Here's an oldie but a goodie from the Fast Company archives. The Five Most Common Lies In Business reveals nothing that we didn't already suspect, and for those who have told them, nothing they didn't already know. I'll add another:
Lie #6: "We are investing more into marketing."
Truth: "We hope to have more left over for marketing when we finish our other planning."
B.S. Detector: Until marketing is involved at the outset of planning, consulting on promotional spending and market messages, product launches and the like, sales cannot plan their quotas with any certainty.
I know of a firm where the Sales VP, frustrated at the CFO's apparently arbitrary reverse budgeting and quota-setting (working from a target EPS backward) simply threw up his hands and said, "Make the quota whatever you want it to be. There's no way we can make it with the current product mix, and I have no idea what you are going to give to marketing to support us, but go ahead." This exasperated outburst was mistaken for agreement, and the unrealistic quotas were set, and no doubt marketing blamed when they were not met.
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