Why SMB Sales Struggle – They forget the R
Most SMB sales teams don’t fail because they lack effort, talent, or ambition. They fail because the wrong type of problem is being solved first.
After years of working inside sales organizations, I’ve learned that sales breakdowns almost always fall into one of three categories. Each requires a very different role, mindset, and solution.
What is often missing—before any fix is applied—is a clear understanding of the relationships driving revenue.
1. Relationship Economics: Making the Invisible Visible
Before execution can be improved, before structure can be scaled, and before clarity can be restored, one question must be answered:
Do we actually understand the relationships driving our revenue?
Most SMBs rely heavily on relationships—but ma1. Relationship Economics: Making the Invisible Visible
Before execution can be improved, before structure can be scaled, and before clarity can be restored, one question must be answered:
Do we actually understand the relationships driving our revenue?
Most SMBs rely heavily on relationships—but manage them informally. Trust, influence, and access live in individual inboxes, contact lists, and memories. When those relationships are invisible, sales teams waste effort, leaders misread risk, and organizations confuse activity with progress.
Relationship economics is the discipline of understanding where trust exists, how influence flows, and which relationships truly matter to growth. It shifts sales from volume-based effort to intentional engagement.
This is where platforms like AVNIR add leverage.
- AVNIR provides a unified view of personal and professional relationships across systems,
- Makes relationship strength, change, and risk visible.
- It doesn’t replace sales execution—it informs it.
- Clarity Game Changer for Nurturing and Building Meaningful Relationship through with Relationship Touch Cadences
- Identifies your deepest and most valuable connections, stay informed on relationship changes, and nurture your network with automated reminders
- Boost productivity by focusing on the most valuable and relevant relationships, making informed decisions, and building meaningful, lasting professional relationships
- Once relationship truth is visible, leaders can accurately determine whether the real problem is execution, structure, or clarity.
The end result, Expanding the wallet share with existing customers, while assuring you capture some of those most important wins, NEW LOGOS !!!
The Real Mistake
Most organizations don’t struggle because they lack solutions. They struggle because they apply the right solution to the wrong problem.
You can’t architect structure before execution is stable. You can’t coach execution when clarity is missing. And you shouldn’t invest in either until the truth—execution, structure, and relationships—is understood.
Sales growth becomes predictable when the right role is applied at the right moment.
That’s not selling harder. That’s building sales intelligently.
