Regardless of the industry you work in; every company ultimately has the same goal: to increase revenue and grow business.
To set your organization up for long-term success, you need more than just a goal. You need a strategic plan, and that’s where target drives come in.
In this episode of Improving Sales Performance, Alina McComas, VP / Senior Consultant at The Center for Sales Strategy, shares her insight on implementing target drives that help improve revenue performance. Keep reading for a brief overview or tune in now.
A True Strategic Thinker
Alina is known as a strategic thinker and a problem solver. She’s able to diagnose an organization and determine where processes can be improved to maximize efficiency and performance.
She uses her 20+ years of successful sales, management, and consulting experience to drive results for her clients. As a digital subject matter expert, she has the ability to help the novice and the expert understand the ever-changing world of digital advertising sales. Her clients value her accessibility, critical thinking, and her willingness to jump in and help create solutions in response to their challenges that produce results.
What Is a Target Drive?
Simply stated, a target drive is a sales tactic designed to drive sales revenue — typically new revenue.
However, it’s not just about driving new revenue; it’s also about reinforcing the strategy of selling tailored solutions to high potential accounts.
Most target drives that CSS helps clients execute are between 8-12 weeks in length, and they focus on driving total revenue or narrow the focus on a specific category or platform.
As summarized in the broadcast, target drives are a tactic to drive revenue, but that’s certainly not the only good thing that comes from them.
How Are Target Drives Different from a Sales Contest?
“Target drives are more strategic where sales contests close anything and everything that meets the criteria of a contest,” Alina explains.
Target drives are designed to follow a proven sales process to develop accounts that have potential to be key accounts. Focusing on the type of business that can truly impact the bottom line of an organization.
One of the key differences is that target drives do not need incentives to be successful. Through her years at CSS, Alina has conducted 200-300 target drives for clients and has witnessed the impact of incentivizing only one person versus everyone having the opportunity to earn recognition.
“Target drives reinforces good habits we want people to have,” Sunshine summarizes. “We don’t ask people to do something they wouldn’t normally do anything. Its reinforcing a process that works anyway.”
Over the course of four years, CSS has generated over 100 million dollars for clients through target drives. This revenue is strictly from brand-new business or brand-new budgets from current clients.
“If you count business that you would already have, then you’re doing target drives wrong,” states Alina. “It’s about finding those additional pockets of money and doing it the right way. Focusing on that process that’s going to lead to long-term success not just success in that 8-12 weeks, and then new business drops off afterwards.”
Benefits of Performing Target Drives
- Tactic to reinforce strategy
- Sellers build better habits
- Focus on process, not product
- Not a sales contest
- Gives insight on where bottlenecks are in your sales organization
Tune in now for the full explanation of each benefit.
How Do You Do a Target Drive?
Plan all of the detail.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. “It’s an essential component of executing a successful target drive. Think through all details so that you’ll have smooth sailing and be able to focus on activity and insights,” Alina advises. Here are just a few details included in the planning process:
- How long will it be
- Start date and end date
- Individual and team goals
- Each salespersons responsibility
Tune in now to hear a long list of more details you should include during the planning stage of a target drive.
Once you have a detailed plan in place, it’s time for the kickoff meeting. This is the time to bring excitement and fun to the table and incorporate training that will help your sales team.
Alina also advises that during the target drive, keep an eye on data, drive accountability, make sure everyone is on track, and solve challenges as they arise.
Once you have end result, it’s important to do a diagnostic. Take what you learn and apply it to individual sellers – not the team as a whole. 
What Do You Track and Measure?
During a target drive, you want to track activity and those key moments in the sales process so that you can identity bottlenecks. This includes things like:
- Target accounts that salespeople claim
- Actual appointments
- Needs analysis sent
- How many move to proposal
- Closes
Another thing you want to track is pending business — you need to make sure you have enough in funnel to get to were you’re going. And the last thing Is revenue — what’s the end result, what did you actually close, and did everyone contribute to success of team?
What Causes a Target Drive to Fail?
- Planning to fail appropriately
- Lack of accountability
- Lack of Focus
What Results Should You Expect from a Target Drive?
Alina stresses that “it’s about how you plan.”
If you plan and execute a target drive correctly, you should expect an increase in revenue. And this revenue should be one that you’re able to grow over time.
“You should have enough insights after a focused target drive to see where each person is and how you can help them in area they struggle the most,” states Alina.
Lastly, you should have healthier new business development because you’re focusing on the right types of accounts and deals. You’re holding people accountable during the process, and better habits should be sticking after a target drive.
Don’t miss another episode of the Improving Sales Performance series where Managing Partner Matt Sunshine speaks with thought leaders, experts, and industry gurus, who share their insight, tips, and knowledge on various topics that help companies improve sales performance.
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