Lisa Clark Shares the 3 Most Overlooked Sales Management Metrics
John Ternieden
If every sales team has one goal, it’s to crank up performance and close more deals. Yet, the average sales team only has a small number of sales reps who are in the top level of quota attainment.
While many organizations are turning to automation to help improve performance, this alone isn’t enough. Sales leaders must also coach and grow every sales rep to get them to reach their goals faster.
Lisa Clark, VP of marketing and business development at Qstream, calls this the human side of sales acceleration. Instead of looking to hire more “A” players, companies should use data to improve the employees they already have.
To do that, Lisa recommends evaluating three metrics that are commonly overlooked.
1. Sales capabilities
Are your reps prepared for every sales call? Are they knowledgeable enough to add value to your prospect’s buying process?
Unfortunately, far too many organizations aren’t measuring what their reps really know. While many teams measure win rate, this is a retroactive stat and often doesn’t help you in time to make the right adjustments. Instead, use data to figure out where reps stand today, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and then develop a method to change that proactively.
2. Coaching effectiveness
What is the biggest driver of performance? Compensation? According to Lisa, proper coaching is one of the biggest indicators of sales effectiveness.
That being said, many organizations do far too little, blaming busy schedules for their inability to spend more than just a couple of days with their reps every two months.
In order to remedy this problem, leadership must provide managers with the tools they need to provide the right coaching for their teams then measure its effectiveness. Personalized coaching can boost individual confidence and lead to substantial increases in performance.
3. Performance correlation
As you measure enablement to revenue, you’ll notice that top performers all have one thing in common; they are highly proficient in all aspects of their job, not just in selling.
The simplest way to correlate all areas of performance is to use your CRM to measure capabilities against performance. This will give you a full view of both past and future outcomes. That way you could see things like if your rep with the biggest pipeline has the weakest discovery skills. This would allow you to properly assess forecast accuracy and take action before it’s too late.
You can watch Lisa’s full presentation, or any of our other sales summit speakers, on demand by registering today.
