Your Sales Prevention Department | Sales Strategies

I have a question for you: do you have a sales prevention department? You most likely do and don’t even know it.

[bctt tweet=”Sometimes, sales prevention departments are in the most unlikely places.” username=”EngageColleen”]

A VP sales client of mine for a Fortune 50 company had a 6-year-old laptop that was slowing down. When he called the IT department about the problem and suggested getting a new laptop, they said, “We have a policy that said you cannot get a new laptop until your old one breaks. Call us when it breaks.”

Soon enough, my client’s laptop broke. He went down to the IT department and they said, “Why are you using such an old laptop? Why didn’t you come to us sooner? You should have lied to us if you needed a laptop so badly.” Now, he has to be without a machine for 2-3 weeks. This makes the VP of a company that has hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to be unproductive for that time because of a sales prevention department.

I would encourage you to look for the pinch points in your organization that make it difficult for your sales team to do the job that they need to do. Get your team together, brainstorm solutions, and you’ll minimize or eliminate all the sales prevention departments.

4 responses to “Your Sales Prevention Department | Sales Strategies”

  1. I have been in a number of industries, and consistently I see this. Co-workers will solve their immediate problem with a “policy” or “process” with little or no comprehension of the downstream affect on the sales team. Momentum is hard enough to get started, to create the sales inertia to facilitate growth in a crowded marketplace – internal speed bumps kill the Mojo.

  2. Great article!
    I experienced this problem before and knew what you are talking about.
    I hope this will help many who stumble into this situation every day.
    Thanks,
    Fawn

  3. I do agree with you. However, it has to do with so many other policies at all. I will give you one example. In a global company, the sales force is on Sales incentive plan and others are on the Annual incentive plan which is as per the global rating. Now it is very much possible that others can get the incentive without sales force earning even 50% of their incentive. If that is the situation, you will find a very strong sales prevention department in your company.

  4. On the things or situations that can hamper sales • Sales Seminar Philippines - DoubleDigitGrowth Sales Master Classes says:

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