When this occurs there is a feeling of losing ground against competitors. Management sees that the net number of new customers is down and your organization is not growing the installed base.

Half of your sales force you are glad to see go (they were brought on board as a result of poor hiring practices). The other half are talented sales people who are unhappy because of problems with their immediate manager, poor recognition, and failure to see growth opportunities. Sales management spends too much time recruiting and training. Plus the departure of experienced sales people makes it hard to make quarterly goals.  

Poor customer satisfaction is reflected in low measurement scores in surveys and follow-ups, as well as poor retention and renewal rates. There is a tendency for the sales force to oversell or undersell.

Sales managers rise to their position from out of the sales ranks, but are usually given very little additional training. Most are naturally good at selling, but don't have a system that they can teach someone else. There is a tendency to confuse activity with productivity, and confuse shooting the bull with effective communication. 

The sales organization has weak pipeline management and can’t predict the business. The management team feels as though the VP of sales doesn't understand the business and has no confidence in the VP’s numbers.

Your sales people are seen by customers as unresponsive, lacking product knowledge, having short-term focus, and not listening to customers enough to deeply understand their requirements.

Since start-ups are building from the ground up, they have many new people to train. Start-ups face the question of how they can develop effective processes and procedures and then train everyone to use them.