To improve the sales result, the sales productivity of the sales team needs to increase. Sales productivity counts for many companies as perhaps the most important area for sales organizations to prioritize.
Sales productivity is an equation of a number of components. The most important are usually:
= Salesperson's focus/orientation x Sales skills x Activity x Product knowledge
These four skill areas are particularly interesting because they can be measured with KPIs. Which ones do you measure and track?
What do the four areas contain?
Focus/orientation :
What does the salesperson spend his time on?
Outreach sales or nurturing existing customers?
Where do you enter the customer's buying process, early, late or never?
How to process the market, through email, phone, social media, combination?
Which key persons at the customer do you visit?
"Is the salesperson spending his sales time on the right customers and on the right prospects in the sales pipeline?"
Sales skills:
Which selling behaviors do you use to succeed in your role?
How well can one perform these?
How skilled are you in building warm to change/us
How quickly can you build a relationship and trust?
How much and how well leaders coach their employees in sales skills
"You can never be too good in this field. Continuously training your skills is a prerequisite for becoming a world-class salesperson"
Activity :
How many calls do I make?
How many meetings do I have?
How many different clients do I process at the same time?
How many business opportunities do I have running at the same time?
"Here, it is important to find the balance. If you have too low activity requirements, it has a negative effect on sales pressure. Too high activity requirements often lead to a misguided focus for the salesperson. It is neither too good with too little nor too much activity requirements on the salespeople."
Product knowledge :
The seller's knowledge of his own product/service
The seller's experience in the industry
"Here, it is important to find the balance. Too little knowledge (about the product/industry) makes it difficult to have a deeper dialogue with the customer. Too much knowledge can sometimes lead to us talking too much about the product's features and benefits (and is perceived as tilter)"
Good luck increasing sales productivity and creating world-class salespeople.
Comments