Sales leaders are more in the spotlight than ever. As belts tighten across companies, every department is expected to find efficiencies, and sales is no exception. Investors and board members will be expecting their Sales VPs to bring in more revenue with less in the coming months, combining growth with improving unit economics.
Survival depends on achieving self-sufficiency.
Mitch Kapor, Kapor Capital.
Increased cash flows and an emphasis on strong unit economics are coming to the fore where growth has ruled for the last few years.
For sales leaders this means optimization—making their team more efficient, getting more revenue out of each process, each rep, and each deal. To do this, their focus has to go beyond the headline numbers like total revenue and total bookings, and drill down into their team’s specific KPIs. This way they can:
- Set the right goals for their team to increase efficiency.
- Report to their investors and board about what exactly is happening at the granular level.
By setting goals linked to key sales metrics, sales leaders give their teams specific targets to hit and actionable advice on where to optimize. By giving investors and board members more than just headline numbers, they can show them exactly where the profitability is going to come from in the company, and how sales is turning their investments into 3x,4x, or 5x returns.
Here is how you can use specific sales KPIs to analyze how different areas of sales—the process, the people, the deals—are progressing and where you can optimize each to make them more efficient.