To optimize the performance of the sales team, it’s essential to track and measure key metrics that provide insight into the team’s productivity, performance, and overall success. By focusing on the right sales team performance metrics, sales leaders can identify areas for improvement, drive growth, and ensure that their sales team is operating at peak efficiency.
They seem to be working with great focus all the time and yet the total revenue hasn’t grown despite spending extra on ads.
Wave Informatics
Most business owners and sales managers who use ‘hard work‘ as their main metric for measuring the effectiveness of their sales team face the same problem.
As a sales manager or business owner if you want to drive business growth then hard work simply cannot be your go-to metric. Because after working with 500 companies we have seen a lot of sales teams that used to work really hard on nonsense and weren’t able to achieve the slightest actual business growth despite so much hard work!
The solution is actually simple.
You have to start with the right questions,
- What does growth mean for me and my business?
- What are the key activities that influence that growth directly?
- How do I effectively measure those key activities?
- How do I use my measurement to know in real-time when my team’s effort is not contributing to that growth target?
- Once the measurements tell me what is going wrong, how to make the right corrections in our workflow?
- How to measure the new work clothes and see if they solve the problem as intended?
Before we talk about the actual metrics that you need to track let’s briefly cover the growth/business results that you want to achieve.
Sales team performance metrics: Before tracking anything, define the single growth metric of your business
If you really want your entire team to focus and work in the same direction, then you have to define the single most important growth metric for your business. And then the entire team has to know that that’s your only priority! Everything else simply doesn’t matter.
This means if you want to grow your number of paying users then anything that does not directly contribute to growing the number of users doesn’t matter.
- Revenue growth doesn’t matter.
- The users who will never buy don’t matter.
- New product offerings and ideas don’t matter.
Without a singular focus, every manager and every key member of your team starts running in his own direction and as a result, the overall growth targets of the team are missed. Despite everyone working so hard.
Not sure if this singular focus approach really works?
Even the biggest companies achieve great results only when they do it like this- despite so many things that they are doing and despite so many different stakeholders to please with so many different agendas.
Here’s a quote from Facebook’s ex-head of monetization:
Rather than choosing between growth vs product, Zuck decided to do both and deprioritize everything else including revenue.
Once you have defined that singular focus for your business the rest is relatively easy.
For most business owners and sales managers, the singular metric would be sales growth.
So the big question then becomes –
What are the metrics that you can track to achieve sales growth?
Let’s look at the key metrics to measure sales performance and use it to effectively achieve your target of sales growth.
12 Sales team performance metrics for a sales manager/leader to track the sales team
1. Execution Metrics
These are metrics that tell you if your team members are doing their job or are they just pretending.
EM1: Total number of calls
Direct sales mean you have to call people and tell them over the phone.
That’s core and there is no denying overcoming that.
More calls mean more sales.
And any team member who is not making calls is not going to be able to close any sales!
Hence this is a rather simple metric to track if you use Sales CRM, this gets tracked automatically for you with automatic real-time report generation.
How to optimize the total number of calls made by team members
- Track calls and find the average number of calls made by each team member.
- Give them monthly targets.
- Increase those targets by 5% to 10% every month.
EM2: Total time spent on calls
Dialing a lot of calls is useless if none of the prospects actually talk to your sales executives. This is where the time on-call metric comes in that gives you a clear idea of who are the executives who are having the longest conversations with your prospects. Except for rare cases, whoever spends the most time on calls is likely to close the most deals.
Again when you use TeleCRM you don’t have to do anything to track this metric it is automatically fact and a report is generated for you in real-time.
How to optimize the total time spent on calls by team members
- Listen to the recordings of their calls.
- Figure out where they’re making mistakes:
- Are they not able to open conversations effectively?
- Or are they not able to hold those conversations?
- Then provide them with the appropriate training guidance and samples to help them improve.
EM3: Total sales closed/revenue generated
Your executives can spend hours dialing numbers and talking to prospects but if they are not able to convince those prospects to buy. This is why it’s extremely important to track the total revenue generated by each and every member.
Here are two reports on this particular metric the TeleCRM generates for you automatically:
1. The day-on-day sales report of individual team members and the entire team.
2. Leaderboard showing who is doing the best.
How to improve the total revenue generated for any particular team member
- First of all, understand whether they are able to properly start and hold a conversation.
- Then figure out where they are struggling –
- Are they able to understand the prospect’s problems?
- Are they able to showcase your company’s ability to solve those problems?
- Are they able to push the prospects for closure?
- Once you understand where they’re falling short the next step is to provide them with the appropriate training guidance and samples to help them improve.
Also Read: Top 8 Must-have Skills and Qualities of a Sales Executive in India
2. Quality Metrics
These are the metrics that tell you who is doing their job well versus who are the people who are just crunching the numbers but are not really effective!
QM1: Number of late/missed follow-ups
In cricket catches win matches, in sales follow-ups win deals.
And if one of your team members is missing follow-ups regularly then he’s literally leaking money for you.
The place where most sales teams struggle with follow-ups is effective tracking of who is actually taking follow-ups and who is missing them.
This is what TeleCRM automates completely for you! In fact, in a single view, you can get a sense of all the follow-ups – created, taken, and missed by any particular team member.
How to reduce the number of late/missed follow-ups
- Communicate upfront to your entire team that it’s NOT ok to miss follow-ups
- Incentivize and reward the people who take all their follow-ups on time
- Reprimand the people who repetitively miss a lot of follow-up calls
QM2: Number of calls below 1 minute
Your salespeople could be dialing 500 numbers per day but it doesn’t matter if they’re not actually having and holding conversations with prospects. Because unless they actually have those conversations they’re not gonna be able to convert any of those prospects.
The common mistake that people make because of which they are not able to hold conversations is that they start with a script that prospects already hate
Something like:
Salesman: Hello am I speaking with Mr. Rahul.
Me: Yes
Salesman: Hi, sir this is Varsha from Axis Bank! Do you want a credit card?
Me: No!
Varsha: OK sir when you need, you can save my number and give me a call!How to find out what percentage of your salespeoples conversations are less than one minute long
If you are using TeleCRM this is super easy
- First, go to our leads and filter the calls by a particular team member in question. Here you get to see the total number of calls (598)
- Next, use the duration filter to find out the total number of calls that are more than one minute long. (197)
- Finally, take out the ratio. Of short calls vs total calls (401/597 = 67%)
If the total is more than 60% then you either need to change your leads or need to look at what the salesperson in question is doing wrong
What to do if most of the calls are less than one minute?
Train the specific team members in question on how to start and hold a conversation with the prospect. No matter whether the prospect needs it or not they should be able to hold a minute-long conversation with most of the prospects that they talk to.
QM3: After-call follow-ups to leads
No matter what you’re selling if you have a sales team then no deal is ever closed on a single call.
This means if your team members are really serious about closing deals they need to start taking follow-ups really seriously
And it’s not a lot of work the whole system can be automated and it only takes about two seconds after I recall sending highly engaging follow-up messages on WhatsApp.
Here’s a sample follow-up WhatsApp template after the sales call
Summary of discussion:
This is one of the best follow-ups you can take because it happens immediately after the sales call and it summarizes whatever was discussed on the call.
Hey Ranjit,
_As discussed over the call_
✅ You primarily sell mental health products to women
✅ You have a 3-4 people
✅ Your primary use case is capturing Facebook leads, and sending them a welcome message on WhatsApp.
And the list of features needed are
1️⃣ Logging/record keeping of all interactions in CRM.
2️⃣ Automatically distribution based on cities
3️⃣ 1-click SMS and WhatsApp to leads who don't receive the call
*Is there something I missed?*
If you don't want to receive info on WhatsApp reply with STOP
[No that's it] [Add more info] [check details]Advantages of this template:
- Creates a sort of revision effect.
- The prospect doesn’t have your number saved but this WhatsApp message is saved in his inbox, if you do it right he will remember the message and now he has a way to get back to you.
- You can send button messages and get replies from him, this reply is not just a normal reply it’s consent for you to send future messages and stay in touch with him on WhatsApp (as long as you don’t spam him or abuse that permission you have a way to get your messages in 100% of the time).
- With the new WhatsApp Cloud API, you can send messages to CTAs that give them a chance to call you or visit your website with just one click.
- They get a double confirmation that you heard and understood them.
How to quickly setup WhatsApp follow-ups
- Sign up for a free TeleCRM account.
- Activate WhatsApp cloud API on your TeleCRM account.
- Get your follow-up template approved by Facebook.
- Train your entire sales team to send WhatsApp to follow up after sales calls
How to quickly check if a team member is sending follow-ups after calls
- Go to TeleCRM and check the number of leads contacted by any particular telecaller
- Now check the number of leads to home the WhatsApp follow-up message has been sent
QM4: Call notes for longer calls
Your sales executive should have to call hundreds of people every single day!
No matter how much of a super memory they have they cannot remember any calls or conversations in the long term.
If you forget the details of the customer then you might as well put your entire marketing budget and efforts into the fire.
How do you make sure that your executive takes call notes for every call
- It has to be easy to take all notes after every call, if they are working on a messed up Excel sheet and not taking notes then you are just as much to blame as them.
- Signup for TeleCRM and get an intuitive call note system after every call.
- Here is the best part – sometimes the callers get busy reading incoming calls, follow-ups, etc., and cannot take notes. No worries! In TeleCRM every call is recorded so they can come back, refer to the recordings and make notes for the calls they had missed.
- You can also filter call notes with common phrases to find out important leads
3. Business Metrics
These are the metrics that tell you who are the people who are not just executing the task well but also who are making the biggest difference for your company and business.
BM1: Leads by different statuses (hot, warm, cold, etc)
This is the single most important metric to track in your sales operation. It’s like a mirror for your sales team’s performance.
Out of all the leads that they have talked to how many became interested in how many actually converted? How many are still in the pipeline?
Here’s how the summary view looks like in TeleCRM
How tracking lead statuses can inform your team’s direction and decisions
- If you have too many irrelevant leads then you need to work on your marketing strategy.
- If too many leaves are interested but not closed then you need to train your salespeople.
- If too many people were highly interested but still not closed then you need to improve your follow-up system.
The best part about the system as you can build your own pipeline and drive your own conclusion based on the numbers in the pipeline. What TeleCRM essentially does is it gives you a system to automate the tracking and monitoring after you have created your own sales pipeline.
BM2: Retention rate
This is one of the most important business metrics.
You can be consistently working really really hard to get new customers but if you are not able to return them then it’s like you are filling a bucket from the top that is already leaking from the bottom.
If you have a retention problem then first you have to plug the leak and only then you can start adding more water into the bucket. (that is focusing on getting new business).
Because no business can break even or survive purely on one-time transactions.
If you are serious about scaling in growing your business then you need to track your retention rates and fix the retention problem!
How to find out if you have retention rate problems
- Check the number of paying customers from last month last quarter or last year (depending on what your renewal period is).
- Then check how many of those new customers actually renewed in the current period.
- If the number of customers to renew is less than 50% then you have a retention problem.
How to fix retention rate issues
- Make sure that everyone in the organization knows that retention is one of your top priorities.
- Set up a tracking system to track and monitor retention in real time.
- Interview customers who did not renew to find out what went wrong. See if you can identify issues that are common across the board.
- Design follow-up campaigns and retargeting ads to reheat the customers you have lost and try to win them back.
BM3: Upsell rate and lifetime value
How many of your customers come back to buy more from you?
How many of them upgrade to your premium product or service?
It’s more expensive and harder to sell to a new customer than it is to sell to an existing customer.
If most of your customers are not going for an upgrade or premium version of your products or services then you are missing out on major and easy revenue growth opportunities.
How to increase your upsell rate and customer lifetime value
- Create a list of your customers based on the products that they have purchased.
- Filter out the people for whom an upgrade or upsell is relevant.
- Create a special offer for existing customers on buying upgrades and upsells.
- Draft a WhatsApp follow-up message for all these customers stating your offer.
- Filter out the people who respond and pass them on to your A team, because this is immediate and easy money.
Pro Hacks for Effective Upselling
- If it is possible automate the entire system so that whoever is interested can buy on his own.
- Make sure that you have a system to track all the replies and instantly respond to them because before spending more money with you people have questions. These are wallet-out customers who already trust you and who have done business with you in the past, just answer their doubts and they’ll be ready to pay you!
BM4: Month-on-month goal achievement/growth rate
You can put into place all the monitoring tracking in training that we have discussed in this article it still would not matter.
If you don’t monitor this one thing that matters most.
Growth in sales teams means achieving their month-on-month target simply. Everything else is a means to that end!
There are two main factors when it comes to your team achieving their monthly targets
- Individual sales executives contributing
- The theme working together to achieve the team’s goal
How to help your team and make sure they are on track to meet their targets?
- Set an ambitious yet achievable target.
- Don’t just set a target, have a strategy in place for achieving that target.
- Defined the role of every single executive in achieving that target.
- Design incentives for individual performance as well as team success.
For example, at TeleCRM people get 50% of the incentive if the team meets the target, and the other 50% is based on individual performance. - Consistently track and monitor to see if you’re on track. if not make immediate course corrections
If the planned strategy is not working out, then don’t wait till the 20th.
Wait just enough to know that it’s not a blip and then make the appropriate changes in your strategy so that the team can immediately calibrate and work on the new strategy.
Conclusion
This article essentially covers 3 things that define sales team performance metrics:
- Help you understand the importance of monitoring and tracking.
- To give you a sense of what are the things that you should actually track.
- Add how to use all that data to train your team and make the right changes and improvements in your sales process.
You can use this information to reflect on the current status of your sales team, what areas you want to improve in, and how you are going to approach that!
Try things out and let us know how it goes!
Until next time!
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