Helen D'Abreo

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 realistic when it comes to forecasting the potential of an opportunity, as they will better understand when an opportunity will close based on the appetite of the market at that time.

Consistent benchmarking of reps against the top performers within a sales org. This could help assess coaching needs on a regular basis and also identify any talent gaps that need to be considered when recruiting new reps. The coaching needs maybe be around product based knowledge or fine tuning a reps management of a sales cycle.

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 AOV is well above the norm of your usual average AOV. KPIs that look at Lookalike sales cycles within your business could be an effective way to accelerate and better understand customer segment buying patterns.

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 and the buying intent of customers. Set yourself KPI goals based on shorter time periods and make sure you review the success of these goals on a regular basis. Be willing to switch them up when you see any trends forming. Finally, don't be afraid to admit when things haven't worked. Just be prepared to change it with a strategy that makes more sense for the market you are in and be able to defend the strategy shift backed by intel you have gathered while selling in the new market.

Effectively breaking down the quarterly/annual sales goals across all levels within the sales org is the most effective way to get buy in. Be transparent about the role each person will play in helping the team reach the overall goal and emphasize the significance of their contribution and how it impacts the bigger picture.

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 quota outcome.

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 adapting to any market changes.

I would say adding more rigor around the reporting of KPIs on a weekly basis does help reps stay accountable. It should not be a one and done discussion if you want certain behaviors to be consistent. It is also beneficial to make sure KPI expectations are understood by any new reps coming in to a business. Ensuring good behaviors are exhibited from the start of a new reps tenure will set them up for ongoing success.

Those that are not reflective of your business or the products your reps are expected to sell. AOVs vary across businesses as do sales cycles. One size doesn't fit all! If a rep can't clearly see the return on the time investment they are unlikely to be consistent with their weekly activity. Consistently showing reps what good looks like in terms of activity and how that converts in to sales attainment is the best way to move them in the right direction.

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 so much and there will always be a need to delve deeper to truly understand how effective your sales team is.