Sales Performance: the 4 Keys to Success

Sales performance is a hot topic for companies: a committed and effective sales force is a synonym for a healthy organization. So what drives sales performance and how can it be sustained over the long term?

History and Evolution

Traditionally, sales performance relied almost solely on figures. The sales director evaluates the performance of their teams based on sales volume, revenue, and margin.

But everything has changed. The digital transition, the cloud, Generation Y, the consumer era—all these elements have combined to bring down this obsolete performance tracking system.

The arrival of CRMs and sales support software has led to an explosion of data. Sales departments now have at their disposal a frightening number of performance indicators with an ever-deeper level of granularity. Sales performance has expanded and become more complex; it now covers a different reality for each company, or even for each employee or manager, each of whom has their own indicators to measure their results. But above all, sales strategy now also includes the notion of transformation: indicators are no longer just there to measure results but to motivate behaviors—behaviors that are sources of performance.

Performance Indicators

The emergence of performance indicators has responded to the growing demand for increasing objectives and organizations’ questioning of their sales representatives’ motivation and engagement. Indeed, they serve the dual objective of measuring individual productivity and results, benefiting both the individual and the organization. Rather than measuring performance by results, with a disembodied and inflexible figure, the focus is now on the activity that leads to the result. In this sense, they are much more human.

This is where the revolution in performance tracking is taking place. It is not an empty or utopian discourse but an organizational necessity for the survival of organizations: we must put people back at the center of sales performance.

At Incenteev, this conviction that people, not results, and activity, not figures, are the indispensable foundation of sales performance has translated into two strategic axes: engagement and enablement. These two axes themselves support 4 pillars that, on a daily basis, ensure the performance of the sales organization of the future: drive, motivate, train, and share.

The 4 Pillars of Sales Performance

1. Drive your Team’s Performance in Real Time

Driving sales performance is a crucial challenge for managers, and not all automated measurement and reporting tools have necessarily simplified the task.

Indeed, many organizations that have adopted a CRM or BI tool still use Excel to compile and analyze all their data. However, an Excel file with a hundred tabs and thousands of rows is difficult to maintain and requires a lot of time to update, sort, qualify, etc.

Now, the sales dashboard is designed to group key performance indicators for a much more engaging and pleasant data visualization. The dashboard also integrates an analysis function into the data presentation, thus saving valuable time for both the manager and the sales representative. Not taking advantage of such a tool is a serious missed opportunity: you can, in the same space, group financial indicators and activity indicators to highlight correlations that are impossible to see otherwise!

Effectively driving performance requires more than simply extracting numerical data. It must be accompanied by analysis and automated intelligence capable of linking data to generate motivation. Sales performance is not limited to analysis but fully integrates the engagement and strategy factors of sales representatives.

2. Engage your Sales Representatives with Innovative Challenges

Challenges and contests are often used by companies to generate enthusiasm for a short period. Many sales representatives are competitive and enjoy challenges, but in recent years, the annual challenge has become as stimulating as a 3-hour meeting on a Friday evening—especially due to obsolete or rigid management tools, such as email or Excel spreadsheets.

Yet, it is one of the most effective levers for increasing product sales or ensuring the success of a new launch. Thanks to the proliferation of activity indicators, it is now possible to build innovative challenge mechanisms to unite an entire sales force around a common objective (collective versus individual rewards are increasingly developing to recreate connection and cohesion among teams).

The Sales Challenge in 2019: The essential guide to engaging your sales force download here

3. Train and Support the Ambitions of your Sales Representatives

The sales profession has evolved significantly, and this requires all sales representatives to adapt. They therefore expect companies to provide training to help them better understand new customer challenges and to improve their pitch and skills, simply to sell better (and more).

Training also has a personal development objective: it allows an employee to continue gaining value in the market and not become obsolete. Benefiting from continuous or distance (e-learning) training is a strong lever for motivation and recognition for the sales representative, who will see it as a source of trust and investment from their employer: if they dedicate their resources to training me, in return I am more willing to fully commit my workforce.

The main challenge for organizations, thanks to digital technology, is to continuously train their sales representatives and ensure their upskilling in either technical or general aspects, so that they can easily assume the position of expert or specialist when facing clients and prospects.

4. Create Connections and Strengthen Cohesion within your Teams

It may seem simplistic, but communication in modern organizations should not be the sole prerogative or responsibility of marketing. A high-performing sales organization communicates internally across departments, encourages field feedback, and promotes the exchange of best practices. For a geographically dispersed sales force, having a tool that allows for quick and efficient exchange is a real lever for performance.

This communication challenge therefore falls squarely within the responsibilities of the sales manager: they must be able to align with the marketing department to provide the sales forces with the resources necessary for their work—digital communication tools allow for quick and real-time sharing of enablement content.

Fostering free and uninhibited communication within the organization is a wonderful advantage for management. It allows for direct and public commendation of those who deserve it or who need a boost. Highlighting an employee for their successes is a powerful factor for cohesion. And a favorable work environment is a true facilitator of productivity.

The Sales Challenge in 2019: The essential guide to engaging your sales force download here

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