Expectations, Revisions, and Excuses on the Sales Team

Sunday, when the Priest was giving his sermon he said they (the Priests) compare mass attendance at the end of each weekend.  He said since everyone has returned from their summer vacations, Saturday night mass was full, the two earlier Sunday masses were full and this mass was full.

My wife and I looked around and it seemed to us that the church was a bit more than half full.  I thought there were actually more parishioners there in August than on the second Sunday in September.  Apparently, half-full is the new full.  They changed expectations in order to meet – expectations.

The same thing happens in sales.  Consider these five examples:

• Hitting 80% of the monthly, quarterly and/or annual forecast is hitting our numbers – success.
• A pipeline that is 75% full is a full pipeline.
• When half of salespeople hit quota it equates to strong sales performance across the team.
• When Sales Managers have any conversations with their salespeople it is considered coaching.
• When salespeople present a minimum number of demos it is considered hitting a milestone.

Nothing frustrates a CEO more than when the monthly numbers are not met.

The government is doing it too.  We saw the goal posts being moved almost daily during the pandemic.  The experts tell us what to expect for the monthly, quarterly and annual numbers for the Cost of Living, Inflation, Interest Rates, Illegal Immigration, Unemployment, and Jobs.  Then the “actual” numbers are reported, followed by huge revisions to what was reported a few months earlier.

Expectations continue to be modified in order to make the actual numbers more acceptable.

When this happens at your company, what do you call it?

I’ve seen this behavior before, I know what it should be called, and it’s not any different from what teenagers do.  [Note: The following account is fictional and any similarity to actual kids – either yours or mine – is purely coincidental.]

“Was there alcohol at the party?”

“No.”

“Were there drugs at the party?”

“No.”

Five years later, your kids are in their twenties and you learn that not only were there alcohol and drugs, but they happily partook.  And now it doesn’t matter because that’s what they do every weekend.

The government calls it a revision.

Your company calls it success.

Your kids call it a funny story.

I call it lying.

It wasn’t always that way.  It used to be that when the numbers fell short the Sales VP had to explain why, and the Sales VP would rationalize and make an excuse for the numbers falling short.  “We’ll make it up next quarter!” While it used to be excuse making, now the goals are simply revised downward.  Ironically, even with lower goals, the numbers are still not met.  Lying has replaced excuse making and lowering expectations has replaced publicly stating the strong goals.

Isn’t it time to move away from laziness, mediocrity and incompetence?

Image courtesy of rightwing.org