When sales fall short, the first response is often more activity: more meetings, more leads, more partners, or more pressure on the team. Before choosing an intervention, establish which constraint that activity is supposed to remove.

Start with the customer’s decision

What would make the customer buy, and what is stopping them? A company may be solving a real problem without explaining its value clearly. It may have a relevant offer but lack access to the right buyers. Or customers may be interested while remaining uncertain about delivery, implementation, or the consequences of changing suppliers.

These possibilities call for different work. A larger prospect list will not by itself resolve uncertainty about delivery. A new partner program will not repair an offer that customers do not value.

Choose the intervention after you understand the constraint.

Examine four connected questions

  1. Relevance. Which customer problem matters enough to justify action, and what evidence shows that your offer addresses it?
  2. Access. Can the business reach the people who influence the decision, through the channels they use and trust?
  3. Confidence. What does the customer need to believe about value, risk, delivery, and the people responsible?
  4. Execution. Can your company consistently turn a promising conversation into a delivered result?

Look beyond the sales team

Sales performance involves the company’s wider ecosystem. Products, pricing, suppliers, competitors, partners, customer procurement, and the institutional environment can all affect the opportunity. The task is to understand which relationships matter in this situation, without turning every commercial question into an exercise that is too large to act on.

Illustrative example

Interest is strong. Decisions are slow.

Imagine a company attracting qualified interest in a new market, with opportunities repeatedly stalling before commitment. Before increasing lead generation, examine the unanswered questions in those deals: local delivery, implementation ownership, procurement requirements, or customer references. This is a fictional example, not an account of an employer or client.

Turn the question into a working agenda

Review a small, relevant sample of recent wins, losses, and stalled opportunities. Compare the customer’s explanation with the team’s assumptions. Look for a repeated constraint, decide what evidence would confirm it, and assign a specific change to a named owner.

Choose measures that fit the intervention. If the problem is access, watch whether you are reaching the right decision-makers. If the problem is confidence in delivery, examine whether the new evidence changes progression through the buying process. Activity alone is a weak substitute for this learning.

Keep the judgment open to evidence

One customer conversation or one lost deal is not enough to explain a whole market. Treat the first diagnosis as a working hypothesis, check competing explanations, and adapt when the evidence changes. The aim is a practical decision that can be tested, with clear responsibility for the next step.

Original perspective and attribution

By Dr. Alejandro Canonero, DBA. This article presents an original commercial perspective and a fictional teaching example. Explore the wider ecosystem research in War of the Ecosystems.