Don’t be the kind of manager who keeps pressuring his reps every hour to boost their call volume. You won’t make any extra money to the company by refreshing the Sales KPIs dashboard every now and then.
Well, you could see a boost in call volume after an hour, and that’s a short-term win, but in the business world, the winner of the war is always the person who plans ahead and has a small business plan that goes as far as decades.
Now, of course, KPIs (key performance indicators) are super important. However, you should focus on which are true indicators of success and ones which aren’t. This article will talk about the Sales KPIs you really should care about and the ones you shouldn’t.
Table of Contents
Sales KPIs You Shouldn’t Be Focusing On
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Let’s cut to the chase and talk about the KPIs that you shouldn’t focus on simply because they are so redundant in today’s corporate world.
Emails Sent
This was important back in the days when everyone would write their emails. But now, thanks to automated algorithms, 90% of the emails are all cramped up and sent in bulk. Not enough emails sends doesn’t necessarily mean that a rep isn’t working hard enough.
Attempts to Call
Why is the word ‘attempt’ even mentioned? Now that everyone is working from home, most of the desk-lines are going straight to the answering machine voicemail. Cellphone calls can be pretty tricky if they’re not handled right. Tracking call attempts is certainly not the best sales KPI. However, when we talk about live conversations, that’s a different matter.
Average Value of a Contract
Did you know that every buyer will try to get their hands on a discount as soon as the word is out? You shouldn’t be worried about your average contract value unless the latter decreases significantly. When we say significantly, we mean -30%. Unless this is the case, then just get it booked and focus elsewhere.
Budget Approval
Your reps might be doing everything they can to push a deal through. But because budget approval takes a while, that doesn’t mean they should stop and stare at the screen, refreshing pages until they get it.
This is all regarding KPIs you should not be focusing on. Now, let’s dive into the ones that truly matter.
Sales KPIs That Are Better Indicators of Business Success
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There’s an old saying that goes like this: “The ocean never freezes because it’s full of salt.” That’s a great example to focus on and model for your team. To never stop moving.
Here are the sales KPIs you should focus on for your team not to freeze up and stop moving. Typically, different members of the sales team will have different KPIs to focus on.
Sales Leaders
Trying to track “one million’ different KPIs will simply waste all of your time with no real feedback gathered. Instead, focus on one-to-three metrics a week and start building up from there.
Keep track of the KPIs that will help your team grow and help the company make more money. Here is the one that’s key for all sales managers/leaders:
Total Pipeline Created
- Track this one every single week.
- Keep two tabs open—raw data and summary.
Raw Data
- Just gather data without talking about any points.
- Pick one day to have a weekly meeting and discuss the numbers for the past week.
Summary Tab
- Create a storyline around the number you have. Make sure to include complex feedback from other reps.
- Meet on the same day to discuss last week’s summary.
Examples
- “40% of our leads responded well to the last newsletter. ’‘Some of our new leads are looking to shift their attention more towards digital”.
- “We had four homesick reps last week; thus, our pipeline numbers have decreased”.
It’s more than evident that you should be aiming for your data to move upwards to improve your small business resilience. If, for the moment, it is going down, then pay more attention to implementing all that you gathered from the meetings. Try to figure out where the dip is coming from and see if you can fix it as soon as possible.
Have a solid understanding of the Total Pipeline Created while analyzing different metrics such as Closed/Lost, Sales Approved, Marketing Leads, Conversions, and others.
Your bosses care about growth in the company data, and they want to see this represented accurately with the right narrative.
Account Executives
Let’s talk about ‘sales velocity.’ Ok, this is probably a term that many of you might not know the meaning of. Don’t hit up your books just yet. No, don’t open a new tab trying to search it because we will break it all down in just a second. Before we explain what sales velocity means, you should first understand that this is a different value for every rep. Now that we got that out of the way, let’s calculate sales velocity:
Sales Velocity = number of opportunities x average deal size x conversion rate / sales cycle length
For example, if the sales velocity is $5000 – it means that you are bringing in $5000 of revenue per day to the company.
The goal here is to increase the sales velocity over time. Try to close your pipeline quicker while also asking your manager how to improve your sales velocity.
Sales Development Reps
The most important KPI you should be focusing on is your conversations. You need to interact with your leads and reps and not just hit them up whenever business is calling. Let’s give you a recommendation:
Make an excel sheet and record the different sorts of reactions you’re getting from leads and prospects. Messages, emails, LinkedIn PMs, Tweet replies, and so forth. Show that you care enough to assemble your own criticism (outside of your logged movement in your CRM) and offer it to your manager. Position it as your investigation and learnings as opposed to “I missed my number and here’s the reason” Ask your manager, “is this data helpful? How else would I be able to deal with feedback input?”
Last, yet not least. The metric you may have overlooked. You improved your competitive kill sheets. You refreshed the site with new client logos. Be that as it may, something is still off, and you can’t put your thumb on it.
You may have overlooked the “metric” and seemingly the main one: your group’s prosperity.
Tips for Sales Leaders to Keep The Team in Check
You’re requesting a great amount of work, yet would you say you are doing your part to reward your reps? Deal with your group like you would treat your clients with a “How might I help?” state of mind because they can otherwise have a burnout.
A couple of approaches to get a temperature mind the group:
- What are you most happy about for this week?
- What has made you feel down for this week?
- What’s your main thing about being in this group?
How’s their spirit? Sit quietly on their next call. Is it safe to say that they are eager to visit with possibilities, or do they sound bored all along?
On the off chance that things are somewhat “off,” it’s probably due to burnout, stress, or interruptions outside of the workplace.
Tips for Avoiding Burnout
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- Set clear assumptions when you anticipate that your group should be on the web and responsive on Slack, email, and so on. Regardless of whether you prelude with “you don’t need to react now,” it’s reverse psychology that makes them feel like they have to respond.
- Have them put lunch breaks on their schedule.
- Zoom fatigue is real. Focus on calls when the video isn’t essential.
- Some managers need to go on vacation to show that it’s ‘ok’ to do. When individuals are on private-time-off, urge them to leave their phones alone and just enjoy the moment.
- Send notes to say thanks to your reps. You can make their day like that.
Closing Tips to Motivate the Team
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A simple message or even live interaction saying: “If you have any good ideas, you can send them to me.” can take you a long way.
Not only will they get motivated to share more of what they already are thinking, but you can also get them to work in small groups. Reps love it when they have the chance to share any new ideas with each other and then bring the results to you.
Instead of thinking about what they need, sometimes you should let them have what they want. That will prove time and time again to motivate them to work even harder because we all know how people get focused on something they love.
You can try all of the above tips for Sales KPIs and then see if it works for you in the long term. You never know which one of the advice mentioned might be the solution you were looking for all along.
