Have you ever heard the phrase “you can’t fix what you don’t know?” If you want to improve your sales team’s performance continually, you’ll first need to know what issues there are to address. Sales metrics give you a clear cut explanation of sales rep performance.
Sales metrics are critical because they give you an accurate representation of how your team is doing, highlight problem areas in the sales process, and help you prioritize training. Knowing your numbers will show you where your team’s performance has been, where it’s heading, and whether you’re on track to hit goals.
Have you ever wondered whether a new sales strategy or if particular team members are performing as well as you suspect? Using sales metrics removes emotions and assumptions, and shows you precisely what’s adding the most value.
Having sales metrics on your side also helps you fix issues in less time. Being able to see real-time results of new team members or tactics make it easy to correct the course early.
How productive are your sales reps? Time will always be a limited resource, and it’s important that your team uses their time effectively. If you want to check and improve sales productivity, use these sales metrics:
The prospecting stage of a sales process is critical for laying the groundwork for the customer relationship. Do you know how many visits a rep should take to turn a cold prospect into a qualified lead? By tracking the number of visits to get from Prospecting to Contacted, you can streamline a sales rep’s day by showing them exactly how much attention each prospect needs.
On top of the number of visits, the overall time it takes to get from Contacted to Won says a lot about sales productivity and effectiveness. Tracking the sales cycle for each rep lets you see your top and bottom performers, and tracking the average days to Won over time acts as a warning signal to declining productivity.
When you track the number of activities per stage to get from Contacted to Won, you get a high-level view of all the time and resources invested into each lead. With this sales metric, you can find which sales reps need more training and identify bottlenecks in the sales process for your team.
Strategic. Our goal is to give you the insight you need to strategize your business, helping you know whether your team is on track.
Straightforward. Our dashboards have performance metrics that are simple to understand. It’s easy to know what’s being measured, how it’s calculated, what the targets are, importantly, what they can do to affect the outcome in a positive direction.
Actionable. Metrics don’t mean much if you don’t know what actions to take in order to change and improve. For example, knowing that a deal closed is great, but is not very actionable. However, being able to see how many interactions were had and how long it took to close is the actionable insight you need to improve business.
Real-time. SPOTIO’s pulls real-time data so field sales managers can establish pipeline benchmarks and properly forecast business.
SPOTIO’s sales dashboards and tools give you the most relevant metrics reports to examine and improve each step of the sales process. By automatically tracking sales metrics, you can keep every sales rep accountable and gain insights to improve productivity and effectiveness over time.
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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.
SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.
Sales meetings are a necessary part of managing a sales team. However, they’re often unpopular because the sales team feels like they are a waste of time.
Many sales managers do not have a sales meeting agenda, choosing instead to wing it or follow a plan to which only they are privy. This strategy is also not an indicator of success and leads to the feelings that the unpopular meeting is, in fact, a waste of time.
The most successful sales meetings are ones which utilize a sales meeting agenda because they help keep your meeting organized, on-track, and on-time.
Define the purpose of the meeting
Communicates the priorities for the sales team and provides an organized process to facilitate productivity
Increases engagement with the priorities, as well as boosting their accountability to their targets
Opens the flow of dialogue and collaboration, which can lead to improved team bonding and performance
It helps organize all these items and set expectations for the goals of the meeting.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at sales meeting agendas, explore what items we recommend as topics, and share some share tips and tricks for how to use the sales meeting agenda to run the session.
Ready to learn how to run your sales meeting efficiently and effectively? Let’s get to it…
The intro is a chance to help everyone transition from what they were doing into what they are doing now. Chances are they could use a second to get into “meeting mode.”
The intro should be brief; a quick review of what you are going to talk about at this session or a recap of what you talked about at the last one.
One important caveat about the introduction: it should be positive. An upbeat beginning is an excellent way to transition your team into meeting mode, but with energy and anticipation rather than dread and anxiety.
Once everyone is settled in and ready to work, you should review sales team performance per your key metrics. The idea is not to call anyone out or do a deep dive on the numbers but have an overview of how everyone’s performance is on the four or five metrics you have identified as vital to their evaluation.
Tools like Spotio’s Sales Tracker can help you have an idea of what is going on in the field. Plus, the reporting features make preparing it for the meeting easy.
Next, you should have a sales update. Not only does it hold your salespeople accountable, but it also helps motivate everyone.
Once you have covered sales, go over the activity of the people in the room. Having people talk about what they are doing and what is working for them is an excellent way for the sales team to collaborate with and learn from one another.
Obviously, you don’t need the whole rundown. Focus instead on the most significant opportunities and also any that have been in the pipeline for a while. The team can help make suggestions on how to move these opportunities on to the next step.
This agenda item is also where team members should share feedback. As the customer-facing part of the team, they have unique access to what’s happening in the market. It can be an invaluable resource for your organization to share and document this information.
Another excellent way to keep your sales team thinking about what’s next is to request a scheduled sales activity report.
Technology can help the preparation or review for this agenda item. Spotio’s Sales Territory Management functionality gives you an excellent overview of each sales rep’s territory and scheduled activity. Moreover, you can outline exactly where to go and what action is needed at each prospect, which streamlines the prep and frees up more time to spend selling.
At the beginning of each quarter, you likely assigned some specific goals for each of your team members that will help them be successful. The sales meeting agenda should ensure these objectives are analyzed from time to time.
What the quarterly goals are vary by the rep and the organization for whom they sell. Some organizations assign training objectives for sales reps, like clinical education for highly specific medical or dental equipment. Others might have trade show goals for their sales reps, like bike equipment manufacturers attending the big bike races in a region.
No matter what they are, you should touch base on them from time-to-time to ensure that the progress you expect is made in those areas. Setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Related) goals is an excellent way to stay on track toward a long-term goal.
It is an excellent rule of thumb that every meeting should provide value for your sales reps. Adding to the sales meeting agenda some time for training on relevant skills is an excellent way to ensure that value.
Some organizations do something called a Pitch Round Table. This activity involves bringing your best pitch tips and tricks and sharing them with the group. Then in a collaborative effort, everyone takes the best of the best to improve their pitch.
There are quite a few options for training time. You can have everyone bring two common objections and have everyone brainstorm ways to overcome them. You can also show a video, share a blog post, or stage a role play for different sales skills or scenarios.
When everyone is together, it can be an excellent time to cover important company business and any housekeeping issues for the team. From policy changes to feedback from other departments, including these areas can help—just be sure to move through them efficiently.
As the sales manager, including these items on the sales meeting agenda is crucial to upholding a transparent culture. As the manager, you often have information that the team does not. Be sure they understand the company’s strategy, are aware of any new product launches and know about the latest marketing campaign.
Sharing success stories has two essential goals for your sales meeting agenda. First, it gives an opportunity for a sales rep to bask in the glow of success while telling their colleagues about a significant win. Second, it provides other members of the team ideas for what they can do to create success stories of their own.
It’s also an excellent way to keep a positive vibe in the meeting. Energizing the team with a great story of success can contribute to a productive meeting.
Knowing what is going on across town or across the country with your competitor can help you respond to threats to your business. Also, having an idea of what is going on in your industry as a whole will react appropriately with the way you approach prospects in the territory.
Assign every sales rep one or two competitors. Then have them report back over time on what they know about the competitions offer, products and pricing, and any news or changes at their organization. Then, have the team brainstorm on how to respond.
Another idea is to assign one competitor to the entire group and have time devoted each week to take a close look at the designated company. You can analyze their business strategy, proposed unique selling proposition, marketing campaigns, and even how they target their territories and brainstorm strategy to counteract them.
Technology has ways to use this data to enable your team to qualify leads in the field. Spotio’s Lead Machine helps you target the best possible areas for canvassing by providing up-to-date data.
Opportunities and Threats are two items typically used in a SWOT analysis, which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Knowing what openings could be present for your team to capitalize on and preparing strategies to counteract for any pressures or risks to the territory that can derail you are an excellent activity for the group.
Roadblocks can be obstacles that could deter you from your goals in the coming week. Perhaps there is an internal roadblock because another department has an issue, like a product going on back-order or weather-related delays in logistics or maybe a key person in the organization will be out of the office at the end of the week. Discussing these roadblocks in the meeting can have reps already thinking about ways to manage them in the coming days.
Miscellaneous items or “walk-ons” are areas that were not on the agenda but needed addressing. These issues might have come up in a discussion during the meeting or one of the team members introduced it. Use a couple of minutes to see if it is something that can be addressed quickly or if it should be set aside for the next week’s sales meeting agenda.
A great way to close a successful sales meeting is to review any action items. Everyone should know what they need to do when they leave the meeting and plunge back into their territories.
Also, clearly communicate your expectations about what a complete action item is. For example, if you want a sales rep to follow up on a competitor’s marketing offer, and you want all the collateral and links to their media ads, be sure you say exactly that to the sales rep. (Otherwise, it’s your fault if they do not come back with the right materials—at least in part, anyway.)
Bonus Sales Meeting Agenda Item…Motivational Topics: Ending on a positive note is crucial to a successful sales meeting agenda. As a sales manager, your job is to encourage the best performance from each of your team members. Motivating them is a vital part of this effort.
Some sales managers like to share the company’s success at this point in the meeting or the success of the sales team as a group overall or in a particular area. Others might share a success story from another industry or from past or present sales team members. Some people like to share philosophy concepts or a pertinent quote from sales training organizations.
You can get creative with this one. It is all about creating that engagement to do a little extra to hit the sales goal.
What you include on the agenda is only part of your sales meeting agenda success. How you run the meeting is vital.
One way to prove to your team that sales meetings are not time-wasters is to commit to a start and end time. It also shows you value and respect their time.
Your sales meeting also serves as an example of how you want your team to treat customers. Be a good example and keep the meeting on track and on time.
Losing focus in a sales meeting is an easy thing to do. Salespeople (and sales managers) like to talk. Also, phones, tablets, and watches tend to interrupt our lives, too. It’s up to you to keep the meetings on track with the agenda.
One way to keep the meeting focused is to set up “house rules,” which can be anything from whoever is holding the talking stick has the floor to no technology at the table.
You can also use a timer to keep discussions within a specified time limit. If the debate isn’t over, you can always assign the topic to the next meeting.
Another idea is to make a rule that no one can introduce new business once the agenda is set. Instead, you can assign that topic to the next sales meeting agenda.
Like anything in sales, you need to plan for success with your sales meeting agenda. It will communicate the purpose of the meeting, establish the topics to be covered and set the proper expectations for the team.
Sending the sales meeting agenda out two or three days before the meeting not only solidifies your plan for the meeting ahead of time, but it also sets proper expectations for the team, both on what they should prepare and what they will learn.
Salespeople do not appreciate when it is unclear why you want to meet. When you confirm the purpose of your meeting through the agenda items you include on the plan, you clarify your reason. Not only that, establishing the intention helps you focus your time on the most pertinent sales items you need to relate to the team.
Once you have a set reason for your meeting, the agenda items you include should roll-up to that purpose. In other words, the topics need to contribute to the confirmed purpose of the meeting.
Let’s say the theme for the sales meeting is pipeline replenishment and maintenance. Agenda items should include pipeline filling and management topics like prospecting, qualifying, and scheduling demonstrations. Another idea is to practice overcoming objections to move leads through the pipeline faster. Maybe you have your best prospector share their cold calling techniques with the team.
What you don’t want to do is to set the goal of pipeline management topics and spend the meeting covering the sales planning for next quarter. The agenda needs to focus the energy on the issue at hand.
Another way to assure your team that the meeting is not a waste of time is to propose a meeting duration. You can do this for the overall session, or you can include time estimations on each topic. We recommend reviewing past agendas to produce accurate time estimations.
To stay on track during the meeting, you can set a timer or alarm on your phone. Make a commitment that when the alarm goes off, you will end the session within two minutes if you are still talking. That should give you enough time to wrap things up or make a plan to resolve whatever you haven’t yet covered.
While we are on the subject of estimating time, we should mention that some meetings take longer than others. Not all sales meeting agendas are created equal when it comes to duration.
Per MeetingKing.com, research shows that people’s attention drops off after 30 minutes. The drop off in attention span increases as the meeting time does. Therefore, the shorter your meeting, the more engaged your sales team is likely to be.
Also, many people come from one meeting only to go straight into another. Then, the second meeting starts late, and so on. If you were to schedule your sales meeting to end five minutes before the half-hour or hour, you could help eliminate that timeline slide.
The default option in many meeting scheduling systems is one hour. However, you should only have an hour-long meeting when absolutely necessary. Examples of when a more extended session is required could be for an annual review, a project with many participants that need to weigh in or discuss portions of the project or to introduce a new product or offer launch.
Avoid scheduling meetings longer than an hour. The occasions where meeting for more than an hour is necessary are rare. Some examples could be an outside trainer is attending, or a new technology implementation is underway. However, for all regular sales meetings, strive to be short and sweet regularly.
Taking time to hear from everyone about the sales activity in the sales meeting can be a useful part of the sales meeting agenda. However, it should not be a section to which a lot of time is devoted.
The point of the exercise is to have your sales team accountable and ready to contribute to the meeting—with a possible side-effect of igniting that competitive spirit so prevalent in successful salespeople. If you spend too much time in this area though, you could have the opposite effect.
Remember that your CRM can provide sales reporting. If you want a more comprehensive review at the meeting, then run the reports right before the sales meeting and distribute. Have your team share the highlights and low lights and then, move on to other topics.
Saleshacker.com recommends devoting time on your sales meeting agenda to shared learning and collaborative improvement. Have the team members present something they learned over the previous week to the team. Then, discuss as a group what the team member discovered.
An example could be an innovative way to automate follow up with prospects. If a team member discovers something that could help everyone automate lead maintenance for their pipelines, have them share it with the team. Then, the other team members could ask questions or offer suggestions that might tweak the solution even more.
Saleshacker.com also recommends having a place where people can submit their learning (possibly email or an online shared document). Then you can add it to the agenda for the discussion.
Your meetings should all provide something that will help your sales team achieve their goals in either sales or customer satisfaction. Each session should have something they can use the same day toward either of these goals. From role-playing to best-practice sharing, industry trends to TED talks, you have lots of sources for this value-delivering agenda item.
If you want your team to value and respect your sales meeting, have a consistent meeting date and time. When you frequently cancel or skip it, you send a message that the sales meeting is not important.
One thing your team members have in common regardless of experience is hearing objections. Sharing how to overcome these objections once encountered is an excellent item for your sales meeting agenda.
The value of this exercise is two-fold. First, it is morale boosting for newer team members to know that even the battle-hardened experts face objections. Second, it gives everyone new ideas and ways to position the product or service in the market and increase the value proposition they are selling.
Having an interactive sales meeting is energizing to the team. Listening to one person talk for 25 minutes (or more) is not. Ensure that your sales meeting agenda includes time for lively discussion or other presenters to keep the team engaged and excited about the topic at hand.
A discussion is a team-building exercise. For sales team members that are struggling, the supportive environment and instructional nature of their team members can lift their spirits and inspire them to continue to strive for excellence.
You should establish prep tasks for the meeting. Everyone should know what you expect from them in detail.
After the meeting concludes, you should do a quick recap of the topics and assign follow up tasks via email or group message. For example, if you discussed learning more about your competition, assign people research tasks. If you trained on overcoming objections, have each rep prepare two times he or she used the techniques suggested and what happened as a result.
On the subject of follow up, if you have a pertinent issue to discuss with one member of the team, be sure to discuss it after the meeting. The sales meeting agenda should focus on issues that everyone needs to hear and consider, rather than the specifics of one individual.
The sales meeting is your time to motivate the team. It’s even better when you use the items you include on your sales meeting agenda to help them drive each other with team-building discussions or collaborative problem-solving.
Also, the sales meeting might be the only place where the team interacts with people at the company regularly or for any length of time. So, the sales meeting agenda should contain the type of content that promotes the culture you want to foster with the sales team.
Go out with a bang.
EZ Cater.com, an online order site for office catering, suggests ending the meeting on a high note to energize the team. The team should finish the meeting feeling positive about the company, their product and their ability to hit their goals, and galvanized enough to go out and do it.
There are many ways to “end on a high note.” You can pay a compliment to their presentations and recap what they contributed to the sales meeting. You can share a success story from your past or, better yet, from one of them. You can tell a joke, provided you have talent in this area, and it’s HR-approved 🙂
It’s easy to establish a tone to a sales meeting where you are the teacher, and your team are the students. If you are the center of the agenda and control all the content, as well as being the one who answers all the questions, then the team is likely to feel like this meeting is about you.
However, the sales meeting should be about them, not you. Through what you include on the sales meeting agenda, you should let the team own the meeting. You should facilitate and manage it more than “run the show.”
Open up the floor to your team to inspire their engagement. Also, having other people lead the topic will decrease the “classroom” feel and increase their ownership in the issue at hand.
Your team is more likely to participate in a genuine way when they feel like they are part of the meeting rather than a party to it
From defining the purpose to communicating expectations, the sales meeting agenda sets the stage for increasing sales team engagement and accountability. Also, the items you include present the type of culture you expect for your team and facilitates collaboration, which boosts morale and increases team bonding.
Keeping your meetings focused and streamlined is another vital contribution a sales meeting agenda can provide. The most successful sales meetings don’t just happen; they are planned ahead of time with careful consideration and deliberate organization.
Perhaps most importantly, an efficient meeting is effective at providing value to your team. And when the team gains something that will help them improve their performance, they will not think of your sales meeting as a waste of time. Instead, they will consider it an investment in their success.
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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.
SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.
If you are tracking field sales reps, then you need effective territory management software. By pairing the powerful planning and mapping software of SPOTIO with the flexible Salesforce platform, teams will strategize, scale, and grow business better than ever.
Boost your productivity by customizing your Salesforce instance by territory, and your users will never see irrelevant data again.
Territory Management in the Sales Cloud uses an intuitive user interface that guides your users through company procedures and best practices. Not only that, but managers have a view from above that allows them access to data at a glance.
With Territory Management, geography and hierarchy come together to help your company function as a cohesive unit.
Here we’ll take you through a quick look at how territory management can help your business, and show you solutions to empower your teams with even more practical field sales tools.
Available in both Classic and Lightning experience, Territory Management enables your company to use your management hierarchies already in place to guide an automated organize data and user roles in the same way that you manage sales territories. This new system of organization can revolutionize the way your teams bring in sales, which allows for even more accurate forecasts.
For a guided tour of how this works, click here.
Salesforce gives you territory modeling, letting you compare performance projections for new assignments and management hierarchies. It also provides management and team leaders a range of other tools to effectively collaborate and close more deals.
Let’s take a closer look…
You may be familiar with the Territory Management Component that was only available in Classic. Salesforce will phase this feature out in the Summer ‘20 update, so get ahead of the curve and learn about Enterprise Territory Management!
Role hierarchies are one of the touchstones of Salesforce, but what about when you can take them a step further? Use territories to guide your profile assignments, and you will make sure that your field reps only have access to what they need when they need it.
Worried about complex accounts? This robust tool allows access to users based on account characteristics, not just geography. This means you can sort accounts under multiple territories. Set up your company structure, and user permissions will fall into place!
Once you’re ready to build out your territory management, simply follow the instructions in Setup under Territory Settings.
If your Salesforce instance already has a role hierarchy in place, great! All you have to do is assign users to territories based on the predetermined structure. If not, no worries! Simply create your hierarchy based on the territories they cover.
What if everyone in your company needs access to a certain set of records? Maybe there are some big projects that reps from multiple territories need access to. This is where org-wide permission sets can come in handy.
Set your rules, and everyone can have access to the same version of information!
Generating leads and closing opportunities is great, but when it comes time to evaluate sales strategies, you’re going to want historical data and powerful forecasting tools.
Enterprise Territory Management comes with plenty of custom report types to accommodate your needs, such as:
– Accounts by Territory
– Territories without Accounts
– Users Not Assigned to Territories
– Territories Per User
With these reporting capabilities, your collaborative forecasting is going to be more accurate than ever. However, with such a dynamic feature, you’ll need to consider how your data will be impacted once you introduce territories. Make sure you test all new functions in the sandbox, and your company will thank you.
So you know how to use and enable territory management within Salesforce, but what if you need even more specificity when it comes to sales records on the go?
SPOTIO is specifically designed to keep your field data and CRM working as a synchronized unit.
2-Way integration with Salesforce syncs your information in real-time, allowing reps to leverage the power of historical reporting and enriched lead information no matter where they are.
Assign territories as specifically as you want with SPOTIO, even down to individual territories per sales rep. Enhance your Salesforce Mobile experience by automatically recording every step of your sales rep’s journey to Closed Won.
SPOTIO’s flexible integration boasts complex field-mapping as well as guided next-steps. When you complete an activity or update a pin within SPOTIO, a new task is created in Salesforce, ready for when you get back to the office.
Here are just a few of the powerful features and benefits that you can look forward to when turning to our proven field sales and territory management platform:
– Visual customer mapping for logical routes
– Real-time outside sales tracking
– Real-time performance metrics
– Custom maps of territories and assignments
– Enriched out-of-office notes
Investing in field sales is an investment in the future of your company. The better opportunities and leads are managed, the higher the chances of reaching a good rate and quantity of turnover.
After all, statistics show that sales reps spend just a third of their time selling, and only 65% hit their sales quotas.
No matter how good your reps may be, there is always a need to find better ways to improve sales accountability. Better performance means happier, more productive staff. Re-evaluating and optimizing sales territory management strategy is essential to meeting your core goals and quotas.
With the intuitive integration of SPOTIO’s sales support and Salesforce’s Enterprise Territory Management, your reps and teams will reach an all-new pinnacle of performance.
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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.
SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.
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Forecasting techniques are, in effect, ways for your organization to make predictions. The range of available techniques run the gamut from creative art forms to strict numbers based science. Of course, one is not better than the other, but can complement each other well enough.
That said, forecasting techniques like scenario writing are a way to prepare your company, specifically your sales department, for different possibilities in your future.
Companies today use a range of techniques to forecast sales, one of the often under appreciated techniques is scenario writing.
With this process, a qualitative approach, you can achieve long term planning and prepare for any potential extremes that your quantitative data might not be able to provide. Similar to forecast stages, this approach is contingent upon a more subjective appreciation of sales and business.
With this method, your goal is to project numerous likely outcomes based on different, highly specific, assumption sets. So, you would draft several pictures of what might unfold based on those individual sets.
This provides you with the best case scenarios, worst case scenarios, and everything in between.
In order for scenario writing to be an effective forecasting technique, you need to plan the scenarios in question around uncertainties that lie ahead for your organization. Then, you need a clear plan of action that you would be able to immediately implement should any of the projected scenarios happen.
Even when properly implemented, there are disadvantages to using this forecasting technique.
You have the opportunity to think strategically about the things that might happen within your sales department. Tangentially, you get to make plans that comprise a contingency of sorts, preparing your sales for the worst and best to come.
As is the case with forecast stages, using scenario writing means you need to have one person within your company who has a keen eye for psychology and for business activity, particularly within sales. These are more subjective than they are quantitative. That means they function as more of an art form and less of a strict science. This should be used as a way to complement other data driven methods, rather than relying upon it entirely.
By combining more than one technique, you get the best of both worlds and generate a fuller picture of what the future brings.
With this technique there are eight steps you can follow in order to think strategically about your scenarios and your planning process:
1. The focal issue within your assumption set.
2. Key factors that are influenced by the focal issue and which influence the focal issue.
3. Any external forces from the focal issue.
4. Critical uncertainties related to the external forces or critical uncertainties.
5. Scenario logics, as they derive from: a) key factors b) external forces or c) critical uncertainties.
6. Scenarios
7. Implications and options
8. Early indicators, as they relate to the focal issue and the key factors
With this, you will note that a lot of the aspects relate to one another in some way. That is to say, that scenario writing looks similar to storytelling.
Let’s look at an example:
If your focal issue is annual sales, your key internal factors might be sales calls or received inquiries. The external factors that might impact this include local restrictions or competitors.
Your critical uncertainties pertain to what issues you might face over the coming year. This could include customers preferring online content rather than in-person lectures, changes to local institutions that impact your business.
From there, you can develop scenarios that pertain to each of these potential situations, in both good and bad directions. With that, you can develop the scenarios, what implications it would have for the annual sales, what options your organization would have if that event were to take place, and any early indicators.
This, in effect, would help you understand how your organization would go about handling each of these scenarios.
So, this is a process that can be applied to annual sales, quarterly issues, and other long term projections. With it, your organization won’t be caught off guard when things fluctuate favorably or unfavorably for your organization.
Using the example above, if you provide in-person content now but you have projected customers will lean toward newer technology, you could choose to implement an online version.
However, you would still need to be prepared to handle that in terms of sales calls and scheduling, something you would prepare for with scenario writing. By comparison, had you not prepared for the possibility of increased sales for an online component, you would find yourself ill equipped to handle the future scenarios, no matter how beneficial they would be for your company in terms of meeting annual sales requirements for your sales staff.
The answer to this question depends on your company. You are not limited to using just one technique. When your organization relies upon multiple forecasts it allows you to achieve a fuller picture of your overall sales approach. Thus, it is imperative that you decide which method is most effective for your company before you arbitrarily start applying techniques.
Conversely, don’t let yourself get caught up in the analytical stage of trying to find out which one is best, at the expense of just implementing one. While it is crucial to have accurate data, you should aim for valuable information above perfect information.
Remember too that all techniques take time and practice to successfully implement. So you might need to tweak the methods you use in conjunction with the manner you go about using scenario forecasting in order to achieve your sales objectives by looking into the future.
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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.
SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration platform to increase your revenue, maximize your profitability, and increase your team’s productivity.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.
B2B sales have evolved dramatically over the years, especially since the dawn of the digital age.
The days of cold calling and direct mail aren’t forgotten, but the way in which we do business has changed a lot.
More companies are investing in B2B sales teams – inside and outside – across a range of industries.
The B2B sales environment is evolving, and now has more decision-makers and touchpoints involved than it did just a few years ago. This growing complexity is creating longer sales cycles, which pose a host of fresh challenges for all B2B sales stakeholders.
In this article, we’ll explore B2B selling in detail, covering a range of the most effective sales strategies and tools so you can learn how to sell B2B products and services.
B2B means “business-to-business”, so B2B sales is the practice of one business selling products or services to another business. Here are some well-known B2B sales examples:
Spotio – This field sales acceleration platform helps businesses build pipeline, increase sales, and boost productivity.
HubSpot – The all-in-one platform for sales and inbound marketing helps companies attract more visitors, convert more leads, and close more sales.
Salesforce – A leading force in customer relationship management (CRM), which helps businesses connect and communicate with prospective customers in a more efficient, effective way.
This is distinctly different from B2C, otherwise known as business-to-consumer sales, where companies sell directly to end users instead of to other businesses. The best example of a B2C company is Amazon, which makes billions of dollars every year selling products directly to consumers all over the globe.
When we look at the B2B sales process in more detail, we can identify a few unique differences compared to B2C:
More stakeholders to convince – In B2B sales, you must convince multiple stakeholders in varying roles, each with different needs and priorities. By comparison, B2C is just about convincing one person.
Higher price points – Generally speaking, B2B sales have a much higher average order value, which is one of the biggest attractions.
More touchpoints – Prospects often need to review product information, and talk to several people before committing to a purchase.
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Longer sales cycles – With the more people involved, higher prices, and additional touchpoints, the B2B sales funnel is longer. According to a CSO Insights report, almost ⅓ of B2B sales cycles last longer than 10 months:
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In B2B sales, your business can be viewed as two interconnected teams – inside sales and outside sales.
Quite often, inside sales representatives sell products and services remotely, and therefore, they’re usually based in an office. By comparison, outside sales reps are “out in the field”, negotiating face-to-face deals with prospects at their business premises, conferences and trade shows.
Studies from Spotio indicate that outside sales earn a 30% higher close rate than inside sales. Furthermore, outside sales teams also clinch deals that are over 130% larger.
Despite this, there has been a shift towards inside sales in recent years:
While outside sales reps can nurture business relationships in a more personal way, many organizations are attracted to inside sales because it offers a more cost-effective, automated approach to B2B selling.
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Numbers Don’t Tell The Full Story… This in-depth guide will highlight the key operational difference between inside and outside sales. |
Digital transformation has been shaking up global business in many ways, and the B2B sales process is certainly not immune.
Here are three reasons why B2B sales have changed so much in recent times:
You already know B2B sales involve more people. The thing is, that number is growing. A report from the Harvard Business Review asserts that the number of people involved in the average B2B sales process – known as the decision-making unit (DMU) – rose from 5.4 to 6.8 between 2015 and 2017.
Research from Forrester found almost 74% of B2B buyers conduct about half of their total research online before they make an offline purchase. The B2B customers of today have greater access to information online and offline – and they’re putting it to good use.
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Understanding the customer journey is a critical aspect of B2B selling, especially in a highly competitive field. Ultimately, the companies who map their sales process to the customer journey will have more success targeting the right people, with the right offer, at the right time.
Now that you’ve gotten to grips with the fundamentals, let’s see how to sell B2B.
This process starts from scratch, and if you do every step comprehensively and correctly, you should be able to close with a sale. Best of all, this B2B sales process works for both for inside sales and outside sales teams.
Let’s dive in.
If you don’t have a clear understanding of where your business will fit into the existing market, you will struggle to get anywhere and could waste a lot of your resources chasing the wrong targets.
To begin, make a list of your nearest 4 or 5 competitors that are selling similar products or services. Now, consider the following:
i. Unique Selling Proposition – What do they offer that nobody else can? By comparison, why should B2B customers choose your brand over the competitors?
ii. Differentiators – Take notes on their brand voice, content style, products, and pricing. Identify the traits and characteristics that shape their brand identity.
iii. SWOT – With your competitor analysis at hand, you can move on to conduct a SWOT evaluation of your own business. Consider the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats you have right now.
Next, turn your attention to potential customers. A HubSpot study found that about 50% of your prospects won’t be a good fit.
Therefore, before you get started in B2B sales, it’s absolutely vital that you know your audience.
The most effective way to do this is by creating customer personas. Through research, you can gather insights from real customers to build a very accurate picture of your ideal customer.
Just remember that with B2B sales, your customer personas should be for decision-makers that have the authority and budget to negotiate and close deals with your company.
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An example B2B customer persona may include the following details:
Demographic – Age, gender, income, living status, education, etc.
Company role – The current position at the company, and an overview of their authority.
E.g. VP of Sales , controls $500K budget for the sales department.
Goals – Professional and personal ambitions. E.g. She wants to increase sales by 20% in the next year.
Challenges – The problems they need help with. E.g. Her sales reps aren’t clear on which areas and prospects they should focus on.
Interests – Favorite websites, magazines, news sources, software, apps, etc. These insights can inform how and where you contact prospects.
When you take the time and effort to research your market, your competitors, and your ideal customers, it will give you the strong foundation you need to succeed at B2B selling. With this much done, you can move forward to the next step in the B2B sales process.
In the past, B2B salespeople simply bought a list of prospects, however, that has changed. Now, you can create your own list of B2B prospects through social media. Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are great for outbound sales, as you can engage business owners directly on the platform.
Alternatively, you can use inbound marketing by creating content and promoting it on your company blog and social media channels. This will let prospects discover your products and services in a more natural way, which usually makes them more open to a sale.
Whichever route you go, collect a list of top prospects that you believe fit your ideal customer persona before moving to the next step.
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Editor’s note: A sales rep could use a sales intelligence tool like SPOTIO’s Lead Machine to map a target geographic location, filter by prospects in that area using different persona data points, and then export the finished list and import into their lead management tool. This way, reps are only working leads in target areas that meet defined criteria. This drastically improves sales efficiency and close rates. |
After prospecting, you can approach potential buyers to introduce yourself, and start building a relationship. Traditionally, this may have been done with a cold call to follow-up after a brochure had been mailed.
Rapid advancements in automation technology have transformed sales and marketing processes in a big way. This is good news for B2B companies and also for customers.
You can use data analytics to check email open rates, video views, and website visits. Then, you can tailor your approach to get in touch with prospects that seem most interested.
This initial contact gives you a chance to learn a little more about each prospect, and it also puts your brand top-of-mind with potential B2B customers.
| Editor’s note: If you’re having trouble reaching prospects, check out this in-depth guide on how to get past the gatekeeper. |
Studies show that while most B2B marketers send all their leads directly to the sales team, a mere 27% of those leads will actually be qualified.
While technology certainly improves the chances of success, it’s by no means guaranteed. Before you move forward with prospects, you must confirm they are a viable lead.
An effective way of doing this is by using the Sandler Pain Funnel:
This strategic series of questions helps you discover your prospect’s real needs. Better yet, it goes beyond the pain point to reveal whether they have the budget and the decision-making authority to do business with you.
The eight questions in the Sandler Pain Funnel, in order, are:
1. “Tell me more about that…”
2. “Can you be more specific? Give me an example.”
3. “How long has that been a problem?”
4. “What have you tried to do about that?”
5. “How did that work?”
6. “How much do you think this has cost you?”
7. “How do you feel about that?”
8. “Have you given up trying to deal with the problem?”
When you size up each prospect with these qualifying questions, you will develop a better understanding of how your products or services can assist them. This will be instrumental in the next step.
Today, you can make pitches through video content, such as a webinar, live video conference, or even in a private video meeting.
The latter is best for maximum personalization. Indeed, it’s best to tailor the pitch for every single prospect, and if possible, do it in-person. If your product is quite technical, you can bring an engineer to the meeting to field any technical questions.
In any case, the pitch is sure to be a time-consuming process. It requires considerable effort and planning, as it’s such a crucial stage of the B2B sales process.
It can make-or-break the deal.
On the upside, you’ll only be doing pitches for prospects that have already been qualified, therefore, it’s worth the effort to create a good pitch.
| Editor’s note: Want more inspiration? Check out these sales pitch examples. |
It’s easy to think the B2B sales process is all one-way traffic. However, it’s important to listen to your prospects.
Act as a guide, simply steering the conversation and letting the prospect fill in the gaps. Ideally, you should only do around 30% of the talking. This makes people feel like they are being heard and understood.
Another technique is to teach rather than sell. By offering advice to help someone improve their business without any expectation of a sale, you’ll quickly earn people’s trust.
Learning to adapt your sales process in this way takes a little practice. However, when you get it right, you’ll forge stronger relationships with prospects.
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Research from Forrester found that 59% of B2B customers would rather manage relationships on their own, which compounds the belief that people still don’t really like to be approached by salespeople.
For B2B sales professionals, that poses a dilemma:
Should they follow-up?
The answer is yes. That being said, timing matters.
If you follow-up too soon or too often, you may annoy your prospect, and lose the sale. If you’re too nonchalant, you won’t close many sales.
The art of following up requires a delicate balance of personalization, persistence, and perception. You have to understand how your prospects like to be approached, and what they may be worried about.
By putting yourself in the prospect’s shoes, you can understand their mindset, their needs, and their concerns.
The final step in your B2B sales funnel is the close. Quite often, this is seen as the most difficult stage of B2B selling. However, if you have completed the rest of the B2B sales process correctly, your close should come easy.
When you get this far, your prospects should be ready to purchase. If you get the sense that they’re still hesitant, it may be best to discuss their concerns again to address any outstanding issues.
Ultimately, if you and the prospect are aligned, the sale is much more likely. If not, you can still close, and then tee-up another appointment or product demo in the near future.
Some prospects need a little more time, so the sale isn’t always dead if you don’t get it the first time around.
Now that you’ve got the basic steps to the B2B sales process down, here are eleven B2B sales strategies that are sure to get the needle moving in the right direction.
The sooner you identify key players in your target companies, the better.
When you start researching prospect websites, check pages like “Meet the Team” or “About Us” for information about the big players.
You can find details about the key decision-makers and their roles by searching on LinkedIn. This approach ensures you start off on the right foot and give your search the laser-focus it needs to succeed.
Almost 70% of B2B customers claim their business needs aren’t being addressed during the first contact. If you don’t meet your prospect’s needs, they aren’t likely to stick around.
By embracing solution-based selling, you can target a pain point of your prospect, then tailor your sales pitch to help people overcome their problem.
Here are some example questions that can help you drill down and discover the challenges your prospect is facing:
“What are your company’s goals for the short-term and long-term?”
“What do you believe is your greatest strength and greatest weakness?”
“What aspects do you like best about your current supplier? What things don’t you like?”
“Name one thing you would change about your business.”
“What deadlines are you facing now?”
“Which resources do you want to use more?”
“Would you rather cut costs, improve productivity, or increase profits?”
“Does your business struggle with [pain point]?”
This tactic is hugely successful now because it is all about the prospect and their problem, which is a more welcoming proposition than a pushy sales pitch.
Remember that the B2B sales cycle is longer than B2C.
It will serve you well in the long-run if you develop closer relationships with prospects as they will be more inclined to become a loyal customer who continually makes purchases.
If that’s not motivation enough, consider this:
Over a period of five years, most B2B companies lose about 50% of their customers.
Momentum matters.
Even when you think you have it made, it’s crucial to keep the momentum going so that you continue building filling your pipeline with more B2B customers. That way, even when you lose a customer, the show goes on.
Sales territory management is a popular system that B2B teams use to assign prospects and geographical areas to specific salespeople depending on the industry, location, or account size. This strategy ensures that there is no overlap between your sales reps.
Segmenting your target audience in this way is an effective use of your resources, and it gives each rep the chance to foster closer relationships with the leads in their territory. This is particularly beneficial to outside sales reps who meet the prospects in-person on a regular basis.
| Editor’s note: You can use a tool like SPOTIO’s Territory Manager to quickly map territories and assign them to different reps. Managers no longer have to spend hours reviewing physical maps and drawing out territories for assignment by hand. |
Online content creation is a powerful way of providing value for your audience, and by doing that, you can establish a strong online presence and a brand identity that resonates with people.
Research indicates a direct link between content marketing and successful closes. The least successful B2B companies spent just 22% of their budget on content marketing, while the most successful B2B companies allocated 39%.
Also, Gist reports that after they read custom content, 82% of B2B customers view a company in a more positive light, and 70% of customers claim they feel closer to companies after engaging with their content.
Over time, with great content, you can position your brand as a thought leader – one that B2B customers respect and trust.
It’s little surprise that over 90% of B2B marketers use content marketing.
It can be used to nurture relationships at every stage of the customer journey, to teach prospects, and build your authority in their minds.
There is a ton of ways to leverage content, including:
Blog posts
Educational articles
Case Studies
eBooks
Videos
Webinars
Whitepapers
Courses
Done right, this strategy can reduce the B2B sales cycle, and drive more people through your sales funnel, which will increase your leads, conversions, and ultimately, your profits.
Social selling is all about using social media to identify key decision makers, and joining meaningful conversations with them at the right moment. That becomes the first step of your selling process, and from there you can guide prospects through your B2B sales funnel.
Research from LinkedIn shows that 78% of people who are engaged in social selling will sell more than those who are not using it.
Some great B2B sales examples of social selling in action include IBM, which drove a 400% increase in sales, and SAP, which increased revenue by 32%.
So, why is it so effective?
Nowadays, B2B customers do a lot more of their own research, so brands need to be agile to meet prospects on multiple different touchpoints.
Social selling helps you leverage omnichannel marketing in a way that establishes brand recognition quickly, so people automatically think of your brand when they are ready to buy. This means you can bypass the awkward situation of cold calling to generate warm leads.
Studies from Google found that 70% of B2B customer watch videos when they are researching products before purchase.
Video content gets more engagement, and it’s highly shareable, which makes it great for creating brand awareness. Better yet, video content is a powerful way to convey emotion in your brand messaging, which is useful when you are trying to sell anything.
Ultimately, B2B customers don’t want a sales pitch – they want valuable information and engaging solutions that can help them with pain points. With video content and case studies like this one from Slack, companies can cut the salesperson out of the equation.
Almost 80% of leads never turn into sales.
It takes time to build trust, and for people to move through the B2B sales funnel to the point of purchase. But you can improve your B2B conversion rates with a structured approach to analyzing your leads.
Classify your prospects by how willing and ready they are to make a purchase by considering the following:
need;
interest;
budget;
timing;
role.
Every high-growth B2B company needs an effective sales process. Without it, all your best-laid plans and marketing funnels will count for little.
By devising a solid lead qualification framework, you can fill your sales pipeline with quality leads. This will optimize your use of resources, and ensure your sales team has a strong chance of closing valuable deals.
According to InsighThought, up to 97% of B2B leads are not ready to make a purchase.
The nature of B2B means that companies are typically considering an expensive commitment, and several decision-makers need to discuss it and agree.
This complex sales cycle creates an opportunity for B2B sales companies to build a relationship, where you can provide relevant information throughout the decision-making process.
Research from Marketo indicates that companies with a solid lead nurturing strategy generate 50% more ready-to-buy leads. Better yet, these hot prospects come cheap, at around 33% lower cost.
B2B selling is all about presenting the opportunity for positive change. You’re offering companies the chance to improve their business fortunes.
The problem is that not everyone likes change. Unless you have bottled the Elixir of Life and the sales patter of a Jedi barman, you’re going to encounter some tough customers that seemingly can’t be convinced.
The most common objections are related to:
Budget – “I can’t afford it”
Competitor – “I’m already using another product”
Competitor at a lower price – “I see your competitor is cheaper”
Timing – “Can you get back to us in Q4?”
In each of these scenarios, if you have well-prepared responses, you can turn objections around by focusing on the value your product offers.
Ideally, try to back this value up with social proof and case studies of similar B2B customers who had great results. Your prospects will see that what you’re offering is something truly unique, and they’ll realize it’s a long-term investment that delivers a great return on investment (ROI).
| Editor’s note: This guide dives deeper into some of the more common sales objections, and shows how to overcome them. |
When you think about all the big-ticket products in B2B sales, it’s wonderful when something free comes your way. Whether you’re on a tight budget or you have deep pockets, referrals are not be turned away.
Not only is it a new business opportunity, but a referral is much more likely to result in a sale. Research indicates that referrals close 70% quicker, and they deliver almost 60% more lifetime value.
Word-of-mouth is the cheapest form of marketing, and sometimes, the type that delivers the best bang for your buck.
Now that you’ve learned how to sell B2B the right way, let’s look at some common pitfalls. Here are five mistakes that can quickly derail your best-laid B2B sales strategies.
Many companies are drawn to inside sales because it can be more cost-effective than outside sales. In fact, it can be up to 90% cheaper than managing a field sales team. However, cheaper isn’t always a good thing.
By ignoring outside sales, companies pass up on a lot of leads, and risk creating a brand identity that doesn’t have much of a personal touch.
Outside sales teams win hands-down in this regard, as they have more human interaction with prospects, and are very effective at building strong customer relationships that can increase overall sales volumes, and also the customer lifetime value (CLV) of each buyer.
This is particularly important for companies that are selling complex products that need some explanation and discussion to alleviate concerns or confusion about how to use the product.
Sometimes, you have to speculate to accumulate. With savvy hiring, and smart territory management, you can strategically lower the cost of an outside sales team, which ensures it will deliver a higher overall ROI.
Getting in front of C-suite prospects can be a challenge. While you could take the easy route to negotiate with purchasing managers, they’ll rarely have the budget or the power to sanction huge deals.
This is a common problem, with 39% of professionals in B2B sales saying the inability to reach the right people is their biggest obstacle.
B2B sales strategies that focus on low-level buyers can’t deliver the high-growth and huge ROI you may be targeting. It’s much better to seek out the top-level decision makers who have the authority to agree to bigger deals. It may take more work, but it’ll be worth it.
Your product could be revolutionary.
However, when it comes to B2B selling, your prospects don’t care about the fancy features or the latest techno-jumbo buzzwords.
All they want to know is whether or not your products or services can solve their problem.
Instead of focusing on the product, focus on your potential customer. Identify their pain points, show them you care, and prove that your product or service offers the solution they need.
For many years, content marketers have sung the praises of using the Pareto Principle.
Also known as the 80-20 Rule, marketing experts believe that it’s best to only spend 20% of your time creating content, and the other 80% of the time marketing it.
The evidence suggests this a solid barometer, especially when you are just getting started and need to promote your online presence to attract quality traffic to your website.
Unfortunately, many marketers put all their eggs in one basket, and simply throw everything behind a single channel. While SEO is a great one to back, even it alone may not yield the B2B customers you want.
Now, omnichannel marketing is seen as the future of e-commerce.
It’s very rare to close a deal with just one or two engagements, especially in B2B sales. SPOTIO research shows that there is an average of 7 decision-makers involved in the buying process, and that 80% of B2B sales require at least 5 follow-up calls.
Businesses that are considering your high-ticket product will need to be nurtured through the customer journey before they decide to get the checkbook out.
Therefore, it’s vital that you follow up with prospects.
It’s okay if they need some time to think, but you shouldn’t let leads go cold. If someone contacts your company on social media or email to ask some questions, make sure to respond.
A lot of B2B companies struggle with this, and miscommunications between prospects and different sales reps can cause friction in your B2B sales funnel.
By keeping track of your leads and following up regularly, you can build a relationship that helps close more deals.
In the age of innovation, B2B companies have a plethora of fantastic tools to help them enhance their marketing and sales efforts.
Here are five tools for B2B sales.
A lot of sales managers struggle with limited resources, which hinders the company’s performance and growth.
With a territory management solution, managers can improve the efficiency of their sales team by strategically assigning reps to specific areas. This ensures minimal overlap in sales efforts, and allows managers to place top performers in the most valuable sales territories.
For example:
The SPOTIO platform is a go-to solution for many outside sales teams, as it is equipped with many great functions well-suited to field sales, such as:
Google Places Integration – This integration offers a map view and business information of every company within your territory. This is great for sorting and targeting leads, as you can filter by aspects like name, email, and business type.
Route Optimization – Managers can view real-time data from outside sales reps. This features allows reps to plan the most efficient routes using many different data points, such as distance, scheduling and meeting lengths.
e-Contracts Web + Mobile – Reps can use the mobile CRM to manage their sales pipeline and close deals with B2B customers while they’re on-the-go.
This is a good option for companies on a smaller budget. Sales Navigator lets you tap into the immense database of LinkedIn, which is home to the personal accounts of over 562-million professionals and businesses.
By using Sales Navigator, you can discover new leads in your market that suit your target customer profile. This tool allows you to track growing companies, keep tabs on developing trends and opportunities in the market, and gather data that enhances your outreach efforts.
The Google Chrome add-on also helps you find correct email addresses for leads, making it easier to connect. Without a doubt, this is one of the best B2B sales tools to have in your locker.
Claiming to be “the only tool you need” seems like a bold statement, but Sellhack may just back it up. When it comes to sales prospecting, it’s certainly one of the more powerful tools sales personnel can find today.
Its key features include CRM database cleaning, pipeline automation, and multi-task email verifications. However, you will need to upload some contact details first for Sellhack to do its thing.
The best feature is its ability to create custom social media audiences, which opens up another huge channel for lead generation.
If you want a pure sales prospecting tool, you should consider NerdyData. This has been specifically designed with software companies in mind, but it can work wonders for B2B sales in many fields.
NerdyData aims to identify new leads through the technology a company is already using, which is effective because that technology is a sign of the company’s intent and maturity.
The technology will also provide information about preferred brands, so NerdyData can leverage this to make rapid decisions on which leads to qualify or disqualify.
There aren’t many lists of B2B sales apps that don’t mention Salesforce.
Setting the bar for CRM platforms, this robust system integrates with virtually every other service or app you could want in B2B sales.
Better yet, it has a vast array of cloud-based applications for marketing, sales, and customer service. These are easy to get started with, which makes Salesforce suitable for teams of all sizes.
Whether you are creating a B2B sales funnel, managing leads or analyzing reports, this one-stop solution is perfect for inside sales teams.
| Editor’s note: Inside and outside sales teams have very different needs when it comes to CRM functionality. Sales teams already using Salesforce for their inside sales efforts can use SPOTIO to quickly bolt-on the functionality needed by field sales reps. |
Ready. Set. Sell.
So, there you have the ultimate guide to B2B sales.
Now you know how to sell B2B, and between the steps, strategies, and tools, you have everything you need to get started with B2B selling.
The time for talking is done.
Let’s take some action.
Which strategy will you try first?
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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.
SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration platform to increase your revenue, maximize your profitability, and increase your team’s productivity.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.
In a perfect world, your sales team could close more valuable deals in less time. While a highly productive field sales team is possible to achieve, there are a few variables you need to track and improve to reach this goal.
Sales Efficiency is all about using your resources, including your sales team’s time, in the most impactful way. On the other hand, sales effectiveness is measuring how well those efforts convert. It may help to think about sales efficiency output in terms of quantity and sales effectiveness as an output of quality.
The goal of a sales team is to be selling for as many hours in their working day as possible. With the metrics below you can learn just how efficient your current sales process is.
Cost of acquisition, or CAC, is an essential metric for understanding efficiency as it lets you know if your resources are being allocated in the best way.
Next, you’ll want to compare your CAC to your LTV. The closer these two numbers are, the more unsustainable your sales process is. It also goes without saying that your CAC shouldn’t exceed your LTV.
A good LTV:CAC ratio benchmark is 3:1
Tracking your average customer acquisition cost over time also helps your company make smart decisions. For example, you may be able to gain more budget for sales activities or new hires if you’re able to show your CFO the positive financial impact of the team.
How long does it take for sales reps to respond to new leads? Efficient follow-up can be crucial to a sale, and it’s critical to make sure your sales team is prioritizing responses.
Source: Hubspot
If you find that certain sales reps are falling behind in response time, it may be time for retraining. A lead response time that gets longer over time can also be a signal that the workload per sales rep is too much, and you may need to hire additional help.
While analyzing sales efficiency on a team-wide basis is useful, it only tells a partial story. Tracking sales metrics such as the number of sales calls or visits per week per team member is critical.
Taking into account pre-call research, the actual call, and post-call CRM updates, you should allow an average of 7.5 minutes for each cold call.
This helps you not only assess performance, but it also helps identify team member strengths and weaknesses.
Building trust with the prospect is an important aspect of an optimized sales process. By tracking the rate of client outreach, you can make sure your team is putting in the right amount of time to create a long-lasting relationship.
You can also use this data to understand what sales tactics work best with your customers.You may find that more touch points convert better for certain customer personas.
Did we save the best metric for last? Maybe.
A calculation referred to as a “magic number” is certainly worth investigating. This calculation shows you how much revenue growth you have in a year compared to resource inputs. Whereas the CAC equation gives you a dollar amount spent for each new customer, this “magic number” tells you how fast you recoup sales costs.
If your “magic number” is below 0.5, you don’t have a sustainable sales process. On the other hand, a ratio higher than one could suggest you aren’t investing enough in sales. While some of the other metrics on the list can be calculated less frequently, you can refer to this magic number month over month.
A very low “magic number” indicates that your sales team is operating efficiently, and you can turn your attention to improving effectiveness. However, if you have a high “magic number” you’ll want to assess sales team performance on individual efficiency metrics, such as number of sales calls per rep.
If your current sales efficiency is not where you’d like it to be, don’t worry. There are ways to improve efficiency, including cutting down on time spent on administrative work. After all, less time spent on non-selling tasks frees up space in the daily schedule for high-value activities.
Want to learn more? Check out our guide to boosting sales efficiency.
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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.
SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration platform to increase your revenue, maximize your profitability, and increase your team’s productivity.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.
The length of the sales cycle is a critical metric used within any sales organization. It’s for this reason that sales operations professionals are always reviewing the length of sales cycles statistics and looking for the respective stages where things are slowing down or things are speeding up. The overarching goal here is finding a way to reduce this timeframe.
Why?
Simply put, the shorter the sales cycle length, the faster the company earns money.
Your sales cycle is a series of predictable phases through which your sales representatives go in order to sell the product or service you offer. The sales cycle varies from one organization to the next based on the company itself and the products offered, so no two sales processes or cycles will be exactly the same.
That said, there are different stages to a sales cycle which have some flexibility from one business to another, depending on the complexity of the product. Generally speaking, most businesses have the following stages:
1. The prospect phase, where representatives handle phone calls or cold calling
2. The qualification phase, where representatives learn and understand about the prospects pain points in order to figure out if they are truly a good fit
3. The consideration phase where the sales presentation occurs
4. The decision phase where addressing of objectives happens
5. The closing phase, where theoretically the sale closes
6. The referral phase, where you request referrals from your happy customer
When you visualize the stages, they take the form of the sales pipeline.
Knowing the average sales cycle length can introduce a level of predictability into your sales forecasting. With this type of metric, if you receive a specific number of leads, you will know what the projected sales figures will likely be in one month, or even a few months down the line.
If you decide to set a KPI in order to reduce the length of your sales cycle, you can accelerate your revenue growth.
Tangentially, you can review which areas take longer than others and analyze any room for improvement. You can find out which months or weeks might be hitting the average mark or falling a bit behind. When reviewing individual representatives you can see how their average sales cycle length compares to the overall average.
The easiest way to track the length of your sales cycle is to start at the point of creation for a lead in your CRM and to end at the point the deal closes. If you leverage a CRM system you can give your organization a much more visually appealing sales pipeline in which to track each stage of the sales cycle.
With this method your marketing and sales managers will be able to view a customer journey from start to finish. From this, sales teams can learn how to improve their top of the funnel activities like prospect, lead generation, and marketing phases. These early stages are critical in terms of their success, without which customers are not propelled through the sales cycle quick enough.
There is some debate here because a lead can technically reach creation at any time. You might purchase a list of leads but then that list sits in the CRM for months at a time before anyone even looks at it. One of those leads could be someone who downloaded a marketing ebook from your company and then requested a demo months later, at which point they created a second lead and triggered the initial contact with your sales team.
Arguably, that second lead and the initial contact is what made them into a potential client and thus viewed as the start of the sales cycle.
That said, if you credit the moment when you receive that list or the person first signs up, then you are using the first touch attribution.
Measuring the length of a sales cycle can get a bit complicated if your organization has two or three touch points attributed to a single opportunity, like the initial creation of the lead followed by the request for a demo. In this situation the company would be relying upon the multi-touch attribution.
In any case, having the right tools makes it easier for sales leaders to decide how to peg the starting point of their sales cycle and therefore, review the length of the sales cycle.
Once you decide upon the start point, the calculation of the average sales cycle length occurs with the following equations:
Add together the number of days from the first contact with the customer conversion for all deals, which should equal the total number of days for all combined sales.
The total number of sales for all of the combined sales divided by the number of deals closed equals the average length of the sales cycle for your company.
Conclusion
In the end, you should automate when and where you can. Automating the entire process with modern sales software can reduce a large part of the burden of analysis. This occurs especially when you automate CRM data entry, analyzing conversion length, and the creation of reports based on different deals, different teams, or individual sales representatives.
Automation software can provide you with reports based on objective data pertaining to your sales operations and your teams. All of this occurs while concurrently freeing up time that sales representatives would have previously used.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to appropriately calculate your sales cycle length. It is up to you to find a method that works for your team and your company, and then dive in.
Take action now. Start implementing a reliable CRM with full data/reporting capabilities to improve your tracking of the length of your sales cycle.
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