Success isn't just about working harder; it's about working smarter.
Working smarter and getting in your reps. Just like a high-performing athlete that constantly practices their craft, a sales person needs to consistently practice and refine their approach.
But, how do you pick the right metrics to help drive your sales team in the right direction? Here's a quick guide to help get you started:
Clarify Your Objectives: Start by setting clear goals. Whether you're aiming to boost revenue, acquire new clients, or expand into new markets, knowing your destination is crucial. Your sales activities should align with these objectives to maximize results.
Know Your Audience Inside Out: Dive deep into understanding your target audience. What are their pain points? What drives their decisions? Where do they hang out and how do they typically engage with companies like yours?
Learn from Past Performance: Take a look back at what's worked before. Analyze past successes to identify which sales activities yielded the best results. You can do this in various ways. The easiest and most straightforward (typically) is to reverse-engineer the funnel from closed won deals back to contacts.
Leverage Key Sales Activity Metrics: To gauge the effectiveness of your sales activities, it's essential to track relevant metrics. Here are the top 3-4 sales activity metrics to consider: a. Conversion Rate: Measure the percentage of leads or prospects that convert into paying customers. A high conversion rate indicates that your sales activities are effectively turning leads into revenue. b. Sales Cycle Length: Track the average time it takes for a lead to move through your sales process from initial contact to closing the deal. A shorter sales cycle suggests efficient and streamlined sales activities. c. Pipeline Velocity: Assess how quickly prospects move through your sales pipeline. Pipeline velocity measures the rate at which deals progress from one stage to the next. Higher pipeline velocity indicates smoother and more effective sales activities. d. Sales Activity: What outbound activities can the sales team control? Typically these are outbound activities like phone calls, emails, and meetings. Control and focusing on what you/the team can control helps simplify tracking and driving sales performance.
By setting clear objectives, understanding your audience, learning from past performance, and leveraging key sales activity metrics like conversion rate, sales cycle length, pipeline velocity, and outbound sales activities you can steer your sales team toward success. Weekly check-ins, visibility of the metrics for the entire team and coaching moments are critical to make this the "new way of working" as opposed to a check the box exercise.
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