Case Study: Sales Efficiency

Summary: Freeing the Front Line: How We Gave Field Sales Teams Back 2 Days a Week

In this piece, Harry McKaig examines why field sales performance was eroding despite strong talent and effort. The core problem wasn’t the people—it was the system. Sales teams were spending over 40% of their time on non-selling activities such as forecasting, pricing, and internal reporting. Misaligned roles forced salespeople to take on highly technical work without the tools or training to succeed. As a result, morale suffered, turnover rose, and inefficiencies ballooned into a $20 million annual drag.

The task force confirmed that forecasting accuracy was nearly identical between manual sales inputs and automated models, showing an opportunity to shift to quarterly, data-driven forecasting with no loss in accuracy. Pricing inefficiencies were even more costly, with nearly $1 million in lost margin uncovered in California alone due to outdated or misaligned price levels.

The solution wasn’t more headcount—it was better alignment. The team:

• Reassigned forecasting and pricing ownership to Finance and S&OP.

• Reduced report frequency and complexity.

• Introduced integrated systems and analytics support.

• Repositioned field roles around execution and customer growth.

The results were tangible: sales teams gained back the equivalent of two full days per week, morale improved, and organizational drag was reduced.

McKaig emphasizes that burnout often comes from internal friction, not customer work. By aligning the right people with the right tasks, companies can unleash talent, protect margins, and restore clarity of purpose to frontline sales teams.

Medium: https://medium.com/@harry.mckaig/freeing-the-front-line-how-we-gave-field-sales-teams-back-2-days-a-week-c9f20a194423