Just as Olympic athletes train to reach peak performance, so do sales teams. In fact, research shows, it takes an average of three months for a new seller to be ready to interact with buyers, nine months for them to be competent to perform, and 15 months for them to become a top performer (source).

But, just as there are less obvious factors that contribute to an athlete’s performance, there are less obvious factors that contribute to a sales team’s performance as well. In both instances, contributing factors that immediately come to mind are things like motivation and strategy.

If your sales team is struggling to hit their numbers and you’ve already considered training, enablement, technology, and other more obvious avenues, it might be time to take a look at your sales commission structure.