For as long as sellers have been selling, managers have tracked their activity. Over time, we've improved the tools we use to track that activity, from call sheets to spreadsheets to CRM.
But if all we do is capture the data and not study the data, what's the point? After all, the value is not simply in seeing how much activity we have but in understanding the trends within that data to help salespeople improve.
Studying the data allows you to identify where the bottlenecks in the sales process occur. It enables you to go beyond what you think is happening and confirm where that friction in the sales process lives. That confirmation allows you to develop specific strategies to improve your performance or the performance of your sales team.
So, what data points should you pay attention to?
The simple answer is that you want to focus on those key moments within the sales process as well as a few additional variables that can impact your ability to reach your sales goal. But let's get specific; here are the areas that I would recommend and why.
Conversion rates from one step of the sales process to the next.
To use these data points to identify bottlenecks in the sales process, focus on each key step in that sales process to locate where you, or your salesperson, get stuck or struggle to move prospects forward. To do that, study the following conversion rates:
Studying this conversion rate lets you learn if you need to tweak your approach to schedule more meetings. When this is the softest point in the sales process, you should be asking questions about your approach.
In other words, are you giving that decision-maker or influencer a reason to want to speak with you?
At this stage of the sales process, it's important to remember that the goal is not just to schedule an appointment but to schedule a good appointment that is kept.
If you find that you are scheduling a lot of meetings but being ghosted, you need to understand why to improve.
Remember, we are looking for trends, so if it's happening once or twice, no big deal, but if this seems to happen frequently, understanding why will be key to improvement.
When this conversion rate is softest in the sales process, salespeople often feel as though they are spinning their wheels, but nothing ever falls their way. The goal is to maximize the potential of every prospect, and low conversion rates at this stage can mean a lot of wasted time on prospects that never move forward.
When a bottleneck occurs at this stage of the sales process, look to the quality of the prospect and the effectiveness of the discover meeting.
If you find that a fair share of prospects get to the discover meeting but don't have the budget needed to move forward in the sales process, reevaluate the quality of your target accounts. On the other hand, if you know these accounts have the dollar potential to move forward but simply stall, the focus should be on the discover meeting itself.
Remember that the first meeting is an audition for the second, and the less prepared you are, the less likely you are to move that prospect forward in the sales process.
A bottleneck at this stage of the process is often referred to as a fat middle of the pipeline, where business stays pending for extended periods of time and never seems to close.
To identify why it's happening, I would recommend looking at the quality of the proposal and the frequency of the follow-up after the presentation.
As you look at the quality of the proposal, consider how well it is tailored to the specific needs of the account.
Buyers today expect a plan that has been tailored for them, and so if the proposal is generic in nature, the risk of losing the business is high. Often, when the proposal is generic, it comes back to the quality of the discovery meeting, so looping back to ensure we have the right information before rushing to the proposal becomes critical to improving successful outcomes.
If infrequent follow-up is the root of a soft conversion rate at this stage of the sales process, create a follow-up sequence that you can execute after each proposal. If 80% of deals require a minimum of five follow-up attempts after the presentation to close, build a sequence with 5-6 attempts within a 15-20-day timeframe that brings value—not just a “check-in.”
Here are a few additional data points I would recommend you bake into your review as you look for ways to improve sales performance.
Bottlenecks in your sales process can create havoc on performance, but improving your ability to identify and diagnose them quickly can create big opportunities to propel your team forward.
As you identify the bottlenecks, understand why, and implement strategies to improve, make sure that you have measurements in place to see if you are improving. Try not to do too many things at once so you can easily identify what is working and what is not.