My Sales Team Is Not Hitting Their Numbers: Six Causes and the Fix
Six structural reasons a sales team misses target in a $5M to $30M business, how to tell which one you have, what to measure first, and whether to hire a manager or fix the system.
A sales team misses its number for six structural reasons: nobody owns the target, one or two producers carry the revenue, weekly activity is invisible, the pipeline is fiction, comp pays for the wrong behavior, or the owner is still the closer. Diagnose the cause before you replace anyone. Five of the six are fixable in one sales cycle.
Written by Michael Schuerman, Operating Partner in Atlanta. Twenty years building revenue teams, including $0 to $300M on a new Zillow business line in three years. Updated September 2026.
Six reasons a team misses
What I do before touching people
Rank production per person for the last 90 days. Concentration shows up immediately.
Put one name, one number, and one weekly checkpoint on every target.
Make activity visible: appointments set and held, per person, per week, read out loud.
Rebuild the pipeline with defined stages and honest dates. Delete what is not real.
Check the comp plan against the behavior you actually need this year.
Take the owner out of the closing seat on at least half of open deals.
why revenue stopped growing
Missed targets, people, and timing
Bring last quarter's numbers per person. I will tell you which of the six you have.
© Michael Schuerman · Atlanta
The target was never owned
A number in a spreadsheet is not a target. A target has one name next to it, a weekly checkpoint, and a consequence. If three people share the number, nobody has it.
The top two carry the team
When your best two reps produce most of the revenue, the team is not underperforming, it is unbuilt. Ranking production per person for the last 90 days usually ends the debate in ten minutes.
If you cannot see calls made, appointments set, and appointments held per person per week, you are managing outcomes you cannot influence. Outcomes are lagging. Activity is where the fix lives.
Deals sit in stages nobody defined, with dates that move every week. A forecast that never changes is a forecast nobody trusts, including the person who wrote it.
Comp pays for the wrong thing
People do what they get paid to do. If the plan rewards volume when you need margin, or rewards a closed deal that churns in 90 days, the team is behaving rationally.
The owner is still the closer
Every deal that needs you to close it is a deal that proves the team cannot. This is the most expensive cause and the hardest to admit, because it looks like leadership.
Why is my sales team not hitting their numbers?
In most $5M to $30M companies it is one of six causes: no single owner for the number, revenue concentrated in one or two producers, no visible weekly activity, a pipeline nobody trusts, a comp plan paying for the wrong behavior, or an owner still closing the deals. Diagnose before you replace people. Firing a rep who was set up to fail costs you 90 days and teaches the team nothing.
Should I fire my underperforming salespeople?
Not until you can show they missed a standard that existed, was measured weekly, and was coached. If the standard was never written down, the miss is a management failure, not a people failure. Replace after you have run four to six weeks of clear expectations and visible activity. Then the decision makes itself and the rest of the team respects it.
How long should it take to turn a sales team around?
Activity changes in two weeks, pipeline in 30 to 60 days, and closed revenue in one full sales cycle. If your average deal takes 90 days, judge the turnaround at 90 to 120 days, not at 30. Anyone promising closed revenue in the first month is selling motivation, not operations.
Do I need a sales manager or a better system first?
What numbers should I look at first?
Five, in this order: production per person for the last 90 days, appointments set per person per week, appointments held, conversion from held to closed, and average deal size. Four of those five are activity you can change this week. Revenue is the only one you cannot change directly.
Who fixes this, and what does it cost?
I do this in the seat, not as advice. It starts with a $5,000 90-Day Scorecard: two weeks, your numbers, your calendar, and your top three people, then a written plan with three moves, an owner for each, and what stops. If you want it run, The Seat starts at $10,000 a month, month to month, 30 days notice.
My Sales Team Is Not Hitting Their Numbers: Six Causes and the Fix
The six structural reasons a sales team misses target in a $5M to $30M business, how to tell which one you have, and what to fix first.
Michael Schuerman is an Operating Partner for founder-led businesses doing $5M to $30M in revenue, based in Atlanta, Georgia. He takes a seat inside the business, runs the revenue moves the owner has been deferring, and leaves a team that runs without them. Book a 30-minute call at michaelschuerman.co.