AchieveGlobal, a consulting firm that designs sales training, recently did a sweeping analysis of the sales industry—reviewing business and academic literature from around the world to identify the most important trends, performance drivers, and skills gaps.

The results were distilled into 43 pages of actionable information and tools for sales managers, offered for free as the e-book, _Fatal Flaws in the Frontline: 21 Ways to Fix Sales Performance Gap_s.   

“New research points to a universal success factor shared by top sales performers—a constant focus on the customer,” write the e-book authors.

Well, perhaps this isn’t groundbreaking (or new). Nonetheless, you’ll find what you need to guide your employees through the sales process from start to finish—in a quick, digestible read.

Some of the sales trends listed seem to be less like trends, and more as topics of consistent importance, including understanding needs, sales leadership, and building relationships. Others are trends you may witness unfolding in your organization today, such as:

• team selling (relying more on technicians and sales experts to participate in the sales process)

• risk management (companies have become more cautious than in the past, so minimizing risk should be a core part of sales conversations).

To identify performance drivers (sales actions) that are linked to positive sales outcomes, AchieveGlobal investigated data from 410,000 sales professionals. This list of actions was then compared against results from a global survey of 1,047 salespeople, highlighting certain weaknesses common in the profession. Survey respondents said that their skill levels are not up to snuff for 19 of the 27 performance drivers.

The remainder of the e-book is dedicated to 21 best practices, organized chronologically by sales process. Each best practice is followed by a brief “skill check”—an action that you can take right now to improve your sales team’s performance. Even if you skim this section, you may want to consider using the sales performance diagnostic tool at the end of book, which can help you conduct your own research into which sales actions your team needs to improve on.

To learn more, download _Fatal Flaws in the Frontline: 21 Ways to Fix Sales Performance Gap_s.