By
Simon Hazeldine
In sales leadership, there’s an old enemy we love to hate: the competition.
It’s easy to blame lost deals on market shifts, economic headwinds, or the aggressive tactics of your rivals. But while we’re pointing fingers outward, the silent saboteur is often lurking within our own four walls.
Internal complexity.
It’s the hidden friction that’s silently strangling your pipeline. The slow approvals, unclear pricing, clunky CRM workflows, and endless internal meetings that stall momentum. And here’s the brutal truth: it’s not your market that’s holding your sales team back it’s your own organisation.
The Hidden Cost of Internal Drag
Complexity doesn’t announce itself. It creeps in.
And it kills deals not with a bang, but with a slow, painful death:
- Endless email chains just to get discount approval
- Multiple versions of a sales deck with no clear standard
- Manual data entry sucking time from actual selling
- Legal reviews that take longer than the sales cycle
Every hour your team spends navigating internal red tape is an hour they’re not selling. Every delay creates an opportunity for your competitor to get in first.
Speed wins in sales. Complexity loses.
What Elite Sales Leaders Know
The best sales leaders don’t just drive revenue, they remove friction. They act like sales architects, constantly asking:
- Where are we slowing down reps?
- What decisions are we overcomplicating?
- Which approvals add no real value?
- Are our internal processes serving the customer, or ourselves?
They challenge sacred cows, question legacy processes, and refuse to tolerate bureaucracy dressed up as ‘best practice.’
The 5-Step Complexity Detox
Here’s how to simplify and accelerate without sacrificing control:
1. Audit the Sales Experience Internally
Map the journey your reps take from lead to closed deal. Identify every touchpoint, approval, and handoff. Where are the bottlenecks?
Ask your team: “What slows you down most?” Then fix it.
2. Streamline Approvals and Authority
If reps need three layers of approval to discount 5%, you’re choking your deal speed. Empower frontline managers. Set parameters. Automate thresholds. Trust your people to make decisions.
3. Simplify Tech Stacks and Workflows
Don’t let your CRM become a black hole. Every field should serve a purpose. Every tool should integrate. Eliminate duplication. Automate the admin.
Tech should enable, not obstruct.
4. Kill the ‘Nice to Haves’
Fancy reports, internal presentations, task forces. They are often distractions. If it doesn’t directly support closing deals or advancing opportunities, it’s optional. Free your team to focus on what moves the number.
5. Embed Customer-Centric Thinking Internally
When internal decisions are made, ask: Does this help us serve the customer faster, better, or more effectively?
If the answer’s no then it’s time to rethink.
Real-World Impact: What Simplification Looks Like
A manufacturing sales team removed three levels of sign-off for discounts under 10%. The result? Average sales cycle time dropped by 19% in one quarter.
A tech firm streamlined CRM fields by 40%, giving reps an additional 2 hours per week for client-facing activity.
These aren’t small wins. They’re competitive advantages.
Final Word: Complexity Is a Leadership Problem
Your competitors aren’t the only thing slowing your team down. If your organisation is creating drag instead of lift, it’s on you to change it.
Simplicity is a leadership choice.
High-performance sales teams move fast, stay focused, and operate with clarity.
So the question isn’t: “What’s our sales strategy?”
It’s: “What are we doing that gets in the way of it?”
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Want to remove the unseen friction slowing your sales team down? Simon Hazeldine delivers keynotes and advisory sessions that challenge sales leadership thinking—and drive real-world performance acceleration.
Book Simon for your next event: www.simonhazeldine.com
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About the author
Simon Hazeldine works internationally as a revenue growth and sales performance speaker, consultant, and coach. He empowers his clients to get more sales, more often with more margin.
He has spoken in over thirty countries and his client list includes some of the world’s largest and most successful companies.
Simon has a master’s degree in psychology, is the bestselling author of ten books that have been endorsed by a host of business leaders including multi-billionaire business legend Michael Dell and is co-founder of leading sales podcast “The Sales Chat Show”.
He is the creator of the neuroscience based “Brain Friendly Selling”® methodology.
Simon Hazeldine’s books:
- Neuro-Sell: How Neuroscience Can Power Your Sales Success
- Bare Knuckle Selling
- Bare Knuckle Negotiating
- Bare Knuckle Customer Service
- The Inner Winner
- How To Lead Your Sales Team – Virtually and in Person
- Virtual Selling Success
- How To Manage Your People’s Performance
- How To Create Effective Employee Development Plans
- Virtual Negotiation Success
