The Top Activities That High Velocity Sales Teams Measure

Bob Marsh, Founder and CEO, LevelEleven

To achieve desired sales results, sales leaders must manage and motivate the activities that precede them. In fact, Vantage Point’s research shows that a poor-performing front-line sales manager generates $3.5 million less in sales than a good sales manager. But what metrics should sales managers focus on that will result in those desired results? This was a KPI question that I kept hearing from our customers.

Using Data to Clarify and Coach

We’ve learned that it’s easy to overcomplicate a metrics-driven approach. For this reason, we recommend that sales leaders take a step back and clearly identify the critical activity metrics they want their salespeople to stay focused on and that sales managers can truly manage around. The ideal mix is three leading indicators and one lagging indicator. For a sales development team, the lagging indicator is typically creating qualified sales opportunities. For a sales team, the lagging indicator would be closing business. The leading indicators are the controllable daily activities that are focused on delivering those results.

What the Research Tells Us

The “2017 Sales KPI Report” offers some helpful guidance for sales leaders who are asking how to get their teams focused on what truly matters. Here are a few of the report’s key findings:

• A KPI-based approach is used across all company sizes, with an even distribution between companies with under 250 employees and those with over 250 employees.
• Sales teams at technology firms have most rapidly adopted a KPI-based approach. They also tend to be the most progressive-minded, with an “inputs drives outputs” mentality.
• Highly competitive industries, including finance, insurance, media, and telecommunications, are included in the research. These industries tend to have less differentiation in their product offerings and therefore require rigorous management of their sales team to outperform their competitors.
• Meetings are the most common and consistently used KPI across all selling roles.
• Monthly-goal time frames are the most commonly used across all sales KPIs; however, weekly goals are more common for the most popular KPIs — calls, meetings, and creating opportunities.

As you can see in the report, sales is still a cascading set of controllable behaviors that lead to a defined outcome — closing a deal. That’s why the most effective sales metrics to manage around (regardless of time frame or sales role) are elegantly simple: call people, talk to people, uncover sales opportunities, move those opportunities forward, send quotes and proposals, and close the business.

To read the complete article, The Top Activities That High Velocity Sales Teams Measure, visit Quotable.com.