Improving sales performance in the commercial sector of companies is increasingly urgent, as consumer behavior has changed, customer prospecting processes have had to be reinvented, digital marketing has become part of sales strategies and the use of technologies has become a central element in optimizing operations.
All these transformations in the commercial scenario motivate the constant search for high sales performance to achieve better results and increased profitability in companies as a whole, ensuring greater revenue predictability.
For this reason, managers are looking for new ways to achieve these objectives and, in this context, the sales performance strategy emerges.
If you’ve never heard of this term or want to know how it works, the benefits, challenges and how to achieve the much-desired high sales performance, this content was made for you. Follow next!
What is sales performance and what is this concept all about?
If you search around what sales performance is, you will probably come across many explanations addressing the high performance of the commercial sector. In general, it refers to the results obtained by the team’s work and its performance, in terms of indicators and delivery of goals, individually and collectively.
It is worth remembering that, according to a survey by Aberdeen, 67% of companies believe that the ability to achieve goals is the best indicator of individual sales performance.
However, the concept that we are going to address here is broader and involves a whole strategy, which embraces not only professionals in the area, but also a new way of thinking, planning and putting into practice actions to generate opportunities, with structuring of modern, strategic, intelligent and efficient business processes.
We can say in summary that:
“The sales performance strategy unites marketing and sales actions in a segmented and personalized way with the involvement of the technical and technology team to transform the commercial area, increasing demand generation and achieving high performance.”
What is sales performance for in practice?
With the implementation of this intelligent strategy in your team’s routine, the company gains much more than a better sales performance. Through it, it is possible to:
- Increase the likelihood of conversion;
- Optimize the sales cycle;
- Elevate business opportunities;
- Focus on accounts/clients with the greatest impact on your business;
- Potentialize the results;
- And ensure greater predictability, as we talked about earlier.
- In other words, this strategy is indispensable for success in sales and for increasing the profitability of the business.
5 main benefits of applying sales performance
The development of this process based on sales performance can generate numerous positive impacts, not to mention the results mentioned above.
In fact, according to research by Simon-Kucher & Partners, sales performance management can increase sales productivity by 12.5% and accelerate closing time by up to 50%.
In addition, we separate benefits that you need to know and that make a difference for your company.
1. Decrease of bottlenecks in the sales funnel
With a more intelligent, assertive, segmented and well-targeted strategy, in addition to gaining productivity, it is possible to avoid bottlenecks that hinder the conversion flow within the company’s sales funnel. Thus, leads follow a faster and more dynamic path, without being stuck for a long time between one stage and another.
2. Process optimization
Did you know that, on average, sales reps spend only 22% of their work week on sales activities? These are data from Pace Productivity and show the importance of being more assertive in activities. This is where sales performance comes in, which allows for more targeted and consistent commercial actions, optimizing processes.
3. Better integration and reduced turnover
With this more strategic action that generates real results, a great impact on the team is the decrease in turnover. This is a common problem in the commercial area, with high employee turnover. So, stop changing collaborators all the time is essential for the team to continuously evolve and close more sales.
Another positive effect is the greater integration and engagement between marketing and sales, as processes become unified, involving both sectors around the same objective: increasing opportunities, conversions and sales. It’s worth noting here that aligning sales and marketing can help companies increase deal closures by 67%, according to Marketo.
4. Standout in relation to the competition
Few companies already adopt this sales performance approach. Thus, by implementing this strategy in your business, in addition to boosting sales and increasing customers, you can accelerate the company’s growth in the market and stand out from the competition.
5. More strategic view
This entire sales performance process allows the company’s leaders and managers to have a more strategic view of the commercial sector, with complete visibility of everything that is being done in the area and how the established objectives are, the goals achieved and the team’s performance .
In addition, of course, it is possible to see the results in practice with the acquisition of new accounts, a greater return on investment and revenue predictability.
But how to measure sales performance?
When you see the importance of the sales performance strategy and all the impacts that can be generated with its adoption, you must certainly be wondering how it is possible to measure these results and effectively measure the sales performance of professionals and the team.
And, in fact, there is no fixed rule on how to perform this calculation or follow-up. Everything will depend, primarily, on the function of the employee and their responsibilities within the work environment. In addition, it is also necessary to establish the KPIs (key performance indicators) that must be analyzed according to the business objectives.
For the company as a whole, the following indicators can be considered:
- Sales revenue;
- Customer acquisition cost;
- Number of new accounts;
- Customer retention rate;
- Return on investment (ROI);
- Between others.
We can also separate by subteams within the business process, such as:
- Commercial intelligence team that can use the quantity and quality of leads generated as indicators;
- Pre-sales, with indicators such as number of contact attempts, number of follow-ups, lead conversion at each stage of the funnel and generation of opportunities for salespeople;
- Sellers (or closers) who can measure the success rate in closing deals, the number of new customers closed per period, among others;
- Marketing team that can have as digital marketing KPIs the cost per lead, the generation of demand for sales, the ROI and the conversion rate of these actions.
What are the main challenges to achieve good sales performance?
Despite all this promising situation that we present, there are still several obstacles and adversities that prevent companies from achieving a good sales performance. Let’s talk about these challenges:
1. Unstructured processes
Not having really well-defined and delimited processes can harm the entire commercial sector, other than where the lead comes from, how to improve their qualification, how to educate them, engage them and make them evolve in the sales funnel.
2. Non-existent or impossible goals to be achieved
Every business sector needs to have goals, because without goals, any result achieved can be treated as positive. So, according to the development of commercial planning and sales strategy, it is necessary to stipulate objectives that salespeople must meet.
But an important detail: there is no point in setting unattainable goals, because if it is not possible to achieve them in any way, this will generate frustration and dissatisfaction in professionals.
3. Demotivation and high turnover
Another negative point to achieve good sales performance is the low motivation of the sales team. This problem will generate higher employee output and high turnover. Which undermines all the work of integration, training and good performance of professionals, who are constantly changed.
4. Communication failures
For a commercial area to achieve good results and high performance, it is essential to have agile communication and constant alignment. Thus, it is possible to quickly verify possible bottlenecks in the sales processes to overcome them, as well as the exchange of information between professionals becomes easier.
For example, with better communication between sellers and sales representatives, it is a way to help qualify and convince leads. Already, with continuous conversations between marketing and sales, it is possible to have more assertive directions in prospecting actions and communications.
5. Ineffective sales management
For the commercial team to run smoothly, it is necessary to have a sales manager with leadership, a vision of the process as a whole and full knowledge of the sales performance strategy. With that, he can, like a conductor, direct an orchestra so that all actions are performed correctly, generating better results in the generation of qualified leads and real business opportunities.
6. Lack of technologies
The use of technologies is essential to achieve good sales performance. Whether in the prospecting process, using innovative solutions such as big data, automation and artificial intelligence, or during business contacts, with customer relationship software, videoconferencing tools and others, it is essential to have technological support.
Even if you still use spreadsheets to control the sales pipeline, analyze demand generation and verify commercial opportunities, you are more than outdated and must update yourself with the appropriate technologies for incorporating the sales strategy. performance.
7. Not performing data analysis
Not having data-driven sales management, nowadays, is the same as remaining in the dark, making decisions based on guesses or intuition, without any real basis.
Therefore, to transform the commercial sector and achieve good sales performance, it becomes a key element to build an efficient data monitoring and analysis process to have quality, reliable and error-free information on which to base decisions.
How to achieve good sales performance?
To achieve the best commercial results in the sales performance strategy and increase business revenue, see tips and important steps that must be taken in the company.
Know your customer well
For sales performance processes to bring effective results, it is essential to study your client in depth and design the ideal client profile. Only then, the prospecting actions will be really assertive and the communications will reach the pain points of the leads.
Based on this knowledge, the entire sales performance strategy is assembled with an eye on:
- People (marketing and sales team carrying out the actions);
- Processes (logical and structured sequence of customer prospecting actions and demand generation);
- Technologies (tools that will support actions).
Organizational culture
To ensure better sales performance, you must develop a positive organizational culture, implementing collaborative work, encouraging integration between marketing and sales, aligning established expectations and goals. Thus, professionals can feel more comfortable and confident and have better performances and results in their activities, whether in prospecting for qualified leads, in negotiations or in closing.
Realistic goals
As we said earlier, not having goals or having unattainable goals generate problems in the commercial area. Therefore, in the sales performance strategy, it is essential to stipulate very clear objectives, based on in-depth analysis of the company, competition and the market.
In this way, the marketing, commercial intelligence, pre-sales and sales teams will have an exact idea of how they should dedicate their efforts to reach the numbers. With this, everyone will know which results will be considered high performance and how it is possible to achieve them.
Sales funnel mapping
To obtain high sales performance, your company must monitor and map the entire commercial process, including from the moment the lead has the first point of contact and all its evolution in the sales funnel until it becomes a real opportunity. This constant monitoring, combined with data analysis, allows you to generate valuable insights to optimize the sector and continuously improve performance.
Demand generation optimization
As we said at the beginning of the text, the increase in demand generation has everything to do with sales performance. After all, it is from the demand generated, in quantity and quality, by the marketing and sales departments in capturing leads that pre-sales professionals will have enough material to prove the value of the product or solution offered, in order to leave such leads ready for sellers to close the deal.
Marketing and Sales Alignment
An always important key to hit is about the alignment of marketing and sales. One does not exist without the other and one does not generate results without the other. After all, there is no point in content marketing attracting leads if the commercial is not structured to convert them.
So industries should create SLAs (Sales Level Agreement, or service level agreement) to get better results together. In this document, with the responsibilities, expectations and goals around each team well defined, it is easier to achieve high sales performance.
Process automation
All sectors currently need to rely on automation solutions to optimize processes, save time, increase efficiency and productivity, as well as eliminate manual activities and avoid errors during these more bureaucratic tasks.
Soon, in marketing and sales, it is also possible to adopt automation, either to facilitate the work in managing leads and their evolution in the pipeline, or in triggering flows of emails and other communications.
Investment in technologies
In addition to automation, which is currently a huge need, other technological solutions allow teams to have more time dedicated to what really matters, that is, improving lead qualification, overcoming objections and evolving conversations into opportunities.
With big data and artificial intelligence, it is possible to achieve such goals. But, in addition to them, there are several tools to ensure greater efficiency in communication and team productivity, as well as to provide better meetings between salespeople and potential customers.
Don’t forget ongoing training and learning
Of course, when a professional joins your team, he goes through a process of integration and training in the organizational culture, company practices and implemented commercial actions.
However, to keep the team qualified, motivated and lead it to high sales performance, it is necessary to invest in continuous qualification and learning in accordance with the best practices in the market.
In this way, it is possible to improve the technical and behavioral skills of salespeople and, at the same time, achieve better results.
Team recognition
Finally, to ensure the motivation and satisfaction of the commercial team and avoid turnover, managers must incorporate actions to value and recognize professionals who achieve high sales performance targets. Here it goes from bonuses for numbers conquered to other benefits, such as a movie ticket, a book, among others.
How to put sales performance to work?
To achieve the desired better sales performance, you need to implement a well-structured sales performance strategy that generates real results for your business. For this, it is worth relying on a company specialized in the subject, such as ASB Marketing.
We are an agency specializing in performance marketing, focused on connecting companies to their potential customers in a precise, innovative and intelligent way.
Thus, we are ready to help you with our sales performance solution. It can be executed with 3 customization levels:
One-to-one (one to one): requires a higher level of customization, as the focus will be on individual accounts. Which requires well-researched, personalized and assertive communication and a dedicated SDR to carry out pre-sales processes.
One-to-few (one for a few): this is an intermediate level of customization, as the accounts are grouped by similar characteristics, guiding the construction of customized materials according to such groups.
One-to-many: this is the profile with the least customization, allowing you to target a larger number of accounts, which are divided according to the aspects they have in common.
The implementation works in 4 steps:
1st step: We do a complete analysis of your reality, your company, the competition and the market, defining your ideal customer profile to be prospected.
2nd step: We carry out the complete training of the SDRs.
3rd step: We design the entire conversion journey with the production of cadence content, landing pages and other touchpoints to optimize conversion.
4th step: We create the sales pipeline with your company.
Within our package we offer:
- Automated active cadence creation
- Semi-automated active cadence creation
- Creating a re-engagement cadence
- A/B testing of cadences
- Content strategy according to funnel and ICP
- Personalization of contents by ICP
- Conversion path (Forms, Workflow, Email)
- Lead Mining (Business Intelligence)
- Lead Generation (ICP)
- Automation platform management
- Platform training
- Funnel structure
- Dedicated SDR (optional)
- Active prospecting consultancy (optional)
Were you interested in learning more about our sales performance strategy to evolve your customer prospecting and generate real business opportunities, ensuring predictability and increased revenue? Contact us today!