Performance Measures
There are 4 major factors that drive sales performance in business today:
- The number of proposals written
- The size of the proposal
- The close rate
- The number of salespeople in a team
Proposals X Size X Close Rate X Sales = Revenue
Improving Sales Performance
Proposal Size
Product placement is one of the most common ways to increase your proposal size. In addition, product positioning may also improve margins by distinguishing the solution from your competitors. Clients will pay more for improved business impact than for other technology solutions.
Proposal Volume
To optimize the number of proposals needed to create more leads, qualify your team’s existing leads better. You can do this by implementing more precise sales funnel, asking for the sale earlier, creating proposal templates, reducing buying complexity, simplifying your product offerings, or by forming new partnerships.
Close Rate
Improving the closing rate has a great impact on the return on investment from sales and marketing expenses. Targeting the right purchaser, proposal style, timing, qualifying leads and value proposition all impact the close rates. Often, the single biggest impact on the close rate is the business approach of the sales person. The CEO roundtable says:
“Don’t waste time (and money) teaching salespeople to ‘sell’, instead teach them how (and why) businesses buy.”
Sales
Invisible salespeople are often already in the company. Use the receptionist or administration as inside sales for you. Reward customer support people who report opportunities for you to sell. The most important thing is to manage results by measuring the impact on each factor.
Proposals- Size – Close Rate – Sales = Revenue