When it comes to the organization’s growth and development, the sales are given much priority. The revenues earned will tell the percentage of growth of the organization. The higher the sale, the higher will be the revenues earned. More is the revenue; more will be the shareholders satisfied. Profit maximization is the ultimate goal of any organization. So to reach this goal, it is very important for the organization to focus on their sales representative and should measure their performance from time to time to enhance their productivity.
High productivity is always demanded by the organization. For this, the sales representative should be aware of the customer’s behavior and market demand. So to make the sales representatives understand, timely training is required. The managers should be attentive towards the training and development part of the employees. To measure the performance of the employees, many organizations take the help of sales productivity measures. These metrics will help in identifying the time taken by the employees to reach their target, inducing power of the employee, etc. The data points collected using the sales productivity metrics represent the individual, team, or whole organizations performance. The managers can easily track the progress, prepare for future sales, brings into the notice of the manager who should be given awards and incentives, etc.
Following are some of the sales metrics used by the managers for productivity:
- Time spend on selling activities- When the managers are able to find and measure the time taken to make sales, they will be able to address any issues and take proper actions to correct them. This will help the managers to know about the number of hours wasted by the sales representatives and how many potential consumers are contacted about the same. There may be many unwanted activities which will hinder the sales performance and will take more time. So this software will help to track the time taken on selling activities.
- Lead response time- Quick responses directly affect sales. The more time taken to respond to the leads, more are the chances that they will switch to your competitors. Sales productivity software will help in measuring the lead response time. Less response time will increase the chances of an increased level of sales.
- Win rate-Opportunity win rate is basically the percentage of the total sales opportunities earned. This basically measures the level of opportunity one will grab during a specific period of time. Once the manager is able to crack it, they will easily be able to forecast and will set some attainable sales targets to encourage your team.
- Average deal size- This will help you to keep track on the revenues being earned. This will take you to the right track by providing the information about the deals to be completed to reach the target. The managers will be able to identify the incoming risk which can hinder the process of reaching the deals. It will also help the managers to know about the average deals incurred in a particular month and compare it with the previous month. To calculate it you can divide revenues earned with the closed deals.
- Churn rates- Churn rates mean why and how much of your consumers are leaving you and shifting towards your competitors. The higher the rate will be the higher are your customers leaving you. Knowing the reasons behind your customers leaving will help the managers in improving their sales strategies and policies for increasing sales and hence revenues. To measure it, the difference of customers in beginning and the end is divided by customers at the beginning of the month.
- Efforts- Efforts cannot be calculated in numbers but can be measured in the number of calls made, presentations, emails, SMS, etc which will depict the efforts of the employees. On these bases, you can decide the level of efforts made by the employees.
- Monthly sales- Comparing your present monthly sale with the previous one will give you a glimpse of whether your organization is growing, stable or shrinking. This will measure the performance of all the individual sales representatives whether they are meeting their targets or not. This will help you to know how many new leads have contacted your sales team. You will automatically come across the factors which are increasing or decreasing the new customers.
So above are some of the metrics used by the organizations to measure sales productivity. Sales productivity tools will help you to professionally manage your sales and execute all the related activities efficiently.
Tracking and measuring these metrics will definitely promote sales and increase productivity and revenues. Following are some of the reasons to track the above-mentioned metrics:
- Direct the focus- This helps the sales representatives to have the focus on the sales goals and targets which are pre-decided by the managers. This will help you to take actions that will help you to achieve it.
- Identify problems- These metrics when measured will tell you about the present situation of the sales in the organization. It will help you to know about the number of customers left, efforts, monthly target status, lead time, win rate, etc which will help you to know whether the business id on the right track or not. The calculations will amplify the results which will act as indicators for the managers to pay attention.
- Improvement- When you come to know about the delayed lead response time, one will focus on finding the reasons behind it and take suitable measures. Many other factors like target achievement, deal size, etc will help the managers to know whether there is any need for improvement or not. If the manager senses any scope of improvement, suitable measures can be taken for the same.
Above are some of the points highlighting the need to use sale productivity metrics. There are many sales metrics, so one should choose according to their targets and goals. The efficient use of the sales metrics will boost your performance and increase scale productivity.