I spotted a post from a sales conference on Twitter this week that stated the number one issue for sales people is pipeline and certainly talking to sales leaders it's the number one issue they raise with me.

If your plan is at risk , short term you need to get hold of your prospecting and get your sales forecast under control.

It reminded me of the Albert Einstein quote "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."  The same with your sales plan.

If you haven't read it I highly recommend Dr. Carol Dweck's book "Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential"  It talks about "fixed mindset" which is a person that carries on doing the same old, same old.  And growth mindset, people that are willing to try something new and don't cling onto the past.

If your sales plan is at risk, I think that the templates of the past, is probably the best place for them, in the past.  Doing the same old, same old, isn't going to help.  NB:  Note this article could be being read by your competition, so you could be in a situation where you and your competition implement the same templates, where is the competitive advantage in that?

If your sales plan is at risk, you need to do something radical, move away from the past and stop downloading the same templates your competition use.

We are helping a number of organisations to implement a modern prospecting culture, in fact the sales leader has asked that his salespeople are self-sufficient in all elements of demand generation.

We also have experience of getting sales forecast to be 95% accurate.

We do this, using social media.  It's "free", your staff already use it and it's frictionless.

And thankfully it does not take a long time as the naysayers say. 

If your sales plan is at risk, when in a hole stop digging, that is the sales truth!