easy to chalk it up to a tough month. But soon, the same problems kept repeating, like deals getting stuck, follow-ups missed, and even your best sales reps struggling to close. During your next review, no one could explain exactly what went wrong. And that’s what made it worse.

This kind of slowdown isn’t rare. In fact, nearly 84% of salespeople missed their sales targets last year, and 9 out of 10 sales teams didn’t even come close to hitting their goals. The tools are there. The training exists. So why does performance still fall short?

That’s the question this guide will help you answer.

You’ll learn:

• How to spot poor sales performance early, before results drop
  
  
• What really causes low sales (and what doesn’t)
  
  
• How to build a clear plan to help struggling sales representatives improve
  
  
• What top-performing sales teams are doing differently in 2025, and how you can follow their lead

Let’s start by looking at what it actually means to address sales performance issues, and why many leaders act too late.

What It Means to Address Sales Performance Issues

Addressing sales performance issues means identifying what’s preventing your team from hitting sales targets, and fixing it with clear, focused action. It’s rarely just about effort. More often, reps are blocked by unclear goals, a lack of training, weak processes, or incentive structures that don’t reward the right behaviors.

If sales representatives are active but deals aren’t closing, the root cause might be poor lead quality, missing follow-ups, or low confidence in selling the product, not individual failure.

To turn things around, ask:

• Do reps understand their goals and how to reach them?
  
  
• Are they equipped to handle buyer objections?
  
  
• Are they spending time on the right opportunities?
  
  
• Does the comp plan drive the behavior you want?

Sales leaders see real improvement when they move from symptoms to root causes, and support their team with the right systems, tools, and coaching.

Early Warning Signs of Sales Performance Issues

Sales performance issues often show up long before quotas are missed. These subtle patterns in day-to-day behavior are easy to overlook but crucial to catch early.

• Deals stall in the same stage for too long, often due to weak discovery, poor objection handling, or lack of urgency.
  
  
• Follow-ups are inconsistent or missing, letting warm leads slip away without a clear process to re-engage them.
  
  
• Forecasts constantly shift or miss the mark, signaling poor qualification or overconfidence in low-quality opportunities.
  
  
• New hires take too long to close their first deal, often because of unclear onboarding, product knowledge gaps, or missing sales support.
  
  
• Sales representatives seem confused about their goals, activities, or compensation, which can lead to misplaced effort and underperformance.
  
  
• CRM entries are incomplete or outdated, making it hard for managers to track activity or spot risk in the pipeline.
  
  
• 1:1 meetings feel reactive, focused more on firefighting than goal-setting, coaching, or progress tracking.

If you're wondering how to fix sales performance issues, early detection is critical.

Top Causes of Sales Underperformance

Burnout, skill gaps, unclear roles, administrative load, and misaligned incentives are some of the most common reasons sales teams fall short, even when reps seem busy and engaged.

These issues usually reflect deeper problems within your structure, training, or compensation, not individual effort.

Below, we break down the most common systemic blockers behind sales underperformance, backed by current research and examples. 

1. Product Knowledge & Training Gaps

A recent G2 study found that 26% of sales representatives consider their sales training ineffective. That means more than a quarter of reps are entering conversations underprepared, which directly contributes to performance gaps.

• Reps often rely on outdated talk tracks or rigid pitches that don't reflect today’s buyer expectations.
  
  
• Coaching is irregular or overly focused on metrics rather than sales skills.
  
  
• Onboarding rarely includes adaptive sales training that evolves beyond day one.

The result? Low engagement, open deals, and rising turnover, even among top performers. If teams want to improve outcomes, enablement needs to be continuous, contextual, and tailored to how people actually sell.

2. Pipeline & Process Inefficiencies

Even high-performing reps struggle when the sales process works against them. Broken qualification methods, manual tasks, and a lack of pipeline visibility often restrict closing deals long before they reach the final stage.

• When qualification isn’t standardized, reps spend time on leads that were never a good fit.
  
  
• Cumbersome admin work like chasing approvals or updating CRMs cuts into valuable selling time.
  
  
• Poorly managed pipelines make forecasting unreliable and allow high-potential deals to slip through the cracks.

If your sales process is slow, unclear, or inconsistent, performance will drop—no matter how capable your team is. That’s why sales leaders must optimize workflows to reduce friction and improve efficiency.

3. Incentive Misalignment & Motivation Issues

When salespeople don't understand how their effort translates to reward, performance suffers. Motivation isn't just about money; it’s about clarity, fairness, and alignment with the right behaviors.

• Reps may chase short-term wins that hurt the long-term pipeline if incentives aren’t tied to strategic goals.
  
  
• Confusing or opaque commission structures often lead to disengagement or mistrust.
  
  
• Teams with pressure-heavy cultures may hit quota once, but struggle to sustain momentum or morale.

If your team keeps asking how they’re paid or what counts toward quota, the issue isn’t the comp plan. It’s the disconnect between incentives and impact. Real improvement starts when rewards match the results that matter.

How to Diagnose Sales Performance Issues Effectively

Spotting that performance is off is only the first step. The real challenge lies in figuring out why. Without a clear diagnosis, even well-intended fixes waste time and fail to stick. That’s why top-performing teams use structured audits and data-backed evaluations.

Sales Audits & Root-Cause Analysis

A solid sales audit does more than flag underperformance. It shows where reps are stuck, why deals lose momentum, and what’s breaking inside your process, and not just who’s missing quota.

Frameworks like the 5 Whys help trace recurring issues back to their true source. For example, if deals stall in the proposal stage, you might ask:

• Why are deals stalling? - Because reps aren’t handling objections effectively.
  
  
• Why aren’t reps handling objections effectively? - Because they lack confidence in articulating ROI.
  
  
• Why do reps lack confidence in ROI? - Because training doesn’t include live objection-handling practice.

By the time you get to the fifth “why,” the real issue isn’t rep effort; it’s a training and coaching gap. 

Go beyond numbers by analyzing conversion at each funnel stage, time-in-stage delays, and rep-level consistency using tools like Clari or Gong. Pair that with qualitative inputs like manager observations or rep interviews to validate the trends you see in the data. 

When you uncover root causes instead of symptoms, coaching and process fixes actually stick, because you’re solving the right problem.

Key Metrics & Data to Watch

Quota attainment tells you what happened. Operational metrics show why. Digging deeper into stage-level data reveals where performance starts slipping, and where to step in.

• Track metrics like deal velocity, lead-to-opportunity conversion, and stage progression rates to see where deals slow or die.
  
  
• Audit CRM activity data like calls, emails, demos, to identify whether reps are putting in effort that maps to pipeline results.
  
  
• Measure engagement with sales enablement tools like Highspot or Mindtickle. If top reps are using it and others aren’t, that’s a signal.

These data points act like pressure gauges across your sales engine, telling you not just who is struggling, but where and how to help them improve.

Team Benchmarking & Feedback Loops

Low performance isn’t always failure; it’s often inconsistency hiding in plain sight. Benchmarking helps uncover that nuance.

• Compare rep performance across similar territories, average deal sizes, or product lines to expose patterns, not just exceptions.
  
  
• Use win/loss reviews to identify behaviors that consistently lead to positive outcomes, then standardize them across the team.
  
  
• Build short, weekly feedback loops into your manager-rep 1:1s to catch deviations early and correct course before it impacts quota.

When benchmarking becomes routine and not reactive, you build a system that continuously self-corrects.

Building an Action Plan to Improve Sales Performance

Diagnosing underperformance is only the first step. Real change happens when sales leaders create a clear, streamlined plan to support sales reps with the right targets, resources, and systems. 

Here’s how high-performing teams do it:

Setting SMART Goals & Defining KPIs

When reps aren’t given specific, measurable goals, they often confuse activity for progress. That’s where performance starts to drift.

• Use SMART goals that tie directly to key outcomes (e.g., 10 new qualified opportunities/month)
  
  
• Align KPIs with business-critical metrics like pipeline coverage, win rate, and deal velocity
  
  
• Monitor KPIs regularly to identify slowdowns before they affect revenue

When goals are tracked consistently and linked to compensation, performance becomes easier to manage, and reps stay focused. Tools like Everstage make these connections visible, so effort and earnings are always aligned.

Sales Enablement, Training & Coaching

The most effective sales teams treat enablement as a continuous process, not a one-time event. Skills need to evolve as buyer expectations change.

• Deliver scenario-based learning with platforms like Highspot to ensure reps can apply new sales skills where it matters, like in live deal conversations.
• Connect sales training content to real deals and selling moments
  
  
• Track engagement and coaching effectiveness alongside performance data

Effective sales coaching isn’t just about reps learning. It’s about seeing how that learning translates into better pipeline outcomes.

Incentives, Compensation, and Role Alignment

Compensation is one of the most overlooked causes of sales underperformance. If reps don’t trust how they’re paid, or don’t understand how to maximize earnings, they disengage.

• Audit incentive plans for clarity, fairness, and alignment with long-term goals.
  
  
• Adjust plans based on role (e.g., acquisition vs. expansion) and sales cycle length.
  
  
• Offer real-time commission tracking to eliminate shadow accounting.

When incentives are simple to understand and aligned to role-specific goals, reps stay focused, motivated, and confident about where to spend their effort.

Optimizing CRM & Sales Processes

A cluttered CRM is more than an annoyance; it blocks visibility, delays follow-ups, and breaks sales coaching workflows.

• Eliminate redundant fields and automate manual data entry where possible.
  
  
• Define clear pipeline stages and enforce close date accuracy.
  
  
• Audit CRM usage regularly to spot reps who need workflow support.

When CRMs work for reps and not against them, you unlock faster deal cycles and cleaner forecasting for leadership.

How to Conduct Effective Performance Counseling Sessions

Performance counseling is about clarity and support. When done well, it helps underperforming reps take ownership and improve in measurable ways.

Here’s how to make the conversation effective:

1. Start with data, not emotion

Anchor the conversation in facts, not feelings. Instead of saying “you’re not putting in effort,” show concrete examples, like a 25% drop in call volume or stalled opportunities at the proposal stage. Using frameworks like SBI (Situation–Behavior–Impact) ensures feedback is objective: “In last week’s pipeline review (Situation), you skipped updating opportunities (Behavior), which caused reporting gaps (Impact).” This makes the problem visible without assigning personal blame.

2. Create a safe space for dialogue

A performance conversation isn’t a lecture; it’s a two-way exchange. Set the tone by asking open-ended questions such as “What’s been getting in the way of moving deals forward?” Frameworks like GROW (Goal–Reality–Options–Way Forward) help structure the dialogue: clarify goals, explore current reality, identify options, and agree on next steps. 

This encourages the rep to own the solution rather than feel dictated to.

3. Uncover the root issue

Poor performance can stem from many factors: skill gaps, lack of product knowledge, motivation dips, or process friction. Use “why” questions and active listening to uncover whether it’s a capability issue (training), a will issue (engagement), or a resource issue (tools, process). This step prevents you from treating symptoms instead of root causes.

4. Align on clear, documented goals

Turn insights into action. Work with the rep to define 1–2 specific, measurable goals, e.g., “Increase discovery calls by 20% this month” or “Improve stage conversion from discovery to proposal by 10%.” Summarize the agreement in a written performance plan that includes goals, timelines, and success criteria. Share it immediately after the meeting so there’s a single source of truth.

5. Follow through with consistent check-ins

A counseling session is only the starting point. Establish a follow-up cadence, weekly or bi-weekly, to review progress, remove roadblocks, and recalibrate goals if needed. Document each touchpoint briefly (date, progress noted, adjustments made) so there’s continuity and accountability. This log also helps if issues escalate later and HR or leadership needs visibility.

When counseling is structured, documented, and reinforced through follow-up, it shifts from a one-off correction to an ongoing coaching process. Reps feel supported, managers gain clarity, and performance gaps close faster.

High-Impact Strategies to Fix Sales Performance Issues

Once you've diagnosed what's holding your sales team back, the next step is execution. Below are seven sales techniques that high-performing teams in 2025 are using to turn underperformance into consistent pipeline growth. Each one is designed to address the root issues directly, not just the symptoms.

1. Implement a Consistent Follow-Up Cadence

One of the most common causes of low sales is poor follow-up. Even warm leads go cold without a structured plan.

• Define a multi-touch sequence across email, phone, and LinkedIn for every stage of the sales cycle.
  
  
• Use tools like Gong or Outreach to track follow-up timing and prospect engagement.
  
  
• Set team benchmarks for follow-up rates and response times.

The fix isn't more effort; it's consistency backed by process.

2. Use a Proven Qualification Framework

Wasted time on bad-fit prospects drains pipeline health. Frameworks like BANT, MEDDIC, or CHAMP help reps qualify leads based on budget, authority, need, and timeline.

• Train reps on how to adapt the framework in real calls, not just theory.
  
  
• Use deal reviews to check how qualification data is captured in the CRM.
  
  
• Align the qualification stage with forecasting to improve accuracy.

McKinsey found that companies using data-driven sales processes and technology are twice as likely to grow market share by 10% or more. Qualification drives better outcomes across the pipeline.

3. Foster Peer-to-Peer Coaching

Not every performance issue needs to be solved top-down. Some of the most effective learning happens between reps.

• Pair low-performing reps with high performers for shadowing and live deal reviews.
  
  
• Encourage team Slack channels or regular roundtables to share call recordings and wins.
  
  
• Celebrate reps who help others improve, not just those who close the biggest deals.

Companies like HubSpot have embedded peer sales coaching into onboarding and report faster ramp times and stronger team cohesion.

4. Create a Culture of Accountability

Without accountability, even good sales strategies fall apart. High-performing teams make performance transparent and feedback routine.

• Use public dashboards to show activity metrics, conversion rates, and pipeline health.
  
  
• Structure 1:1s around progress toward clearly defined KPIs.
  
  
• Run regular team retrospectives to reflect and reset based on learnings.

This kind of visibility isn’t just for management. It gives sales reps a clearer picture of where they stand and where to improve.

5. Align Sales Activities to Buyer Journey Stages

A common mistake in underperforming teams is using the same message for every lead. Buyers in different stages need different conversations.

• Map out buyer journey stages and tailor outreach scripts and collateral accordingly.
  
  
• Train sales reps on how to identify signals of awareness, consideration, or the decision stage.
  
  
• Review deals lost in the late stage to check for mismatched messaging.

A McKinsey B2B Pulse Survey found that companies combining data-driven sales processes and technology are 1.7 times more likely to grow market share than those that don't.

6. Personalize Coaching Based on Performance Data

Generic coaching often misses the mark. Every rep has different strengths and weaknesses, and your coaching should reflect that.

• Use sales metrics to pinpoint where reps are struggling — for example, low meeting-to-demo conversion.
  
  
• Create personalized development plans based on real performance gaps.
  
  
• Record and review calls together to diagnose issues in messaging or objection handling.

When coaching is built on data, it feels more fairer, actionable, and motivating to reps.

7. Reinforce Best Practices Through Microlearning

U.S. sales teams spend over $70 billion a year on training, yet 80% of that content is forgotten within three months. Microlearning keeps sales skills sharp without taking the representatives off the floor.

• Deliver short sales training modules (3–7 minutes) on a weekly basis.
  
  
• Tie each lesson to real sales scenarios like price negotiation or competitor objection handling.
  
  
• Track content engagement through platforms like Mindtickle to connect learning with outcomes.

Microlearning works best when it’s ongoing and responsive to what’s happening in the field, not just tied to onboarding.

Sales Tools That Supercharge These Strategies

Implementing smart sales strategies is only half the equation. The other half is execution, and that’s where the right tools can make or break your progress.

• Gong helps teams improve in real time by analyzing sales conversations. It provides AI-powered insights into talk-to-listen ratios, deal risks, and coaching opportunities based on real calls, so managers know exactly where to step in.
• Highspot makes sales enablement easier by serving up the right content when sales reps need it most. Whether it’s during onboarding or just-in-time before a big call, it ensures learning sticks and messaging stays consistent.
• Salesforce Dashboards and HubSpot Reporting give teams a real-time view of pipeline health. From lead conversion to deal velocity, these tools make it easier to spot where sales reps are stuck and where coaching should focus.
• Everstage gives sales reps real-time visibility into their commissions. This keeps motivation high and performance aligned with business goals, especially when incentives are tied to quality outcomes, not just volume.

By integrating tools that support sales training, data, visibility, and incentives, high-performing teams create systems that reinforce good habits and drive consistent sales improvement.

Measuring Progress & Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Tracking progress is where many sales improvement plans break down. Setting goals is just the start; what matters is consistently measuring the right metrics and acting on what the data shows. Without that, even strong sales strategies lose direction fast.

KPI Tracking Over Time

Setting KPIs is only the first step. The real value comes from tracking how those metrics evolve over time. This helps you separate temporary fluctuations from actual trends.

• Monitor metrics like deal velocity, win rate, and activity-to-conversion ratios weekly or biweekly, not just at quarter-end.
  
  
• Break down performance by rep, team, or region to spot inconsistencies or coaching opportunities.
  
  
• Use dashboards to visualize progress and highlight early warning signs.

Regular performance reviews tied to these insights help sales managers shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive enablement. 

Tools like Everstage can enhance this by showing real-time commission progress alongside goal attainment, reinforcing a performance-focused culture.

Iterative Coaching & Feedback Cycles

One-off coaching or quarterly reviews aren’t enough to change behavior. High-performing teams rely on frequent, feedback-driven coaching that’s structured and specific.

• Use recorded calls (via Gong or similar tools) for role-play, objection handling, and personalized feedback.
  
  
• Combine qualitative inputs like peer feedback or deal notes with hard metrics for a holistic view.
  
  
• Schedule recurring check-ins to track micro-improvements and adjust the course as needed.

By embedding coaching into the day-to-day rhythm of your sales motion, you not only reinforce best practices but also keep your reps continuously aligned with evolving buyer expectations.

Conclusion

Addressing sales performance issues isn’t about pushing harder; it’s about solving the right problems. High-performing teams don’t wait until revenue slips, they act early with structure, clarity, and consistent coaching.

That means diagnosing the real blockers, setting measurable sales targets, aligning enablement with execution, and making sure every rep has visibility into both expectations and outcomes. Performance management isn’t a one-off project; it’s a system that ties data, feedback, and incentives together so improvement sticks.

This is where Everstage makes the difference. Beyond incentive visibility, it becomes the performance command center, giving leaders real-time insight into what’s working, flagging gaps before they widen, and aligning rep effort directly to results.

If you’re serious about driving predictable growth in 2025, don’t wait for performance to slip. Book a demo with Everstage today and see how comprehensive performance management should look.