The $370 Fuse: Broken Trash Compactor Offers Lessons to Fix Sales Problems

January 12, 2026
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Category: Understanding the Sales Force

The Emergency

Last month, our kitchen trash compactor wouldn’t close properly and if it doesn’t close, you not only can’t compact the trash which defeats the purpose, the door remains open. I checked all the usual suspects, including debris on the rails, trash that got between the bin and the compactor interior, mechanical problems, etc. Despite my repeated attempts, nothing worked. I called an appliance service center and a miracle occurred – an appliance technician was at the house the next day!

I explained the problem, and mentioned that the only thing I was certain of, was that it was a mechanical problem, not an electrical/electronic problem. He smiled, and proceeded to take apart the electrical panel inside the compactor. He knew immediately what the real problem was. I had only identified the symptom.

Turns out, the real problem was a blown $1 glass cartridge fuse while the obvious symptom was that the door wouldn’t fully close – a $370 lesson!

The Sales Analogies

There is an obvious analogy to salespeople who are unable to close the door on crappy sales opportunities that are stalled in the pipeline, taking up space, providing a false sense of security, and helping to blow up forecasts.

Examples that are more consistent with my mechanical versus electrical situation, let’s pivot to the four biggest problems where executives believe their team needs help:

Negotiating – A salesperson’s inability to negotiate is NEVER – I repeat, NEVER the problem. Yet companies waste time, money, and resources training their salespeople to be better negotiators. Coincidentally, last week my article that explains this subject so well, Deadly Negotiation Strategies – The Bob Chronicles Part 8, won the Gold Medal for the Top Sales Article of 2025 from Top Sales Awards. The real reason salespeople get stuck negotiating a “done deal” is that they failed to properly and thoroughly qualify the opportunity.
Closing – With win rates in some industries and companies ranging between 10%-33%, it’s no wonder that executives blame closing skills for those low win rates. But as with negotiating, closing problems are a symptom, not the problem. Lack of thorough qualifying, lack of a predictive sales scorecard, absence of a proposal gate, failure to uncover the prospect’s compelling reason to buy, an inability to sell value, and ineffectively differentiating, have more impact on wins and losses than closing skills.
New Business Acquisition – It doesn’t matter whether the pipeline is half full or half empty, companies are unable to achieve serious revenue growth without generating new business or, as some like to call it, new logos. But new business acquisition is never the problem. It’s more often a case of hope springs eternal (vaguely communicated expectations), being lost in space (lack of specific direction), volleying instead of keeping score (lack of or wrong KPIs), and/or complacency (lack of accountability by management).
Prospecting – This goes hand-in-hand with new business acquisition but deserves a category all its own because executives tell us that “our salespeople need a refresher on prospecting.” Most salespeople have forgotten how, were never effective to begin with, and either don’t want to make cold calls or didn’t sign up for that and feel that the rules are being changed. So prospecting is usually a case of salespeople simply not doing it, rather than how ineffectively they are doing it.

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When you work on the wrong end of the problem, not only does the original problem remain in place, but people get frustrated when the attempted fix doesn’t change anything. You lose credibility, waste everyone’s time, and diminish your chance of solving the problem on your next attempt.

“Remember the last time we tried this?”

“Yeah, me neither!”

As you review performance results from last year, look at these specific metrics by team and salesperson and try to remain objective. Are the targets being missed by the majority, or are the problems isolated? Isolated problems are salesperson-specific issues, while widespread problems are sales management issues.