Sales Performance Management: Finding Your Sales Rhythm

The fact that 41.9% of sales people fail to reach their targets brings out the importance of finding your team’s winning rhythm. Ever wonder how rowing teams always keep their strokes in sync? The secret is that their seats slide along a rail and they’re all connected. The coach establishes the optimal rhythm and the winning team is the one that best follows it.

The way to discover that rhythm in sales, and continually improve on it, is by using a sales performance management system. It helps sales organizations achieve consistent and predictable results while gaining a competitive advantage with every deal.

Goals are good. But if the only metric you watch is revenue, you don’t gain an understanding of the underlying rhythm of activities that generate said revenue. 

A sales performance management system unveils your rhythm. Once you have that, you can coach the sales reps who are out of sync with your rhythm of success.

Many sales teams watch the wrong metrics

One of the best books on the topic of sales goals is “Cracking the Sales Management Code”, where the authors diligently review the metrics used in sales management. What they quickly realized was that metrics were being used in a non-productive way, as most of them could not be managed. As a result, they broke them down into three buckets (representation in the study in parenthesis): 

• Business Results (24%)
  Determined by the achievement of sales objectives (i.e. sales cycle, revenue)

• Sales Objectives (59%)
  Directly influenced by the sales activities (i.e. opportunities, pipeline value)

• Sales Activities (17%)
  Manageable and can be adjusted at will (i.e. calls, meetings)

Encourage the right rhythm of activities

If we agree that we can’t manage business results, we need to focus our attention on what we can manage: the sales activities. That’s all fine, but which activities lead to the expected end results? In a complex sales environment, it will be a number of key activities and engagements executed in a certain order and rhythm. You’ll need to map out a sales process with the steps required to guide a buyer from first contact to a signed agreement and onwards. In this process, you need to document and define the activities that lead to the achievement of your stated objectives and expected business results. 

Follow the leading indicators

Using a systemized approach, and by using a sales effectiveness platform such as Membrain, you’ll be able to follow how the rhythm of activities results in leading indicators (objectives). Main objectives can be metrics such as new opportunities created, weighted pipeline value, win-rates and sales cycle length. Doing win/loss analysis on your opportunities will help you fine-tune your process and make sure you get the right activities in place to improve on your objectives and outcomes.

Consistency and self-accountability

When the finish line (quota) is in sight and we’ve broken the race down into objectives and activities, you will know your sales rhythm - what needs to get done, at what pace, in order to achieve your targets. The sales team now needs to execute and managers must make sure each sales person shows the consistency needed to perform in order reach their targets as individuals and as winning a team.