4.2 SBI Sales Force Design Lead Generation
4.2 SBI Sales Force Design Lead Generation
4.2 SBI Sales Force Design Lead Generation
Lead Generation
www.salesbenchmarkindex.com
ABSTRACT This report provides evidence that changed economic conditions have impacted the Sales organization, performance, and processes, revealing new trends and amplifying existing ones. The good news is that there are very specific steps companies can take to increase revenues in a cost-effective manner, exploiting the current selling environment. The data which support this research report indicates that there are ten statistically significant drivers of sales force performance available for implementation. These drivers have been demonstrated to be effective by world class selling organizations. They constitute the difference between superior and mediocre performance, as measured by Return on Sales, a measure of the profitability contribution made by the Sales function. We invite you to compare these findings with your own experience and, where warranted, leverage the sales drivers to improve your Sales environment.
Executive Summary
There are 10 drivers of sales success
SBIs Yearly Sales Strategy Review During the 2nd quarter of each year, Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) conducts a complete review of its entire benchmark repository looking for trends, dependencies, and new drivers of sales force performance. This year, even more so than in years past, we were surprised by some of the findings. The current economic circumstances have begun to exert a strong influence on sales force design, strategy, and implementation. Report Audience Our research on sales force design is intended for those who make strategic decisions impacting the sales force CEO, Vice Presidents of Sales, Chief Operating Officers and Chief Financial Officers. Results We pull in data from hundreds of sources on thousands of public and private companies in our database. We first look as widely as possible for sales factors of statistical significance. Using a series of analytical techniques, pattern recognition routines, and simulations, we identify the drivers that separate top from bottom performers. Drivers of Sales Success That effort yielded the following 10 sales drivers. 1. Sales Force Sizing 2. Sales Force Configuration 3. Sales Role Revision 4. Territory Design 5. Quota Setting 6. Sales Compensation 7. Sales Talent Management 8. Sales Performance Management 9. Lead Generation 10. Sales Process Mapping
www.salesbenchmarkindex.com 2
Key Takeaways For those who want to net out these findings further, we summarize them for you in the 3 key points below: #1: Economics are pressuring sales models Growth rates are negative or single digit Possible future changes to tax, regulation, and other government interventions have raised risk premiums to drive out sales-specific investments #2: Key Performance Metrics are ALL down Revenue/head has declined Cost per head is increasing Sales cycle Length is increasing Average Sales Price has decreased # of sales reps (per $1B) is down #3: Selling capacity and market opportunity are mismatched Companies have not re-segmented their markets (e.g. financial services industry vertical strategies still predominate in B2B sales organizations) Buyers have changed their purchasing behavior and selling methodologies have not kept pace
www.salesbenchmarkindex.com
www.salesbenchmarkindex.com
Finding #1 (see Chart 19) Even world-class companies do not possess all the elements of a Lead Generation program. The most common element is multi-channel sourcing and the least common is Marketing Automation software.
Key Metrics World-class sales organizations track the following key performance measures to assess success of Lead Generation programs: Pipeline to Quota Ratio. Ratio of the pipeline relative to total sales quota. This captures the degree to which the sales organization can identify and quantify closeable business. Nurture Leads Database Growth. Average rate at which a companys nurture leads database grows. This database is separate from the CRM Sales Opportunity database. Lead-to-Close Conversion Rate. Percentage of Leads captured by Marketing that is closed by Sales and result in revenue.
www.salesbenchmarkindex.com
# of Sales Rep Weekly Appointments. Number of face-to-face (or in the case of Inside Sales, scheduled concall) appointments held per quota-bearing sales professional. Finding #2 (see Chart 20) The separation between world class and laggard performance on the key Lead Generation metrics is pronounced and consistent, with performance scaling from laggard to world class. With these results known, Lead Generation can be seen as a leading indicator of company performance.
www.salesbenchmarkindex.com