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Sales managers have one of the hardest jobs out there. They're held accountable to explicit results with very little guidance, resources or time. How can you effectively coach your reps to success when you're not equipped with tools you need to succeed as a manager? It's no wonder that hitting quota is such a struggle for so many sales teams out there.
A big problem is that, outside of hitting quota, there isn’t a standard outline or set of KPIs that show the efficacy of sales managers. As we continue to survey sales reps and sales managers and talk to a wide array of sales directors and leaders, we've identified 4 solid KPIs that will help you measure your impact — so it's clear to your team (and leadership) just how effective you are as a sales manager.
1) Number of coaching activities
Sales managers know they should be spending time coaching their sales reps, but how much is too much? How much time are your other colleagues spending on their sales coaching programs?
Quantifying how much time you spend coaching is one way to show that you're a successful sales manager: studies show that sales coaching is the number one thing that you can do to impact performance. And not only that…your reps demand it. So keep coaching your reps. Meet for check-ins, create action plans, and keep track of your sessions so that you can quantify your efforts and stay accountable to the sessions!
2) Quality of coaching score
Quantity of sales coaching is important. But quality matters, too. Surveys show that sales coaching isn't being done effectively — and reps often report that their managers aren't good coaches.
If you want to see how your program is doing from your team's perspective (and where you can improve): hop on the survey bandwagon and survey your reps — anonymously, of course.
There are a number of free survey tools — Survey Monkey, Typeform — that you can use to set up a simple survey, focusing on four different areas of your coaching and management. A sample survey may contain these five questions:
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Is your sales manager a good, effective sales coach? This is best to rank 0-5 to get an average score or target you can work to improve upon.
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Is your sales manager holding consistent coaching sessions? (Rank 0-5)
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Is your sales manager holding quality coaching sessions? (Rank 0-5)
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Are you improving and learning from your sales coach? (Rank 0-5)
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What is one thing your coach does well and one thing they should do better (Open ended question to gain valuable insights)
>>> Need some help running quality sales coaching programs? We've got free sales coaching templates from the best sales leaders on the planet that you can steal, copy and use today! <<<
3) "Percent Activity" lift
The best way to hit your quota goals is to ensure that your reps are on pace with their daily sales activities. Create a scorecard or target for daily activities and show week-over-week or month-over-month performance trends. For example, we can track here that we hit a 175% lift in outbound calls!
PRO TIP: Set triggers to automate some of the daily pacing! If your reps are supposed to hit 100 outbound dials a day, your triggers could notify you of members who haven’t hit at least 60 by lunchtime. This allows you to focus your time on the specific daily challenges and reps who need intervention. Work smarter, not harder!
4) Rep-to-quota (not just team-to-quota!)
When sales managers are measured on percent-to-quota for your collective team, it can leave a lot of important context clues out. You may have one or two reps tanking, and it doesn’t show the number of individuals who are performing at high, efficient rates. Your job as a coach is to coach all of your performers; top, bottom and especially middle, but you want to show the number (or percentage) of reps that are being coached and attaining quota outside of just the collective team attainment.
Want to automate your tracking and coaching? You can do that with Ambition! Need help convincing your boss you need automation help? We can handle that, too!
