Why Do Sales Teams Keep Repeating What We Know Fails?

 

The persistence of ineffective sales behaviors, despite decades of research highlighting their shortcomings, remains a puzzling phenomenon. A survey by ASG of 1,231 buyers revealed that the most off-putting actions in cold outreach include pushing products over understanding customer problems (34%), being too aggressive (26%), refusing to accept a ‘no’ (24%), and coming across as overly friendly or “salesly” (16%). While these behaviors have long been recognized as counterproductive, many sales leaders and teams continue to double down on them.

 

The short answer lies in the influence of Taylorist management practices, which have shaped organizational structures into siloed, hierarchical systems. These systems, designed around specialization and efficiency, often isolate departments and disconnect them from the broader customer journey. Sales teams are structured with KPIs that emphasize short-term gains—such as meeting quarterly targets—often at the expense of building long-term relationships with customers. This system pushes sellers into behaviors that prioritize quick wins over real customer value.

 

However, a more thoughtful response emerges when we begin to consider sales and other departments as part of an interconnected ecosystem. Quantum Management, which is grounded in principles of interdependence and collaboration, offers a lens through which we can rethink the role of sales. Instead of rigidly assigning departments separate roles—where R&D drives innovation, marketing creates demand, and sales merely closes deals—Quantum Management encourages a model where all departments work as semi-autonomous units, aligned with the common goal of co-creating value for the customer.

 

In this model, the role of sales shifts dramatically. Sellers become not just executors of pre-defined strategies but the critical starting point for customer co-creation. By engaging closely with customers to understand their needs and feed those insights back into the organization, sales teams can avoid the pitfalls of product-pushing, aggressiveness, and insincerity. Their incentives change, aligning success with the creation of meaningful solutions that resonate with the customer’s needs.

 

This shift is essential to overcoming the inertia of outdated practices. Research shows that 77% of B2B buyers believe the sales process is too complex, which can often be traced back to misaligned organizational structures. Quantum Management offers a path forward, where the complexity is reduced through collaboration, mutual problem-solving, and the seamless integration of departments into a cohesive, customer-focused strategy.

 

Ultimately, to escape the trap of failing strategies, companies need to shift their approach to management. By adopting an interconnected, holistic approach, sales teams can break free from the Taylorist mindset and begin to build more effective, value-driven relationships with their customers.

 

 

To understand how organizations can shift from outdated sales practices to a more interconnected, customer-centric approach, let’s explore how Quantum Management principles can be applied in practice, using examples of organizations that have moved away from siloed, hierarchical structures.

 

1. Case Study: Adobe’s Shift from Push to Partnership

 

Adobe is a prime example of a company that recognized the need for a fundamental shift in how sales operated. For years, Adobe followed a traditional product-pushing approach, selling software through perpetual licenses. However, as the market shifted to a subscription-based model, Adobe realized that selling needed to become less about closing a deal and more about fostering ongoing relationships.

 

By integrating sales, customer success, and product development teams, Adobe created an ecosystem where sales reps became consultants for their clients. Instead of pushing new software versions, they worked closely with customers to understand their needs, recommending solutions that would help them grow within Adobe’s ecosystem. This transition required a change in KPIs—from focusing purely on sales quotas to measuring customer success and long-term engagement. In this model, sales became a continuous process of co-creating value with the customer, leading to greater customer retention and satisfaction.

 

2. Zappos: Integrating Sales into the Customer Experience

 

Zappos, the online shoe and clothing retailer, redefined the role of sales by breaking down the traditional separation between sales, customer service, and marketing. In a typical company, sales reps would focus only on conversion and closing deals, often pressured to meet aggressive targets. Zappos did the opposite by training its sales and customer service teams to prioritize the customer’s happiness over making a sale.

 

In practice, this meant empowering sales staff to spend as much time as needed with a customer, without the pressure to close quickly. They could even refer customers to competitors if Zappos didn’t have the right product. This approach aligns with Quantum Management principles by focusing on long-term relationship building and trust. The results speak for themselves—Zappos became renowned for its customer loyalty, with repeat business being a significant driver of revenue.

 

3. Salesforce: Co-Creation Through Collaboration

 

Salesforce adopted an interconnected, cross-functional team approach to align sales with customer success. In the past, their sales teams operated independently, with little input from customer success, marketing, or product development. But this model often led to misaligned promises and under-delivered results. By restructuring into smaller, semi-autonomous teams, each responsible for specific customer segments, Salesforce improved internal collaboration across departments.

 

Sales teams would now involve product development in early discussions with clients to ensure that the solutions sold could be delivered effectively. Customer success teams worked hand-in-hand with sales to ensure that onboarding and long-term engagement were part of the initial sales conversation. This new approach drastically reduced the disconnect between what was sold and what was delivered, and it aligned the success of the sales team with customer satisfaction, rather than just closing the deal.

 

4. Spotify’s Squad Model: A Radical Approach to Alignment

 

Spotify introduced a revolutionary organizational model to break down silos called the “squad” system. Instead of organizing teams by departments (marketing, sales, product), Spotify created small, cross-functional squads where members from different departments work together toward a shared goal. For sales, this meant embedding salespeople into squads that included product developers, engineers, and marketers. Each squad was focused on a specific feature or customer segment, which allowed sales reps to directly contribute to product development by sharing insights from customers.

 

This radical rethinking of how teams collaborate resulted in faster product cycles and more customer-aligned solutions. Sales reps were no longer working in isolation but became integral to the product’s success. This approach also fostered a sense of ownership and responsibility for sales, as their input was critical in shaping products that customers wanted.

 

5. GE Aviation: Transforming Sales through Customer Co-Creation

 

In GE Aviation, a company that provides jet engines and related services, traditional sales practices revolved around one-time contracts for products. However, realizing that they were missing opportunities to foster deeper customer relationships, they adopted a co-creation model where sales reps became essential to the innovation process. Instead of offering pre-defined products, GE Aviation embedded their salespeople with customer teams—airlines, manufacturers, and airport authorities.

 

These salespeople worked with customers to co-create solutions, often in real-time, adapting engines, services, and logistics based on the needs of each customer. This approach, driven by Quantum Management thinking, repositioned sales as a collaborative partner rather than a transactional function. It also allowed GE Aviation to innovate faster and respond more flexibly to market needs, deepening their relationships with key clients.

 

Common Practices in Quantum Sales Approach

 

From these examples, several key practices emerge for applying Quantum Management principles in sales:

 

      1.   Cross-functional Teams: Like in Spotify’s squad model, organizing teams around customer segments or solutions rather than departments ensures that salespeople collaborate closely with other departments.

      2.   Customer-Centric KPIs: Companies like Adobe and Salesforce shifted KPIs from short-term sales quotas to long-term customer success metrics, incentivizing behavior that focuses on co-creating value.

      3.   Empowered Decision-Making: Zappos and GE Aviation empowered salespeople to make decisions that serve the customer’s best interests, whether that meant referring them elsewhere or custom-creating solutions on the spot.

      4.   Integration with Product Development: Embedding sales into the product development process, as Salesforce and GE Aviation did, ensures that customer feedback is integrated into the innovation cycle, leading to products that meet actual market needs.

      5.   Long-Term Relationship Building: Whether it’s Adobe’s shift to subscription models or Zappos’ emphasis on customer loyalty, sales teams focus on long-term engagement, not just one-time transactions.

 

Conclusion

 

The persistent failure of many sales teams to move away from outdated approaches is rooted in organizational silos and a Taylorist, hierarchy-driven mindset. By applying Quantum Management principles, companies can transform sales into a collaborative, value-creating function. This shift requires integrating sales with other departments, redefining success metrics, and empowering teams to focus on co-creating solutions with customers. The examples of Adobe, Zappos, Salesforce, Spotify, and GE Aviation demonstrate that when sales becomes a collaborative partner in a larger ecosystem, the results are transformative for both the company and the customer.