AMA: SurveyMonkey Sales Leader, Expansion Sales, Helen D'Abreo on Sales KPIs

A challenging question and probably different across organizations. The one that I always find a challenge is the expected volume of outreach emails sent per week. This number could be huge and look great on a dashboard but if the quality is poor, then what good is the volume and what outcome will this achieve? Here we need to be looking at achieving the right balance of activity and being smarter about how we message clients in order to maintain quality. With all KPIs the data can only tell us ...Read More

I think it makes sense to look at what success has looked like for your business as opposed to looking at general industry guidelines. What do the metrics look like for the top performers within your business and what do they do differently to the bottom performers? You will get more buy in from reps if you can show them how others are achieving success within their team. I would also recommend regularly reviewing these metrics, so that you can also demonstrate how top performing sales reps are ...Read More

KPIs that are looking at the length of a sales cycle can identify bottlenecks in the pipeline and highlight opportunities that have been in the pipeline for too long. For example, an opportunity that has been in the pipeline for over 90 days could suggest a lower win rate if your average sales cycle is usually 30 days. From there, you can then dig further in to specific opportunities to understand whether the opportunity has been properly qualified or genuinely will take longer to close, as the ...Read More

Having been someone who has expanded an office in a new region I can certainly empathize with anyone who is in this situation at the moment and I totally understand the hard work that goes in to getting a new market off the ground and eventually hitting goals. In this scenario I would recommend taking the time to understand the cultural buying norms of the new market and not assuming this new market will look immediately like your top performing markets. It takes time to understand a new market ...Read More

Good question. I have seen these people in my time as a leader as well. However, not all sellers fall in to this bucket, so KPIs should be in place to support the rest of the team and encourage consistent behaviors. I have seen sellers that are more junior in their sales career or new to a business ask for KPIs (reflective of the top sales performers within the team) so that they can add more structure to their day/week and help them formulate a plan that will eventually get them to a positive q ...Read More

Consistently reviewing and analyzing KPIs can be crucial in helping your sales team adapt to change. For example, if you are moving in to a new market the KPIs will not look the same as the sales KPIs from an established market. Momentum will develop over time. Adding rigor around the need for ongoing KPI analysis is an effective way to help your reps pivot and adapt on a regular basis and will help your reps become more successful in changing markets. In return this will mean they become more r ...Read More