What are the Most Important Sales Performance Metrics?

In today’s world, it is more important than ever to be fully focused on providing value for customers. Consumers have more options than ever before when buying refurbished electronics. Savvy sellers need to be on top of their needs and prepared to meet them. Managers who want to determine which of their staffers are doing well have multiple performance metrics that can help them make such judgments. An effective manager is one who is fully aware of such metrics and capable of using them to help motivate a team and provide them with objective and accurate feedback to improve their performance. 

Lead Response Time

Any sales person who is going to do well in the market today and attract clients needs to be able to respond to a lead as soon as possible. Many companies find it useful to set up a specific time frame to respond to a generated lead. This can be anywhere from an hour to as long as a week. Studies show that it is important to follow up on leads as quickly as possible or that lead may not be useful at all. Customers who are being courted tend to feel they are valued and respected by the company. The ideal company supervisor is someone who can help sales people figure out how quickly to respond to a given lead. 

Actual Time Spent Selling

Another important sales metric is how long any given person spends selling. Selling time needs to as focused as possible in order to make sure that the person selling is using their time effectively. Many sales people spend a lot of time searching for information before they even make a sale. A manager should be aware of such issues and look to do what they can to help provide their sales force with easy access to accurate info that is on hand when a member of their team is on sales calls. 

Average Size of Their Deals

Many managers find that one way of determining the effectiveness of their sales force is by looking closely at the size of the deals made by each member of the team. Some members may be focused on larger deals while others focus their efforts on smaller deals. The aim of the manager should be to help each member of the team figure out ways they can increase the average size of the deals they make and the overall size of each deal. 

Marketing Material Use

Companies often spend a great deal of time creating marketing materials designed to reach out to new customers and provide information for existing clients. Content is king today. Any effective sales team will understand this fact. A good manager wants to help sales people use the material they have on hand in the best possible way. A manager should be aware of a sales person’s use of such materials and how they incorporate them into their presentations. The sales manager should also be aware of ways they they can help help improve the use of such materials to make them easier to understand for their customers and their sales force. 

Win Rate

Win rate or hit rate is an important way to figure out who is able to convert prospects to sales and clients. An effective sales person will be one who can close a deal. Closing a deal often involves many kinds of skills including the ability to speak well, gage customer interest and explain the benefits of using a given product to a wide audience. A sale manager should work closely with their staffers to help find out who is able to consistently push forward to the closing.  In many instances, a sales person with a lower closing rate can be trained to learn how to have a higher closing rate. A good sales manager should think about how to provide assistance for any struggling members of their team. 

Cost of Sales To Gain Revenue Ratio

This is one of the most important metrics any sales manager has at their disposal. Any company manager needs to be aware of the amount of money that is being spent on sales. This should include the amount of money that is spent on salaries for the sales force as well as any commissions earned and all funds that are spent on sales materials. Awareness of the costs involved in sales can help any company learn to use their sales dollars more effectively.