For a Sales Coaching process to have a measurable impact on results, it is essential that the entire sales organisation shares and knows the same sales KPIs.
Sales KPIs are different in each company and vary greatly depending on the sector and the sales process. To obtain the list of KPIs to use, we can base ourselves on the model of the 3 axes of commercial success.
- The first axis is QUANTITY. Quantity measures the volume of commercial transactions that a salesperson carries out. These will normally be sales calls and visits. In principle, the greater the number of sales efforts, the more sales. But that is not always the case, is it?
- There is a second axis that we call quality, which measures the effectiveness with which the salesperson performs each of the sales activities. To measure quality, we use KPIs that measure the salesperson’s progress. For example, the percentage of visits to new customers divided by the number of calls would tell us about the quality with which the salesperson is carrying out the tele-consulting activity. Another example would be the number of commercial proposals divided by the number of visits, which would tell us how effective the salesperson is in arousing the customer’s interest in our products and services.
- But quality and quantity are not enough. There is a third axis which is the Direction of Effort, which tells us whether the salesperson is focusing on the customers who are most likely to buy and whether he is offering the products that sell the most. A salesperson who has a poor direction of effort will never have good results, no matter how much quality sales management he or she carries out.
If we want to successfully implement a Sales Coaching process, we will have to define KPIs that allow us to diagnose the quantity, quality and direction of the effort with which the salesperson is working. These KPIS must necessarily be known by the salesperson, who will also have to self-diagnose.
Being clear about which metrics we are going to use in our business will make the difference between the success and failure of the process. A good use of metrics will help us to know which aspects we need to improve.
This is why, in order to be able to measure our processes efficiently, it will be necessary to carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis that will provide us with information about the salesperson’s behaviour in the sale and customer experience, indicating the level of loyalty of our buyers.
While it is true that each company will have specific indicators, there are some sales metrics that cannot be overlooked and are common to most organisations, among others:
- Number of sales per salesperson: This will help us to know the performance of the salespeople. It is important to measure this by accompanying the salespeople in order to have a clear vision of whether the salesperson achieves the objective and, above all, how he or she achieves it.
- Average sales cycle per salesperson: This indicator will help us to see how long it takes a salesperson to close a sale, this is very important because if the salesperson takes too long it can damage the company and if on the other hand it is closed too soon it can generate expectations that will not be fulfilled.
- Reasons for customer loss: This will allow us to know why the company is losing customers, to detect possible deficiencies in the salesperson’s day-to-day performance.
- Number of visits/calls made by a salesperson in a given periodicity: know how many visits or calls a salesperson makes in a period of one month, for example. This will help to detect whether a decrease in sales can be explained by this KPI.
- Level of customer loyalty: number of customers who maintain their relationship with the company in the long term and which salesperson manages these accounts.
With these metrics and many others, we will be able to detect the skills that salespeople should include in their action plan in the sales coaching process to ensure that sales actions go in the right direction, making it easier to draw up a good strategy. And you, do you need help to implement Sales Coaching processes in your organisation?
