Sales Team Optimization for 2012
Posted on Wed, Dec 07, 2011
How successful were you in growing revenue this year? If you are a sales leader in your organization, you have already begun to plan for 2012 and its success. So what are the Best-in-Class doing to grow topline revenue for next year?
Aberdeen Group just published its findings on how the best-in-class are growing revenue, in a white paper titled, "Sales Performance Management 2012, How the Best-in-Class Optimize the Front Line to Grow the Bottom Line." The white paper is available for a limited time at no charge at Aberdeen Group.
The study distinguished between Best-in-Class, Average, and Laggards in four key performance criteria: annual quota attainment, year-over-year growth in corporate revenues, year-over-year improvement in average deal size, and reduction in sales cycle time. The report shows that the top 20%, the Best-in-Class, had 83% of their reps achieve quota attainment, while the bottom 30%, the Laggards, had only 22% achieve their annual quota.
Some of the key enablers of sales optimization among the Best-in-Class include:
- A CRM solution that includes a compensation module or commission estimator
- The ability to effectively utilize web-conferencing for demos and learning
- Sales performance reporting from historical, current, and anticipated individual and team achievements
- A sales forecasting solution
The paper also noted that Best-in-Class companies effectively develop leaders, and long-term sales growth requires a good team that can repeat its success year after year.
The Best-in-Class companies also shared characteristics in these five key categories: Process, Organization, Knowledge Management, Technology/Service Tools, and Performance Management. In the Technology/Service Tools category, Best-in-Class companies effectively used web conferencing, customized sales performance reporting, dashboards, forecasting and commission estimators. Obviously, top performing companies are effectively using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools strategically within their sales performance management initiatives.
The white paper also discusses the importance of compensation in driving results. The leaders effectively compensate their sales teams both individually and as a team.
If you are interested in obtaining the complete white paper, use this link to access Aberdeen Group's website: Abedeen Group. If you would like to talk with our team on how CRM can help help you achieve your individual goals, please contact me directly to arrange a time to meet.
Dan Holzgen
danh@ehtc.com
