What Do You Do When Client Contracts Are Unprofitable?

John took over the leadership of the ABC Company’s sales team three months ago. During his onboarding, he conducted a profitability analysis of the company’s clients. The analysis revealed that 20% of the client contracts are not profitable for ABC Company. However, through price increases and service scope changes, these contracts can be profitable.

The company does not want to lose these clients, but the contracts need to change. Certainly, there is finesse needed when the salespeople talk about this issue with their clients. And, the salespeople are going to freak out when they hear that they need to fix their accounts.

How would you train the salespeople to have these difficult conversations with clients to achieve the desired contract outcome?

Are there incentives or contests you would put in place for the salespeople or clients?