The Sales Manager’s Playbook: 10 Proven Strategies to Transform Underperforming Teams

Every sales manager has been there: staring at disappointing numbers, watching talented reps struggle, and feeling the weight of missed targets. But here’s the reality most won’t tell you—sales underperformance isn’t about lazy reps or bad luck. It’s about systems, leadership, and the invisible barriers that prevent your team from reaching their potential.

After analyzing thousands of sales teams and interviewing top performers across industries, I’ve identified the core strategies that separate thriving sales organizations from those that merely survive. This isn’t theory—it’s a practical roadbook for sales managers ready to drive real change.

1. Diagnose the Real Problem: Demand-Zero vs. Availability-Zero

Before you can fix anything, you need to understand what’s actually broken. Most sales managers make the critical mistake of treating all sales problems the same way. There are actually two distinct types of zero-sales scenarios:

Demand-Zero: Your market simply doesn’t want what you’re selling. The product-market fit is off, your messaging doesn’t resonate, or you’re targeting the wrong audience entirely. No amount of sales activity will fix a fundamental demand problem.

Availability-Zero: There’s market demand, but your team isn’t reaching the right buyers or engaging them effectively. The product is solid, but your sales execution is falling short.

The fix is completely different for each scenario. If you’re dealing with Demand-Zero, you need to revisit your ideal customer profile, refine your value proposition, or even pivot your approach to the market. If it’s Availability-Zero, focus on sales process improvements, better prospecting, and enhanced rep training.

Action Step: Spend 30 minutes this week analyzing your last 20 lost deals. Are prospects saying “not interested” (demand issue) or “not now” (availability issue)? The pattern will tell you everything.

2. Master the Five Whys to Uncover Root Causes

When sales numbers drop, most managers stop at surface-level analysis: “Our reps didn’t make enough calls.” But that’s like treating a fever without diagnosing the infection. The Five Whys technique forces you to dig deeper:

• Why didn’t we hit our target?
• Why did lead generation drop?
• Why was outreach activity low?
• Why was team motivation down?
• Why weren’t goals clear?

This simple framework consistently reveals that “rep problems” are actually leadership, process, or system problems in disguise. I’ve seen teams transform their performance simply by addressing the root cause that the Five Whys revealed.

Action Step: In your next team meeting, pick one underperformance area and walk through the Five Whys together. Make it collaborative—your reps often have insights that will surprise you.

3. Shift Your Focus from Lagging to Leading Indicators

Here’s a sobering statistic: according to recent research, 67% of sales reps don’t expect to meet their quota. But here’s what’s even more telling—most sales managers are still primarily measuring and managing lagging indicators like closed revenue instead of the leading indicators that actually predict success.

Leading indicators include:

• Daily prospecting activities
• Quality of discovery calls
• Follow-up consistency
• Pipeline velocity metrics
• Engagement rates with prospects

When you manage and coach to these daily behaviors, the revenue results take care of themselves. When you only focus on monthly revenue, you’re always playing catch-up.

Action Step: Create a simple daily scorecard for each rep that tracks 3-4 leading indicators. Review these weekly alongside revenue metrics. You’ll catch problems weeks before they show up in your pipeline.

4. Adapt to the Modern Buyer’s Reality

The buying landscape has fundamentally changed. Today’s buyers are:

• More skeptical and risk-averse
• Involving more stakeholders in decisions
• Taking longer to make purchasing decisions
• Overwhelmed with vendor options
• Demanding clear ROI justification

Yet many sales teams are still using tactics from five years ago. Your reps need to evolve their approach to match where buyers actually are, not where they used to be.

Modern sales success requires:

• Deeper research before outreach
• Value-driven messaging that addresses specific pain points
• Multi-stakeholder engagement strategies
• ROI-focused presentations
• Longer nurturing sequences

Action Step: Have each rep identify their top 10 prospects and create buyer personas for each key stakeholder involved in the decision. Use this to craft more targeted, relevant outreach.

5. Eliminate the Productivity Killers

Your reps are drowning in non-selling activities. CRM data entry, internal meetings, Slack notifications, reporting—all of this eats into actual selling time. Research shows that top-performing reps spend 35% more time on customer-facing activities than their underperforming peers.

Conduct a time audit to identify where your team’s hours actually go. You’ll likely discover that reps are spending less than 30% of their time on revenue-generating activities. That’s not a rep problem—it’s a systems problem.

Action Step: For one week, have each rep track their time in 30-minute blocks. Categorize activities as “revenue-generating” or “administrative.” Then systematically eliminate or automate the biggest time wasters.

6. Address the Psychology of Sales Performance

Sales is fundamentally a confidence game. When reps experience rejection, setbacks, or uncertainty, their performance suffers in ways that compound over time. A rep who’s afraid of rejection will procrastinate on prospecting. A rep who doesn’t fully believe in the product will struggle to overcome objections.

The most successful sales managers recognize that mindset coaching is just as important as skills coaching. This means:

• Addressing fear and limiting beliefs directly
• Celebrating effort and improvement, not just results
• Creating psychological safety for reps to discuss challenges
• Building genuine confidence through competence

Action Step: In your next 1-on-1, ask each rep: “What’s one thing about selling that makes you feel uncertain or uncomfortable?” Then work together to address it.

7. Diversify Your Revenue Streams

High-performing sales organizations don’t put all their eggs in the new customer acquisition basket. They build multiple revenue streams:

• New customer acquisition
• Account expansion and upselling
• Customer renewals and retention
• Partner and referral revenue
• Service and consulting add-ons

Teams that focus exclusively on hunting new business often find themselves on an exhausting feast-or-famine cycle. Diversified revenue is more predictable and sustainable.

Action Step: Map out all possible revenue streams for your team. Assign specific ownership and targets for each stream, not just new business.

8. Make Coaching Systematic, Not Random

Most sales coaching happens reactively—when there’s a problem or a big deal at risk. But the highest-impact coaching is proactive and systematic. It’s about:

• Regular, structured 1-on-1s with clear agendas
• Call and email review sessions
• Specific, actionable feedback
• Skills development planning
• Progress tracking over time

Use frameworks like “Start/Stop/Continue” to make coaching conversations more productive. Focus on 1-2 specific improvements rather than trying to fix everything at once.

Action Step: Block 30 minutes weekly with each rep for structured coaching. Create a simple template to ensure consistency and track progress over time.

9. Hire for the Modern Sales Environment

If you’re still hiring based on traditional sales experience and confidence, you’re probably hiring the wrong people. The modern sales environment requires different skills:

• Adaptability over rigid experience
• Curiosity over aggressive pushiness
• Tech-savviness over relationship-only focus
• Process discipline over winging it
• Resilience over thin skin

Update your interview process to test these qualities. Use role-playing scenarios, problem-solving questions, and behavioral interviews to assess real capabilities.

Action Step: Review your last three sales hires. Which qualities predicted success, and which didn’t? Use this insight to refine your hiring criteria.

10. Own Your Leadership Impact

The hardest truth for any sales manager: your team’s performance is a direct reflection of your leadership. Consistent underperformance usually traces back to:

• Unclear expectations and goals
• Inconsistent standards and accountability
• Inadequate training and development
• Poor communication and feedback
• Misaligned incentives and motivation

But here’s the empowering flip side—this means you have the power to fix it. Every system, process, and cultural element that impacts your team’s performance is within your control to influence.

Action Step: Ask yourself honestly: “If I were a rep on my team, what would frustrate me most about how this team is managed?” Then commit to addressing those issues.

The Path Forward

Transforming sales performance isn’t about finding the one magic solution—it’s about systematically addressing the multiple factors that influence success. Start with diagnosis, fix the biggest bottlenecks first, and build momentum through consistent improvement.

Remember: every sales slump is also a leadership opportunity. The managers who embrace this mindset, who dig deep into root causes and make bold changes, are the ones who build truly exceptional sales teams.

Your reps are capable of more than they’re currently achieving. The question is: are you ready to create the conditions that will unleash their potential?

The choice is yours. The roadmap is clear. The only question left is: when will you start?