If you wait to judge success on whether or not there is a sale, you’re already too late. Focusing on metrics other than sales revenue will allow your sales team to focus more on the process of conducting each sale rather than solely closing the deal. A blog post on the site of Yesware, a sales productivity platform, offers three important sales metrics that managers should be tracking to measure their sales team’s progress.
- Retention – Your business can’t grow unless you know customers are coming back. Have each sales rep report on their active and inactive customers. While shedding less profitable customers can help reps maintain earnings at the moment because they aren’t wasting time with unqualified leads, watch out. Dumping too many “potential” consumers can prove disastrous.
- Average number of calls to close a deal – The vast majority of sales are made after three to nine calls. By realizing how many phone calls it takes reps to close each deal, you can give them tools to make each call more efficient so they can work with more customers. Improved training processes can lessen the amount of calls sales teams must place.
- Track activities vs. outcome – The following process goals will bring your sales reps back to the core of selling — their individual relationship with each customer:
- Make X customer contacts per day, month, quarter
- Build X dollars of sales pipeline
- Cross-sell product X to customers already using product Y
- Increase face to face customer visits by X% compared to 2010
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