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Coming into the second half of 2018, the heat is on for sales leaders to deliver on team quotas. Start tracking these KPIs today to keep your teams on track and focused on moving the needle for your organization.
1. Qualified Opportunities Created
There is nothing worse than focusing all efforts on closing today….then facing an empty quarter because your team didn’t accurately fill out a pipeline. Tracking opportunity creation is all about building the right pipeline to ensure that your teams are set up to close the year strong.
To do this right, know your average time to close, and work backwards from December 31 to determine when you need to start creating pipeline opportunities if you want them to close this year. For example, if your team’s average time to close is 180 days to close or greater, you’ll want to be all hands on deck right now if you want to have a chance at bringing in that deal this year. If you hit Q4 and those opportunities aren’t already cooking, there’s no chance they’ll be done in time to count towards your 2018 number.
Our customers have seen success running Qualified Opportunity Creation contests to drive reps to start filling up their pipeline now, so it will pay off later.
2. Meeting Conversion Rate
What percentage of your meetings set (or initial demos) are converting to qualified opportunities? Understanding this key indicator can give you insight into the quality of the leads your SDRs, BDRs, or demand gens are pulling in and can help you focus on bringing in leads that are actually likely to convert and grow with your business.
Although you may be hitting high meetings set numbers, if those meetings aren’t converting, it could signal a problem. A low conversion-to-opportunity could signal that your front-line reps are sourcing low-quality leads. Filling your reps’ calendars with low-quality meetings means that they’re spinning their wheels on prospects that will never convert, and that your pipeline through the end of the year won’t deliver. Additionally, your sales reps will likely be unhappy that they are not being set up to succeed.
Try delivering additional training on ideal customer profiles or revamping commission structures that reflect a focus on high-quality leads. A great way to kick this off is to run some alignment sessions on a whiteboard with your SDRs or BDRs and your AE team. Your SDRs need to understand the impact their actions have downstream on AEs, who are ready to close high-quality deals, and your AEs should have insight into how hard your SDRs are working to book meetings, intros, and appointments on their calendars.
3. Stalled Opportunities
You may call these ghosted opportunities or another name, but these are opps who have said “Not right now,” or “Reach back out to me in x days.” They aren’t closed won or closed lost -- they are stalled in the sales process.
When this happens, it’s too easy to lose track of these opportunities and the buyers and champions that go along with them. Understanding this key metric can tell us two important things:
3a. Certain reps have a habit of being ghosted.
3b. You have potential revenue just sitting in your pipeline.
If you learn that specific reps are more frequently stalled on opportunities than others, this is a great piece of data to discuss during your next 1:1 coaching session. Focus your next conversations on how to maintain momentum throughout the entire cycle, and how to handle to the “Not right now” response from prospects.
If you learn that the stalled opportunities in your pipeline represent significant potential revenue, try running a contest with your reps, focused on getting stalled opportunities moving again. These opportunities were previously warm and are already known, so chances are your team will be able to pick up several conversations where they left off, adding to your number for the year.
I want to hear from you! What KPIs are critical to helping you keep your number on track for 2018?
