5 Tips to Improve Sales Performance Modern Best Practice Guide Joe Fuster, Global Head of Customer Experience, Oracle

Transcription

1 5 Tips to Improve Sales Performance Modern Best Practice Guide Joe Fuster, Global Head of Customer Experience, Oracle

2 Adaptable Sales Strategies and Effective Execution Are you setting unattainable targets? It seems counterintuitive, but 95% of Chief Sales Officers (CSOs) reported higher revenue targets 1 and 86% are not very confident they can reach them. 2 But the targets aren t the only moving objects. With only 20% of sales people generating most of the revenue and long ramp-up times to get new ones up to speed 1, effective sales performance management is more critical than ever before. Those who can t quickly adapt strategies and successfully implement them, risk both the company and personal revenue loss in other words, their jobs. With over 25 years in sales 15 of those in sales management and 3 years in executive leadership, I ve seen my share of sales failures and successes. In that time, I ve learned that if you want to be a sales leader who can easily adjust plans and withstand a barrage of obstacles, you ll need the support of a knowledgeable sales team, modern best practice processes, and technology. With this holistic approach, you can design the optimal plans and effectively implement them to drive performance. This brief will act as your roadmap with tips about how best to utilize people, processes, and technology to improve your company s sales performance. 5 Tips to Improve Sales Performance Align Strategies Simplify Activities and Processes Collaborate with the Sales Team Analyze Performance Gamify Performance Dashboard Sales Performance Management (SPM) is defined as a comprehensive solution that helps organizations drive sales alignment from strategy through to execution, while improving efficiency, accuracy and timeliness of the associated administrative processes. 3 Sources: 1 CSO Insights, Sales Management and Optimization Study: 2015 Key Trends Analysis Accenture, Powering Profitable Sales Growth Brian Hartlen Sales Performance Management Blog, What is Sales Performance Management? 2

3 1 Align Strategies Acquire Talent, Revenue, Leads, and Content The people who contribute to sales success or failure often come from outside the sales team. Whether you re trying to acquire and retain sales talent, develop incentive plans that promote company objectives, or get good leads and relevant content, alignment with stakeholders in other departments can help you succeed. Align Strategies to Acquire Talent, Revenue, Leads, and Content HR: Find and keep sales talent Company and Finance: Ensure sales success = company success Marketing: Get good, timely, qualified leads and relevant content For example, 96% of leading firms have sales compensation policies aligned with their business objectives. 5 By maintaining a regular dialog with stakeholders, you can have more confidence that your team will consistently perform well. Sources: 4 CSO Insights, Sales Performance Optimization Study: 2015 Sales Management Analysis MHI Research Institute, Decoding the Decision Dynamic, Executive Summary, IBID 3

4 2 Simplify Activities and Processes Drive Productivity and Shorten Deal Time Pervasive complexity is the enemy of clarity and productivity. For example, overuse of manual processes waste a sales person s precious selling time while amassing avoidable errors and inaccuracies. Also, disconnected systems hinder a sales representative from getting a complete customer view. Simplify to Drive Productivity and Shorten Deal Time Reduce number of priorities/objectives Standardize on modern best practice Unify and cleanse data Apply rules-based automation Employ a mobile-first strategy As a result, sales productivity has taken a big hit. Sales people spend 2/3 of their time on non-selling (mostly administrative) tasks. 7 In contrast, 80% Best-in-Class firms minimize the number of people, departments, and steps to develop and deliver a sales quote or proposal. 8 Simplifying your activities and processes can help you provide clear direction, maximize productivity, reduce errors, and control costs. Source: 7 Accenture, Powering Profitable Sales Growth Aberdeen CRM + Sales Workflow: Removing the Friction from Your Pipeline, February

5 3 Analyze Performance Hone Sales Strategies and Drive Effectiveness Gone are the days of gut-driven decisions in business. Right? Not even close. Only 30% of companies use analytics and less than half of those do so to identify additional sales opportunities. 9 The desire to be data-driven is expressed often particularly as targets grow out of reach and market dynamics evolve. Yet, many teams lack the culture, measures, technology, and analytic know-how to infuse analyses into important decision-making. Analyze Data to Make Informed Decisions Model / hone strategy Detect & pre-empt underperforming behaviors Identify revenue-generating behaviors Discover opportunities Design more effective compensation plans Identify outliers and manage exceptions The proof of analytics effectiveness is easy to find. For example, teams that employ sales analytics grow team quota attainment at four times the rate of non-adopters. 10 Every phase of the sales/sales performance management processes can benefit from the use of analytics from sales strategy to sales coaching to incentive compensation. Sources: 9 Accenture, Powering Profitable Sales Growth, Aberdeen, Sales effectiveness 2015: How in the World Are We Going to Hit Our Number? June

6 4 Collaborate with the Sales Team Improve Performance and Further Opportunities Why is it that the majority of companies surveyed report that they don t effectively share best practices across sales teams? 11 One reason could be that nearly three quarters of those surveyed do not consider their CRM system very effective enabling collaboration. 12 Fortunately, social tools have become commonplace in the office. Social tools do not refer to Facebook and Twitter. Enterprise social collaboration utilizes social technologies to foster intercompany collaborations. In fact, the companies who share best practices exceedingly well realized 91% of overall plan attainment. 13 Use Social Collaboration to Advance Opportunities Share best practices Roll out new strategies Communicate with Key Account team members and stakeholders Whether you are strategizing with the key account team, rolling out new territories or coaching new sales executives, social collaboration can be an effective means of optimizing sales performance. In my experience, the most effective sales organizations use social collaboration to share best practices. This furthers opportunities and drives performance. Joe Fuster, Author, Global Head of Customer Experience, Oracle Sources: 11 CSO Insights, Sales Performance Optimization Study: 2015 Sales Management Analysis MHI Research Institute, Decoding the Decision Dynamic, Executive Summary CSO Insights, Sales Performance Optimization Study: 2015 Sales Management Analysis

7 5 Gamify Performance Dashboard Motivate Sales Behaviors and Drive Quota Attainment Cash incentives may be king, but gamification rules! For the top performing sales organizations in the past year, there has been a twelve-fold increase in the number of sales execs omitting monetary incentives from their list of top three motivators. 14 Visually stimulating and rewarding, the use of game mechanics in the form of contests, games, leaderboards, etc. drive team and individual quota attainment. In fact, game-mechanics users realized 71% greater quota attainment 15 and grew their average deal size at twice the pace as compared to non-adopters. 16 Gamify to Motivate Sales Behaviors and Drive Quota Attainment Provide non-cash incentives Motivate and foster accountability Track individual performance Promote best practice behaviors Gamification is defined as the use of game mechanics to motivate, modify, or reward distinct behaviors 17 Why does it work? With gamification, competitive sales executives can track their performance as compared to their peers and secure their spot on the top of the leader board. Also, sales leaders use gamification to execute their sales strategies in a fun and sticky way, promote best practice behaviors, further motivate, and reward their sales teams. Sources: 14 Aberdeen Incenting Success: Best-in-Class Sales Management, April Aberdeen, Non-Cash-Sales Incentives April Aberdeen, Gamification in B2B Sales: Is It Time? (Part II) May IBID 7

8 Putting it All Together Amidst market changes and business priorities, how do the most successful sales leaders adapt and execute strategies to boost performance? They rely on the people to hire the right talent, promote the right culture, standardize on the right processes, and implement the right technology. The right sales performance processes are ones that leverage today s technology to drive performance, productivity, accountability, and collaboration. These processes must be optimized for simplicity, repeatability, and automation. 5 Tips in Action: Utilizing today s technology, Oracle Modern Best Practice for Sales Performance Management details three best practice processes supported by customer success videos, webcasts, white papers, and more to help you bridge the gap between sales plans and performance. Sales Strategy to Execution Develop Strategies that Drive Performance Coaching Plan to Performance Increase Sales Effectiveness Incentive Plan to Payment Effective & Streamlined Incentive Compensation These processes are inspired by Oracle Sales Performance Management - a complete solution with advanced modeling capabilities to optimize territories, quotas, and incentive compensation plans as well as sales productivity and coaching tools to improve sales executive effectiveness. 8

9 Technologies that Drive Modern Best Practices Technology is only one piece of the puzzle, but it is an important one. Once employed, the right technology can help you generate the competitive advantage your business has been lacking. Here are some of today s technology that you can utilize to improve sales performance. CLOUD: Making the Best Applications Business-Accessible The cloud enables you to purchase software & IT resources as a service. Sales / CRM / SPM Cloud applications help sales people sell productively and effectively throughout the entire sales process. ANALYTICS: Driving Sound Decisions Analytics provide the insights you need to make the best decisions and create more effective, granular, and measurable plans. Look at dashboards showing your KPIs & metrics in real time to see how your sales team is performing. SOCIAL & BIG DATA: Providing Insight, and Fostering Collaboration Customers use social media to get peer opinions, lodge complaints, and even make purchases. Digital behavior (captured as big data) helps us learn about customers. Sales people collaborate and share best practices using internal social tools. The fact is, you can put the best tools in place, but doing so won t ensure their adoption. To be effective, stakeholders must embrace and employ technology. In a true best practice, people, process and technology work in concert with one another. MOBILE & LOCATION-AWARE: Enabling Wherever, Whenever Access A mobile-first strategy enables you to securely access sales / CRM applications to make updates to plans, forecasts, etc. from your mobile device or tablet and plan customer visits / sales activities while on the road. Source: 18 Accenture, Powering Profitable Sales Growth

10 Take the Next Step Today Explore: Do your own discovery Empower: Work with Oracle or one of its expert partners to guide your path Engage: Share Oracle Modern Best Practice Adopt: Drive your business transformation and measure results Get Started /sales-performance-management Oracle Corporation, World Headquarters 500 Oracle Parkway Redwood Shores, CA 94065, USA Worldwide Inquiries Phone: Fax: C O N N E C T W I T H US Oracle Sales Oracle Sales Cloud Oracle Corporation Oracle Sales Cloud Copyright 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is provided for information purposes only, and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in law, including implied warranties and conditions of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We specifically disclaim any liability with respect to this document, and no contractual obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document. This document may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without our prior written permission. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 5 Tips for Improving Sales Performance October 2015 Authors: Joe Fuster, Becca Goren Oracle Sales Performance Management Oracle Modern Best Practice for Sales Performance Management