Three problems, one cause.
In short: When account leads keep missing opportunities, check their workload before their skills.
A client gave me three problems to fix:
- Clients were leaving too fast.
- Almost nobody was upselling.
- Their account leads never thought strategically.
They’d been treating them as three separate projects. Better onboarding to stop clients from leaving. Sales training for upsells. Some kind of strategy workshop.
But when we looked closer, they were the same problem.
I was shocked to find that account leads were expected to handle a minimum of 8 concurrent projects. When you’re juggling that many, you’re just trying to get this week’s work out the door. There’s no time to step back and ask where this client should be in six months, or what else they might need.
No room to think means no strategy. No strategy means no upsells. Every week is you straining to keep your head above water. And clients who don’t see you thinking ahead start wondering what they’re paying for.
So the fix wasn’t three initiatives. It was:
- Fewer accounts per lead.
- A clear mandate: think about where this client is headed, not just this month’s deliverables.
- Making sure every lead knows what’s upsellable. It sounds obvious, but often they don’t.
- A share of what they upsell, so growing an account pays off for them too.
When a team keeps missing opportunities, it’s tempting to blame skill or effort.
Check their workload first.