Sales Secrets

One of the most common behaviors in sales is the period-ending push, in which reps are pressured to make extra efforts to reach quotas at the end of calendar cycles. Conventional wisdom dictates that the axiomatic jump in period-ending deal closures observed nearly universally is evidence of the effectiveness of these behaviors. Yet our analysis of over 151 anonymized companies and 9.8 million sales transactions demonstrates that this pattern may be costing the companies studied an estimated $98.02 million per year in missed revenue. This number represents a potential increase of 27.21% in revenue per company if properly addressed. Strategies executed at the end of calendar cycles often unnecessarily alienate potential clients with aggressive sales tactics and encourage sales reps to procrastinate activities or pull deals forward. These counterproductive and often unacknowledged practices can be overcome by behavioral coaching, sales skill enhancement, and improvements to pipeline management and forecast stra