The Three Biggest Weak Spots Killing Sales Teams in 2026
Let’s be honest. Sales got harder this past year. Not a little harder. A lot harder.
I don’t care if you’re in software, roofing, HVAC, remodeling, digital marketing, home services, or running a small agency. Every market I talk to is saying the same thing: “Sales are down. Leads are down. People aren’t buying like they used to.”
And if we’re being real with ourselves, we all saw this coming. You can’t run years of inflated demand, cheap money, stimulus-driven confidence, and artificially low pricing without eventually waking up to a hangover. And 2025 was the hangover. 2026 will force everyone to get sober.
Across the board, consumers are more nervous about spending money. The money they do spend is tighter. Competition isn’t going away. Deals require more effort. Follow-up needs to be sharper. And people simply trust companies less than ever before.
We are in a full trust recession. They’re hesitant, anxious, skeptical, and defensive.
And honestly, given the past few years of wild pricing swings, shady marketing claims, and inexperienced sales teams riding COVID tailwinds, can you blame them?
This is the environment we’re selling into.
And we’re not getting “back to normal.” There is no “going back.”
If you want to win in 2026, you’re going to have to outperform.
Not marginally. Significantly.
The old way of taking calls, sending proposals, and hoping for the best is dead.
Let’s Start With a Brutal Reality Check
Everyone keeps saying they “need more leads.”
Every owner I talk to says the same thing.
Every sales rep says the same thing.
But here’s the truth nobody wants to admit:
It’s not a leads problem.
It’s a sales problem.
We’ve had nearly a decade of easy sales environments. Contractors were booked out for months. Agencies couldn’t hire fast enough. Software companies grew without even optimizing their funnels.
And then reality hit. Hard.
To make matters worse, small business failure rates are rising.
According to the Small Business Administration, roughly 20 percent of small businesses fail in year one, 50 percent fail by year five, and over 65 percent fail within ten years. Most don’t fail because the owner is incompetent. They fail because they couldn’t sell consistently enough in a tougher market.
Now combine that with this:
Since 2020, roofing products alone have increased more than 65 percent.
Lumber, shingles, adhesives, metal, labor costs, insurance premiums, everything is more expensive.
So not only are buyers more cautious,
not only is competition increasing,
not only is trust decreasing,
but your product is significantly more expensive than it used to be.
It’s no wonder sales reps are struggling.
Most of them never truly learned how to sell when the market wasn’t gift-wrapped for them.
Which brings us to the entire point of this article.
If you want to increase close rates in 2026, there are three critical weaknesses you must fix immediately.
Ignore these, and it doesn’t matter how many leads you throw into your funnel. You’ll burn them, blame the marketing, and repeat the cycle until the business eventually folds.
Here are the three biggest killers of sales performance in today’s market.
Weak Spot #1 Poor Discovery: Reps Have No Clue What the Real Trigger Event Is
This is the number one killer of deals right now.
Bad discovery. Surface-level questions. No depth. No understanding of why the customer is even talking to you.
Let me be clear:
Deals are not won in the close.
Deals are won in discovery.
Gong’s analysis of millions of calls backs this up. High performers don’t “pitch better.” They diagnose better. They uncover the buyer’s reason for change, not just their interest in pricing.
Buyers don’t wake up randomly wanting a $25,000 roof.
They aren’t bored and shopping for a new HVAC system for fun.
No business owner suddenly wants to spend $6,000 a month on marketing because they’re “curious.”
Something triggered them. Something created tension. That tension is the only thing that moves people toward decisions.
When you don’t uncover the trigger event, you lose leverage. When you lose leverage, you lose urgency. And when you lose urgency, you lose the deal.
In 2026, average sales reps will die on lack of discovery. Top reps will win by understanding the story behind the decision.
Here’s what great discovery sounds like:
“What happened that made this a priority now?”
“What changed recently that pushed you to start looking?”
“How is this problem affecting you today?”
“What happens if you don’t fix this?”
“How is this slowing you down financially or operationally?”
You’re looking for the emotional moment that shifted the buyer out of comfort and into action. Every buying journey starts with a trigger. Once you find it, you have the roadmap.
If you want a higher close rate in 2026, start here.
Your discovery must get deep enough that the buyer is practically selling themselves.
Weak Spot #2 Sending Proposals Instead of Presenting in Person
This one blows my mind. It’s 2026. And I’m still seeing companies email proposals and pray.
Let me put this as simply as I can:
If you send your proposal, you lose control.
If you present your proposal, you control the deal.
There is no scenario where emailing a proposal leads to a higher win rate. None. Zero.
When you email a quote:
The customer shops you against five others
They anchor on the price without any context
They misunderstand scope
They avoid the conversation
They ghost you
They take your quote and hand it to a cheaper competitor
Then your sales rep sits around wondering why their close rate is awful.
If you want to win in today’s economy, every proposal must be presented in person or over Zoom, with the buyer present, with their questions addressed, and with clear next steps.
If you can build and present the proposal on the spot, fantastic. If you can’t, then you must set a confirmed return appointment.
Not “I’ll email it to you tonight.”
Not “I’ll send you something later.”
A specific, locked-in meeting: “Tomorrow at 4:00, I’ll walk you through the proposal so you can see exactly what’s included and why people choose us over cheaper options. Does that time work for you?”
The companies winning right now are the ones treating proposals like actual sales meetings, not administrative tasks.
If you want a higher close rate, stop putting your quotes in inboxes.
Present. Always.
Weak Spot #3 Not Offering Financing or Monthly Options
This is a massive miss in home services and agencies.
People don’t think in lump sums anymore.
They think in monthly commitments.
Payments drive nearly every major consumer buying decision today:
Phones
Cars
Furniture
Peloton
Software
Gyms
Subscriptions
Even chipotle via Affirm lol
You think your $25,000 roof is the exception?
You think your $60,000 kitchen is the exception?
You think your $15,000 marketing package is the exception?
Not a chance.
Consumers buy based on what they can afford monthly, not what something costs in total.
If you’re only presenting your solution as a large upfront investment, you’re handicapping your sales team.
Roofing companies should be using GreenSky, Service Finance, Foundation Finance, Sunlight, or whoever is reliable in your state.
Software companies already know this. Everything is monthly for a reason.
When you break a $25,000 roof into $297 a month, the customer stops thinking about the total.
And the entire decision becomes easier.If you want to win in 2026, you must present every offer with a monthly option first.
“Most of our customers prefer the monthly program. It keeps your cash in the bank and lets you handle everything without delaying the project.”
When you do this correctly, your close rate jumps immediately
Most Owners Still Struggle Implementing These Fixes
Even if an owner knows these three weaknesses exist, they still fail to fix them.
Why? Because they don’t actually know what’s happening on their sales calls.
They’re guessing.
They’re trusting reps who say “the lead wasn’t good.”
They’re hoping deals close.
They’re reacting instead of leading.
A lot of companies have no idea if:
Discovery is being done correctly
Trigger events are being uncovered
Proposals are being presented or emailed
Pricing is framed properly
Financing was even mentioned
Objections were handled well
You can’t manage what you can’t see.
This is exactly why I built our sales software https://pendulumpros.com/appointment-intelligence
It records every appointment.
It transcribes every conversation.
It analyzes performance.
It scores the key moments that actually impact close rates.
And it shows you, with complete clarity, where your reps are winning and where they’re falling apart.
Instead of guessing, you get visibility.
Instead of hoping, you get control.
Instead of wondering, you get answers.
This is how you fix sales problems in a down market.
Not by buying more leads.
Not by blaming the economy.
Not by “motivating” your reps harder.
You fix it by:
Improving discovery
Presenting proposals in person
Offering financing every time
If you focus on these three things, you will close more deals in 2026 than you did in 2025. If you want to see how this works in your company, send me a text and I’ll walk you through it personally.
Text me: 202.900.6424 or [email protected]
When everyone else is blaming leads, you’ll be the one taking market share.
Because the companies that survive 2026 will be the ones that sell better, not the ones that spend more
