Every company develops its own way of measuring its Sales KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) examples and performance. For example, a pre-university course would focus on the number of students enrolled as well as how many have entered university. E-commerce on the other hand can be based on the number of visitors who haven’t abandoned their trolleys in the middle of their shopping.
Many companies focus only on Sales KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) examples like revenue and profit margins and forget to observe other indicators that are important, which help identify trends and further improve the customer experience – in accordance with the sales.
Which sales indicators are key to walking a successful path to your business? Keep reading our post and find out!
The starting point for sales performance analysis is to understand what are your business goals.
The ideal is to follow the vision of the company without neglecting more concrete goals such as generating revenue, surviving in the marketplace and in many cases rewarding its investors.
If laid down well they aid leadership work, serve as a motivation and build confidence among the employees. However care needs to be taken, the opposite effect can happen if executed badly.
As already explained on this blog the meaning of goals as a target to be sought after.
It’s common to confuse its definition as objective. But it’s worth thinking that an objective is the description of what one desires to achieve; However a goal is something bigger and more concrete. This is where deadlines, numbers and definitions come in.
To clarify:
Goal = Goal + Value + Deadline (for example an increase in profit by 13% within a year).
For many executives the best strategy for setting goals is the SMART technique – the acronym used to represent that a truly effective goal should be:
Many businesses and economists believe that this model while effective, may not keep pace with market flexibility and changes. Therefore they choose the CLEAR technique where a goal must meet the following requirements:
In practice it’s important that you:
Many companies through inexperience create unrealistic expectations and as a consequence impact the performance of salespeople – who find themselves demotivated by expectations.
Regardless of the chosen strategy you need to be mindful of strategic planning in order that your Sales KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) examples, can make a significant contribution to controlling and growing your business.
It will therefore help you to create measurable goals that can be achieved.
Many managers believe that by simply focusing all the attention on measuring the salesperson performance it will bring about results.
However, in practice that’s not quite how it works. That’s why the average ticket is one of the most important Sales KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) examples to evaluate the performance of your company.
The idea is to measure business performance more broadly and identify everything that requires improvement. In many cases its purpose is to understand sales dynamics from three different points of view: the seller, the customer, and the sale.
Let’s understand better how it works:
If your company sold 500 products over a period of time and earned $2,500 for them, your average ticket is $5.
Ie: Average Ticket = Total Received / Number of Sales
When a company runs this calculation through its clients, it’s able to understand how often a consumer purchases and how it can provide a distinctive service to increase customer satisfaction.
When driven through the salesperson, the top performers can be identified and how much they produce in actual sales.
This planning on a day-to-day basis makes all the difference in identifying issues and increasing revenue – by increasing the range of services, changing product prices or creating consumer incentive programs.
It’s also possible to change the mindset of the team. By focusing on raising the average ticket, those who work directly with sales or marketing can understand that customer loyalty can be improved – and be more profitable – as opposed to investing in an aggressive search to capture new clients.
For businesses this can reduce the costs by up to 5-7 times less through advertising campaigns, increased organization and hiring new employees.
One of the most important Sales KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) examples for measuring direct employee performance, it indicates how many opportunities an employee has had and which were taken – that is, how many sales were closed.
In the case of a physical store this rate is measured by the number of sales made against the number of people entering the store. To make the calculation simply multiply by 100 the number of customers who made a purchase and divide the result by the total number of customers who entered the establishment.
Conversion Rate = Number of Buyers X 100 / Total Number of Customer visits
With online commerce the formula is the same, but visitors here represent those who visited the company’s website. If in a single day you received 500 customers and 50 of them made a purchase your conversion rate is 10%.
Keep in mind that the conversion rate is an important indicator not just to point out flaws or determine the effectiveness of staff, but to evaluate the strategies of your company as a whole.
Every business even if it not working directly with offering products and services, requires to “sell” something – whether it’s an image, content or a lifestyle. Today it’s no longer sufficient to hire a friendly and persuasive salesperson and offer some promotions to ensure that customer brand loyalty.
For example in a clothing store many consumers find it difficult to find items that fit their given style and therefore require the constant attention of the staff. Others however will already know exactly what they want and hate to be “followed” or hassled to buy.
To increase the conversion rate you need to understand the needs and expectations of the client, to offer a personalized service and customer support. Marketing depts already realize this.
It is precisely for this reason that a strategic consumption model has been created that follows the customer journey throughout the purchase, including the moment he quits.
This model is known as the sales funnel. Divided into three stages (top, middle and bottom), this strategy assesses the first moment the consumer becomes aware of the retailer – possibly in an internet search – thereby arousing their attention, interest and desire and results in the action of the purchase itself.
If for example, a customer gives up on the purchase at the first moment, the problem may be with your team’s approach. Throughout the process, there could be a setback with the payment method or product price etc. Also in e-commerce shipping price or delivery conditions may demotivate the consumer.
By Measuring and evaluating each step of the sales funnel it’s possible to identify where the bottleneck is in the business and therefore improve the conversion rate – essential to your performance.
Measuring the speed with which a sale is made is also an important strategy for assessing the company’s performance in attracting clients and whether it meets customer expectations.
Managers know that the shorter the sales cycle the greater the revenue. Therefore, it’s essential to invest in measures that catch the customers eye – especially in times of economic downturn where the public expenditure goes only on products and services that are worthwhile and differ from the competition.
Today it’s almost inevitable that real life and virtual life will merge together, it’s therefore crucial that companies have a profile in the digital world.
Online information flow can reach audiences anywhere in the world at a rate much faster than traditional media – which can also boost sales speed.
But to survive and excel in the online world just sharing content is not enough. Be aware: the internet has the ability to quickly increase a company’s sales power but it can also damage its image just as fast.
It is therefore better to appeal to creativity than to force. In the end, pressuring a potential customer to make a purchase can have the opposite effect and end up with them giving up.
Before converting leads into customers, a company needs to gain credibility and engage users. This can be done by:
In this case a company can offer an article, e-book or video that helps customers to clarify problems or questions – in addition, to attract consumer interest in getting to know them better and close a future deal in Brazil. .
The maxim “who is not seen is not remembered,” makes perfect sense in the online world. Being present in the first results of a search engine brings visibility and greater chance of sales increase. The online consumer assumes that the first searches have more credibility and authority as well as avoiding time wasting.
To achieve this position, it’s important to understand how search engines work. Usually they give priority to really relevant content and strategies like SEO and sponsored links. If you have no experience in this area digital marketers can help.
In 2016, internet access reached more than 50% of Brazilian homes – especially through the use of smartphones instead of computers, essentially for access to social media.
In Brazil, Facebook has 103 million active users, LinkedIn about 25 million and Instagram more than 35 million. What do these numbers demonstrate? Your business also needs to be on social media.
Today brand presence online – on platforms like the above as well as Twitter and Snapchat – have become as important as face-to-face customer contact. Therefore create a social media account and make sure it’s managed properly.
For increasing sales you need to determine a brand personality of your own, create a language that is right for your audience and communicate and serve them in an innovative way. Engage the user by encouraging them to “revitalize” content and participate in campaigns.
Keeping track of your existing customer history is the best way of understanding who your online target audience should be. Devise a more efficient marketing plan to capture their attention.
Even better is your business investing in data tracking software that helps you find the right information when making decisions and communicating with your customer?
Considered the “biggest car salesman” in the Guinness Book Of Records, Joe Girard. He presented important customer value lessons to companies. For him, each person is closely related to about 250 people they’ll know in his life.
In other words, by treating someone well you can promote yourself positively among 250 other people – and it follows that treating someone badly has the opposite effect. Therefore by following this logic it’s possible to understand the importance of creating good customer relationships.
The referral rate is one of the most important sales indicators when it comes to customers, which is how many people are introduced to a business. This shows current customers are confident to recommend the company to others.
Many organizations focus both on presales and attracting new consumers but forget the importance of retaining their present customers.
A single dissatisfied customer can destroy a company’s image in front of hundreds of others as the best advertising is word of mouth. Do you have any doubt? just do a quick search for sites like Complain Here.
Take for example data related to e-commerce resulting from a survey conducted in 2013:
You should use the number of lost customers as a metric to measure your business sales performance and also to identify failures. From there it will be easier to devise strategies to prevent existing consumers from leaving.
Our tip is that you don’t only see them as a source of sales, but as people you need to relate to and are grateful for their custom. For example:
Like customers, salespeople are key indicators for measuring a company’s performance. Any motivated professional is capable of producing more. When production declines it can indicate problems in staff satisfaction. Therefore, it’s up to Management to identify what’s going wrong.
To Measure a person’s feelings just by their assumption is an extremely difficult task, so it’s important that you create a system that helps you understand the needs of employees and strategies that’ll improve their motivation.
Performance appraisals such as 360 degrees – which should be done by all employees as well as their supervisors – can help you pinpoint aspects of your management that need improvement and what is undermining employee enthusiasm.
If you’ve already identified that your team is experiencing problems, it’s time to reverse the scenario.
Sales commissions are the most traditional and market-based ways to reward salespeople, but financial compensation doesn’t always equal job satisfaction.
The first step, already presented at the beginning of this post, is to set fair goals – and thereby, achievable and worth the effort.
Personal goals are very important in this area, especially at the beginning of the year, when people tend to reflect about the influence of work on their lives.
As a leader, you should encourage your employees to have their personal goals, instead of those just set by the organization. Following the company by the book may not bring a sense of purpose sought when performing a particular job.
Each person has their own characteristics and expectations and this has a strong influence on their motivation and productivity. But quality of life is something that’s common to all professionals.
Working with sales involves a lot of stress and rejections along the way. Therefore the best way to ensure the satisfaction of those who work for you is to bring about this dreamed of quality of life. You can do this by:
The goal of measuring the performance of your company and its employees is not to point out failures or collect results. It’s in discovering ways that leadership and these results can evolve further.
With these six indicators in hand, over certain periods start comparing company performance over time – to identify which monthly sales grow – and which areas are the most problematic.
It’s important to categorize them according to a criteria that’s valid for your strategic planning and to ensure you compare the overall performance of employees with the individual.
If a salesperson is yielding below the rest of the team for example, he may be having work satisfaction issues or need specific training to improve his performance – something simple to solve that makes all the difference in results.
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