Sales performance can be defined as the efficiency of a sales team in carrying out various sales activities such as prospecting, cold calling, product demos, follow-ups, closing deals, and after-sales. Basically, it quantifies a salesperson’s work and helps him identify the areas that need improvement.
In an organization, a sales manager should be tracking his team’s performance to devise strategies and achieve targets on time. That is exactly where comes into the picture. By analyzing the data, you will be able to know what exactly your sales team is capable of. Conduct sales training to enhance their selling skills. Make them sell more and drive more revenue to your organization.
What Is Sales Performance Management?
Sales performance management(SPM) is a set of interconnected processes that can analyze, measure, and improve the productivity and overall effectiveness of your sales team. It involves automating the basic processes, delegating the daily tasks, setting targets for the individuals and the team according to their capabilities, and monitoring performance at each level of the sales process. SPM also includes formulating attractive incentive schemes and other perks that motivate employees and make them stay on track.
Why Is It Important?
Have you watched any episodes of the popular show Shark Tank? If yes, what’s your take on that?
It gives us an idea of how to pitch a product/service and how not. Agree?
Even the best product fails if it is not showcased rightly to the public. This shows how important it is to train your sales team in pitching your product to the target audience.
Sales performance management is important as it brings the following benefits to your business:
- Automated and organized sales processes save you time and resources.
- Helps you set up precise sales territories and gets you more qualified leads.
- Enables you to track the lead through each step of the sales funnel thus reducing the loss of potential leads.
- Aids in better sales forecasting through insights gathered from accurate data analytics.
- Reduces the closing time in the sales cycles and boosts ROI.
- Assists you in creating a better package and incentive structure for your sales reps.
- Sales training will make your salespeople stay updated and well-versed in the sales tools, improving their productivity.
Steps To Create A Successful Sales Performance Management Process
1. Set Clear Objectives & Communicate Them
The first and most important step in SPM is to set precise and realistic goals. A sales rep should be aware of his/her sales quota and prepare a roadmap to achieve that on time. Daily tasks should be planned and communicated to them. Apps like Lystloc have a dedicated task management feature that helps sales managers effortlessly communicate with a remote/on-field sales team. Also, the loop will be closed once the sales reps update their status on the completion of each task to their managers via the meeting notes feature. Better communication is the key to improving your sales team’s performance.
2. Track The Right Metrics For Better Forecasting
Identify the sales metrics that you need to track for your business. They can be time-based, revenue-based, or count-based. Examples are customer lifetime value (CLV), average deal value, no.of new customers attained, no.of deals closed, etc which are usually measured for a specific period i.e. monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Tracking these metrics will result in better forecasting based on which you can increase the opportunities and eventually ROI.
3. Monitor Your Team’s Performance Regularly
At the end of the day, every business aims to sell more and earn more. Selling is an art to be learned and executed with passion. Quality hiring, adequate training, and monitoring of your sales reps are critical for your business growth. Use sales tracking tools to monitor and manage your sales team hassle-free. Also, it creates healthy competition between the team members. Dashboards to exhibit the best performers, awards, incentives, etc are some of the ways to keep them motivated.
4. Review And Improve Your Sales Process
Analyze the data reports and give feedback to your team members individually. Make them notice the areas that need improvement and review periodically to understand whether they improve. This way you can improve your sales process step by step and optimize it accordingly.
5. Give Training & Competitive Incentives
Finally, spend on hands-on sales training instead of monotonous presentations. This way, they feel confident and stay updated with the latest trends and tools. Appreciate them with timely incentives and words of encouragement to keep them going.
Bottomline
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. Only if a sales team’s work is analyzed and improved, you can streamline your sales processes. With the help of analytics and sales performance management, improve the outcome of your sales team.