You say "tomato" ... and some of your employees start thinking about a glossy, red (or sometimes yellow), edible fruit that is often mistaken for a vegetable. Others start humming an inane tune that will be stuck in their heads for days. A few get hungry.

But if you're lucky, a couple employees will understand that you were actually referring to Pantone 18-1660 TCX, which is the color of your new product and a color commonly referred to as "tomato red."

The sales team is often one of the largest components of a company. You might think, then, that this many people should get that much more work done for the organization... but unfortunately, not all sales teams work together in the ways they should in order to make this idea a reality.

The biggest problem most sales teams face is a lack of communication and the inability to fully understand one another. While it's easy to write these miscommunications and misunderstandings off as just "personalities that shouldn't be working together," that's often only an excuse that avoids responsibility for fixing the issue... and it creates a dysfunctional environment for the whole team.

You're a visionary. You worked hard, paid your dues, and helped build the business – sale by sale, click by click.

It was fun... way back then.

Now you're leading the business, responsible for hiring smart and talented people, setting ambitious goals, and training your employees to succeed.

And you're doing it. Day in, day out, you spend your time working on your business.

Imagine how well it would be doing if you spent your time working in it.

Have you ever actually listened to stories about customer service? If so, you've probably noticed that most of them ultimately come down to one of these two formats:

• I did not get the help I needed, and felt like the store was just treating me like a problem.
• The employees went out of their way to help me solve my problem and made sure I got the help I needed.

It's fairly obvious which of these situations is more likely to win a customer over and bring them back to you in the future.

Larry Bird. Wayne Gretzky. Joe Montana.

Their names are synonymous with individual excellence.

Michael Jordan. Dominik Hasek. Brett Favre.

They are hailed among the absolute best to have ever played their respective sports.

LeBron James. Sidney Crosby. Peyton Manning.

And none of their accomplishments would have happened without their teammates.

Sometimes it's not enough to simply solve the customer's problem. Sometimes you've got to throw in a hug... metaphorically thinking.

That's the lesson leaders of a major call center learned when they analyzed metrics measuring the effectiveness of its sales team. It's also the reason the call center turned to whole brain thinking to improve overall customer satisfaction.

It has been reported that more than 65 percent of all organizations have agreed-upon business strategies. That's impressive when you consider how many startups, sole proprietor shops and at-home businesses there are across the U.S.

Unfortunately, what happens after the strategies are developed isn't as impressive. According to a column in Forbes, only 14 percent of employees understand their organizations' strategy, and less than 10 percent of organizations ever successfully execute their strategies.