To optimize results in marketing and sales operations, with improved customer prospecting, higher lead conversion rates, greater deal closures, expansion of the customer portfolio and increased profitability, nothing better than having management focused on sales performance.
But you must certainly be wondering what this sales performance management is all about.
First of all, it is worth understanding that having a well-prepared manager focused on high performance will be essential for business processes to be efficient and strategies to be successfully executed.
Thus, all professionals within the sales team and structure will be able to achieve their goals and bring the results that business leaders expect from the commercial sector.
Just to get an idea of the positive impact caused by sales performance management, more than 81% of sales representatives reach their annual goal with this practice, according to research by OpenSymmetry.
Another relevant data shows that these companies have a 3 times higher annual growth in revenue compared to the others.
And if you’re still not convinced of its importance, check this out: companies that haven’t adopted high-performance sales management see only 25% of their reps hit targets.
Therefore, let’s understand this subject better and see how it is possible to implement it in your business.
What is management focused on sales performance?
Basically, we can say that this sales performance management is an approach based on planning, training, management and analysis of the company’s commercial performance.
That is, it is a practice of supervising and guiding professionals within the sales team, whether pre-sales, business intelligence or closing, to achieve personal, team and company goals as a whole.
Thus, it is clear that the professional assigned to take care of this team focused on sales performance must fulfill two main attributions: the team and the operations.
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Sales performance and team management
In this context, the high performance sales management process includes several aspects related to the team, such as:
- Qualification and training of new sales professionals;
- Monitoring the progress of employees;
- Definition of goals for each person and for the team;
- Monitoring of metrics and individual and collective performance indicators;
- Meetings with the team to verify results and align strategies and operations;
- Structuring of incentives and benefits for team motivation;
- Feedback for constant evolution of professionals.
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Sales performance management and the commercial sector
In addition to this previous point, it is important that the person responsible for this management is also dedicated to issues of operations, planning, strategy and results, such as:
- Determination of those responsible and their attributions for each stage of the customer prospecting process until the closing of the deals;
- Alignment of the strategies that will be used in prospecting to obtain greater performance and sales intelligence;
- Mapping of the purchase journey, commercial cycle, sales funnel and pipeline together with the commercial team;
- Involvement in the creation of personas and the company’s ideal customer profile;
- Support for the planning of modern, digital and innovative commercial actions and processes;
- Integration with marketing to achieve better results in the combined actions between the two sectors, uniting digital marketing and the results of organic positioning as a source to generate more leads;
- Analysis of bottlenecks in operations that can be improved and/or optimized by improved processes and use of technologies.
How does this sales performance management work?
In practice, the main objective of the sales performance manager is to make the commercial sector achieve the best results, greater productivity and higher performance. For this, he gets involved with all the aspects mentioned in the previous topic.
And, to achieve this purpose, a great weapon is the use of goals, metrics and indicators. Since, based on them, it is possible to make an accurate and efficient assessment of the reality of the business, verifying performance at all levels, personal, team and company, and also evaluating whether the processes and operations are being carried out according to the planning and established actions.
With KPIs correctly defined according to business strategies, measured and monitored periodically, management can identify errors, productivity losses, problems, evaluate performance and make decisions based on data.
In this way, this data-driven approach strengthens a high-performance culture and promotes better motivation among sales professionals.
What purpose does this management modality serve within the commercial sector?
Still not sure about implementing management focused on sales intelligence and better performance in your company? So, let’s show in more detail the performance of this management within different aspects of the commercial sector.
Internal sales planning
The best internal sales planning prepares both sales reps and companies for success. Therefore, it is essential to dedicate yourself to planning and one way to optimize this is through sales performance management.
Without someone directly responsible for organizing, assigning and planning sales tasks, companies can have problems and errors, such as the lack of correct sizing of each one’s goals and the inadequate distribution of personas or leads by each salesperson. This generates demotivation and higher turnover.
On the other hand, with proper management, you can distribute everything appropriately, making reps happier and boosting their performance.
Commercial management
Managers focused on sales intelligence can quickly analyze which business processes and actions cost the company the most but fail to generate revenue. Likewise, it is possible to control the team’s performance and see who delivers the stipulated results on a daily basis.
With a complete and updated view of all these scenarios, it is easier to change strategies, optimize processes, such as cadence flows and prospecting emails, carry out new training for the team or even hire new professionals.
Distribution and organization of tasks
Just imagine having to deal with three pre-sales, two business intelligence and two closing professionals at the same time. How to divide the tasks between them? What type of lead should each one work on? Can everyone do everything in pursuit of achieving the goals? Can you grab the most qualified lead who is fastest?
It is common in the commercial sector to have several of these issues, which can turn into major problems, if they are not controlled and organized correctly. For this reason, once again, management that focuses on performance will make all the difference in understanding each person’s specialty and ability to divide tasks, commercial actions and leads in the best way, in order to extract the most from everyone. .
Execution of sales processes
Poorly executed planning, lack of distribution and delegation of responsibilities, lack of a sales script, among other details, can directly impact the execution of business processes.
Thus, professionals can waste much more time than necessary to carry out an operation, contact a lead, even overcome objections and close a deal. Here again, someone responsible for achieving the highest sales performance will be essential to avoid this scenario and ensure the best possible execution.
Discover the main benefits of this performance management
With so many positive applications of sales performance management in companies, there are countless benefits linked to the development of this strategy. We have listed the top 5 here:
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Offer better experience to potential customers
With all the manager’s actions to optimize processes and increase the performance of professionals and the commercial sector as a whole, it is possible to deliver a better experience for leads in contact with the brand.
This is because the approach starts to focus more and more on each client in a personalized way, on their pain, challenges and needs, with active listening, greater empathy and generating real value, not being just another company getting in touch and filling the patience of that lead.
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Promote greater sales predictability
Monitoring and managing sales performance allows you to have real-time data on future sales trends, new customers entering the portfolio, customer acquisition costs, among other information. In this way, it is possible to have greater predictability of sales and revenue.
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Train the sales team better
As we have seen, it is clear that one of the greatest advantages of sales performance management is to ensure the best qualification and training of the sales team. Whether new or experienced professionals, someone responsible for directing, organizing and distributing the activities of these employees will be essential for them to generate more results.
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Hit targets and achieve high sales performance
With a well-qualified team to work with its set of skills and experience, management aligned with maximum performance and correctly designated activities, the tendency is for the achievement of goals and the fulfillment of objectives to be constant. Which guarantees the closing of more deals and the arrival of more accounts for your company’s base.
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Optimize return on investment
The ROI is a very common indicator to measure the effectiveness of the actions carried out and whether they are bringing not only results, but also a good cost-benefit ratio.
So, when looking at sales intelligence and high performance, it is a sign that you will probably be able to optimize and accelerate the return on investments made both in customer prospecting strategies, as well as in technologies and innovations present in commercial processes.
But how to implement this sales performance management?
Finally, after seeing so many advantages that can be achieved with high-performance sales, you might want to know how to implement this management in practice. So we separate a step by step to help.
- Identify sales performance indicators aligned with general business objectives, both productivity and conversion rate and new customer targets.
- Communicate these goals and indicators to the team in a clear and transparent way, leaving an open dialogue to ensure that your sales team is motivated to meet these objectives.
- Provide training and feedback to ensure that all professionals have the necessary conditions, skills and competencies to perform their functions and generate the desired results.
- Ensure sales and marketing integration so that teams are aligned around objectives and can develop related actions to generate more qualified leads, as well as the marketing team can build relevant content to be used in commercial approaches.
- Assign different personas or prospecting segments to each salesperson, avoiding a fight for the same leads and ensuring that both work together to improve each other’s skills.
- Create a healthy level of competition with visible management, for example, of goals achieved, leads generated by commercial intelligence, new customers closed by each salesperson, among other relevant data that promote incentives to increase performance.
- Monitor the productivity of professionals to see exactly what each one is doing, where their mistakes are in business processes, when more training is needed, what can be improved, etc.
Difficulty of performance management
One of the main difficulties of performance management is setting clear and measurable performance expectations. This requires a thorough understanding of the job duties and responsibilities, the organization’s goals, and the employee’s skills and abilities. Many managers struggle with this because they may not have a clear understanding of what is expected of the employee or may not have the necessary tools to measure performance accurately.
Another challenge of performance management is assessing employee performance. This involves collecting and analyzing data on employee performance and providing feedback to the employee. Managers may find it difficult to provide objective feedback, especially if they are not familiar with the employee’s job duties or if they have a personal bias towards the employee.
Another challenge of performance management is providing feedback that is constructive and actionable. This requires managers to communicate feedback in a way that is clear, specific, and focused on improving performance. Many managers struggle with this because they may not have the necessary communication skills or may not be comfortable providing negative feedback.
Furthermore, performance management is a time-consuming process that requires a significant amount of resources and attention. Managers may find it challenging to balance performance management with their other responsibilities, such as managing daily operations orworking on strategic projects. This can lead to performance management being neglected or rushed, resulting in subpar outcomes.
Finally, performance management can be challenging because it requires a commitment to ongoing improvement and development. This means that managers need to be willing to provide ongoing feedback and support to employees, as well as provide opportunities for training and development. Many organizations struggle with this because they may not have the necessary resources or may prioritize other areas over employee development.
To overcome these difficulties, organizations can take several steps. First, they can invest in training and resources for managers to help them develop the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively manage employee performance. This can include training on setting clear performance expectations, providing objective feedback, and delivering feedback in a constructive and actionable way.
Second, organizations can use technology to streamline and automate the performance management process. This can include using performance management software to track and analyze employee performance data, as well as provide managers with tools and resources to support performance management.
Finally, organizations can create a culture of ongoing performance improvement and development. This means prioritizing employee development and providing opportunities for training, coaching, and mentoring. It also means encouraging managers to provide ongoing feedback and support to employees, and to hold themselves accountable for the success of the performance management process.
Generate more results with sales performance with ASB Marketing
After knowing so many details and processes that sales performance management needs to carry out to ensure more sales and better results, are you wondering where to start in this strategy? Count on a specialized company, with experience, strategies and proven high-performance procedures.
ASB Marketing is an agency specializing in performance marketing, focused on connecting companies to their potential customers in a precise, innovative, personalized and intelligent way, combining marketing and sales actions.
Our complete sales performance strategy includes all the management, monitoring and follow-up of the execution of customer prospecting strategies, also encompassing:
ICP and market study;
- Modernization of the commercial sector with really efficient processes;
- Definition of the conversion journey;
- Structuring the sales funnel;
- Implementation of the necessary technologies;
- Development of cadences;
- SDR training.
All this provides the transformation of the commercial area of your business, bringing sales predictability and high performance.
Want to know more details? Get in touch with our experts right now!