Do you know who your top performers are on your sales team? Or is it more of a grey area that lacks the necessary accountability to identify those who may be missing the mark?
Tracking the right metrics can help give you more insight into who might need more assistance and ultimately result in improved win rates.
Key Metrics to Track
You may already be tracking some of your sales data, but breaking it down to individual performance metrics can make it easier to identify who your superstars are and which team members are struggling.
Consider what KPIs move the needle for your business. This could be X number of appointments with clients or X number of calls to leads. Asking your team to hit these metrics can help you pinpoint if they are following this first step to reach qualified customers.
Another easy way to spot signs of trouble is by looking at a salesperson’s bid-to-win ratio. Compare this to industry benchmarks and what your other sales team member’s ratios are. If one team member is only closing one out of every eight bids they submit, while everyone else is winning one job out of every three bids, you know there’s a serious problem going on.
A similar metric to track is sales members’ lead conversion rate. What percentage of their leads are turning to contracts and where are they dropping off in the sales funnel? This can help you determine where things can be improved.
Also, review the average deal size your sales team members are closing on. A salesperson may have an excellent close rate, but the profit margins of their jobs are not where you’d want them. This metric can allow you to identify opportunities for upselling or a client type to move away from due to low job profitability.
The sales cycle length can be another telling indicator of issues that can be improved. How long does it take your sales team to close a deal from initial contact to a signed contract? Review your sales process to see if there are inefficiencies to be streamlined or tactics your sales team can implement to mitigate the sales conversation from dragging on.
It’s a well-known fact that it costs less money to do business with existing customers so don’t forget to monitor your customer retention rate and how often your sales team members are winning repeat business. Some of this may fall on account managers as well, depending on your business structure.
Coaching Versus Removing From the Team
Often a poor closure rate could be due to behavior or attitude. If it’s behavior, the salesperson may believe they’re doing fine or were never taught the proper sales process. If it’s an attitude problem, the salesperson might not be working hard enough or take no for an answer too easily.
Depending on what metrics are suffering can help you determine if that salesperson is in need of more training or may not be cut out for your organization.
For instance, if a salesperson has low close rates but high engagement with prospects, dig in a little deeper. Often, if a friendly sales rep is taking a customer service approach to selling, they may be responding to “I need to think it over” with a very laid-back approach of “I’ll email the estimate over and if there’s anything I can do, please give me a call.”
In this scenario, the sales rep may need more coaching on how to firmly ask for the sale. Asking questions like ‘Can we lock you into our schedule?’ ‘Is there anything we haven’t addressed before going forward with the project?’ or ‘Is there any reason why to not go forward with this?” can bring up any other hesitations or actually get the prospect to commit.
When a sales rep’s cycle is far longer than others on your team, you may need to stress the importance of timelines and establishing a second meeting with a client during the first appointment.
If, despite coaching efforts, a salesperson is persistently having low performance or consistently having poor customer interactions, they are probably not suited for this role. Watch to see if these employees have no pipeline of leads or consistently loses bids due to preventable mistakes.
In some cases, an employee may not be cut out for sales, but this doesn’t mean they automatically need to be terminated. If they have a strong work ethic and align with your core values, it could be they are a better fit for a different role in your organization.
For those who are performing poorly at their job and lack cultural alignment, it is probably best to terminate the relationship.
Improving Close Rates
Some other strategies for improving your overall close rates include building a relationship early on, providing timely responses and focusing on your qualifying process with leads. Prospects have their guard up early on, so it’s important for your team to know how to establish a rapport from the start.
“Don’t be a salesperson, become a consultant,” says Jud Griggs, a landscape design/build sales and marketing consultant with The Harvest Group. “You actually want to educate them on why you’re proposing this or that or why you’ve designed it a certain way. Educate them on the horticultural aspects or the best practices. Let them know that you really know what you’re talking about. Become a consultant and educate the customer first, then the sale will take care of itself.”
Because consumers are accustomed to instant gratification when it comes to transactions, the faster you can get a proposal to them, the more likely you’ll be able to close a sale. Utilizing estimating software can speed up your team’s timeline drastically. Instead of spending hours taking manual site measurements, they can send out more bids faster, generating more business.
Also, take the time to create a set of questions that will help your sales team quickly identify if a lead is ideal for your organization. Bella Terra Landscapes & Garden Center estimates they have cut at least 40 percent of their wasted lead time since they started qualifying prospects better over the phone in 2019.
Once you have qualified leads, stay in contact with them regularly to keep them progressing through the sales pipeline. If they’ve become nonresponsive, simply asking, “Are you still considering partners for this landscape project?” can provide leads an opportunity to say if they’ve found someone else or if they’re still interested in continuing the process.
