As we round the corner to the last few weeks of Q1, it is the ideal time for Owners and Sales Leaders to assess how well the strategies and tactics in their sales plans are playing out. This is especially important this year as we monitor how various industries are rebounding from the pandemic, and how some are likely to remain constricted.
In my previous blog post, The Sales Plan: A Roadmap to Reach Your Goals, I shared that while starting the fiscal new year with a solid sales plan in place is important, it is just as important to conduct thorough reviews of the plan’s performance each quarter. Let’s dive in to take a multi-dimensional look at how you can evaluate performance to isolate areas needing attention that may not be obvious.
The first step in evaluating how your sales plan is performing is to ask yourself: “Am I on-track to meet my plan goals and objectives?” The way you go about reviewing data and metrics to answer that question can make all the difference. In addition to reviewing lagging indicator data such as total sales or average transaction value, digging deeper to assess leading indicators will give you an entirely different performance view.
Leading key performance indicators (KPIs) provide a picture into the how well sales activities and their impacts are contributing toward sales goal achievement. This allows Owners and Sales Leaders to take a proactive and targeted approach to things like sharpening sales skills, shifting strategy, and enforcing heightened accountability to stimulate sales focus to get back on track.
- A sales funnel reflects the prospect’s journey from awareness to becoming a loyal customer. It encompasses actions the salesperson takes to create this journey and experience for their clients.
-
The sales pipeline, on the other hand, are the specific steps in the sales process required to turn a lead or prospect into a customer. The deal moves through your sales process from the salesperson’s perspective.
- Activities that drive new opportunities to enter the funnel such as volume of outreaches, referrals received, or new social connections to name a few.
- Pivotal prospect engagement that reflects their advancement deeper into the Sales Funnel. This could be things such as percentage of outreach responses, average number of days from the discovery phase to the evaluation phase, the number of quotes or proposals released, or others that relate more closely to your sales environment.
- How active and closed deals align to the targets identified in your sales plan. Do they match your defined ideal customer profile and target industries? Are they deals you actually want?