ACHIEVING

CORPORATE
SALES TARGETS

HOW-TO GUIDE
 Achieving Corporate Sales Targets
HOW-TO GUIDE

This report has been designed to provide practical advice for analyzing past sales performance,
and achieving future targets.

Use this brief report to:

Prepare for the Planning Process

Engage & Align with Marketing
Understand your Customers & Markets
Benchmark and Improve Sales Talent
Examine Previous Sales Performance
Forecast Future Sales Results
Motivate your Sales Team
Develop a Sales Support Function
Monitor & Measure Sales Results

Read this report to align sales & marketing, improve your sales effectiveness, and set achievable
sales targets for your team.

Preparing for the Planning Process

1. Build a Sales Growth Team: build a small, cross-functional team and develop a Sales Growth
Team Charter. Hold a kick-off meeting to set sales planning goals, schedule meeting times,
and get organized for the planning process.
2. Develop a Sales Planning Charter: use our Project Charter template to document the goals
and objectives for the planning process, and set plan completion timelines.
3. Discuss Acquire, Retain, & Expand Strategy: most organizations can benefit from a simple
three-pronged approach to sales strategy that everyone can understand:
Acquire - recruit as many new customers as possible
Retain - work with customer service to reduce churn
Expand - sell additional products into existing accounts.

4. Introduce SPIN Selling Framework: Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling is the most validated consul-
tative sales methodology, backed by empirical research into over 30,000 real-world sales calls.
If you have not read this book, consider purchasing a copy for each member of your team.

2 ACHIEVING CORPORATE SALES TARGETS HOW-TO GUIDE

Engage and Align with Marketing

1. Define your Sales Process: use Demand Metric’s Sales Forecasting Tool to help define your
sales process. Look for the “Stages” tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet & customize your
process accordingly. Use our Sales & Marketing Alignment Tool to benchmark & identify gaps
between the sales & marketing departments.
2. Discuss Lead Generation Programs & Results: read our Implement a Marketing Automation
Solution How-to Guide if you need ideas. Determine your Marketing Effectiveness Quotient
and consider getting certified in Demand Generation Best Practices.
3. Agree on Definition of a “Lead”: use our Lead Scoring Template and Qualified Lead Tool to
determine which criteria are essential for a prospect to be considered a lead, and to define
various parameters for lead quality.

4. Develop a Lead Nurturing Program: not all leads are in a position to buy at the time of first
contact with a salesperson. Read our How-to Guide “Align Sales & Marketing with Lead
Nurturing” to automate this lucrative marketing process.

5. Improve Lead Generation Capabilities: if you have a call center, evaluate your cold-calling maturity
with our report “Making Cold Calling Work for You”. Alternatively, consider outsourcing lead
generation to a specialist firm. Use our Web Marketing Scorecard to increase web-based leads.

6. Discuss Demand Generation Platforms: look into platforms which integrate email marketing;
lead scoring & nurturing; web analytics; campaign management; performance measurement,
and more. Read our best practices report on Marketing Automation.

Understand your Customers & Markets

1. Evaluate your Customer-Centricity: use our Customer-Centricity Checklist to help your

organization become more customer-centric, and less product-focused.
2. Profile Profitable Customers & Segments: use our Customer Profile template to analyze your
customer “types” and review “Market Segmentation, Targeting, & Positioning” if you need
help with defining your target market segments. This exercise focuses on what the organiz-
ation is doing RIGHT. Use our Market Segmentation and Analysis Tool to analyze market
sizing, market segments and customer profiles.

3. Produce Case Studies to Demonstrate Value: work with marketing to produce Case Studies
that can be posted on your website or delivered by your sales team.

4. Conduct a Product Sales Analysis: use the “Product & Service Sales” tab in our Sales Analysis
Tool to determine which product lines are growing or declining.

3 ACHIEVING CORPORATE SALES TARGETS HOW-TO GUIDE

5. Benchmark Customer Satisfaction Rates: use our Customer Satisfaction Survey template to
quickly get metrics for customer loyalty and gauge risk for key accounts.
6. Position & Differentiate your Products: use our Positioning Statement Worksheet to help
your sales team understand how your products stack up to the competition in the industry. To
position your individual products, use our Competitive Analysis Tool.
7. Inform Product Management: start the process of informing product management by distrib-
uting Product Feature Request Forms to your team of customer-facing salespeople.

Benchmark and Improve Talent

1. Conduct a Skills Assessment: use our Sales Skills Assessment tool to benchmark the skills
of each salesperson, and identify any key areas for training to improve sales talent.
2. Evaluate Sales Team Performance: use our Performance Review Template to create profes-
sional development plans for each member of your sales team.
3. Provide Consultative Sales Training: use our report, “Adopting Consultative Selling” to build
a training workshop and a common toolset for your team to work from.

Examine Previous Sales Performance

1. Conduct a Segment Analysis: using the “Segment Sales” tab in the Sales Analysis Tool,
determine which market segments or territories are producing the most and least sales.
2. Perform a Channel Sales Analysis: using the “Channel Sales” tab in the Sales Analysis Tool,
evaluate which partners and/or sales channels are providing results.

3. Evaluate Sales by Salesperson: using the “Sales Team Results” tab in the Sales Analysis Tool,
examine your sales team in terms of New Revenue, Renewal Revenue, and Total Revenue,
relative to goals for each salesperson.

4. Review/Set Key Performance Indicator Goals: use our Key Performance Indicators Work-
sheet to set goals for improving these critical metrics. Here are a few examples:

Average Revenue/salesperson/year Closing Rates (opportunities/contacts)

Average Revenue/customer/year
Average Years of Customer Lifetime
Productivity Metrics (dials, talk time, oppor-
tunities)
Cancellation Rates
Customer Retention Rates
Customer Satisfaction Survey Results
Sales Growth by Product Line
Number of New Customers Acquired
New Opportunities/quarter
Leads from Marketing/quarter
Closing Rate from Marketing Leads

4 ACHIEVING CORPORATE SALES TARGETS HOW-TO GUIDE

Forecast Future Sales Results

1. Create Annual Sales Target: based on your Sales Analysis, and working with senior manage-
ment to determine reasonable goals, set an achievable sales target for your team. Be sure to
break your goals down by New & Renewal Revenues. Use our Sales Forecasting Tool to help
you with this process.
2. Determine Staffing Requirements: if you will require more full-time employees to hit your
target, work with Human Resources to get more talented staff in the door. Use our Account
Executive job description if you need help there.
3. Set Quotas for your Sales Team: using the “Sales Team Revenue Goals” tab in the Sales
Analysis Tool, set goals for new revenue and renewal revenue for each salesperson.

Motivate your Sales Team

1. Review Sales Compensation Plan: take a look at your current compensation plan to ensure
that corporate objectives are aligned with individual salesperson objectives. If necessary, look
at re-working your compensation package.
2. Provide Monthly or Quarterly Incentives: most salespeople respond well to incentive
programs for winning sales contests and overachieving goals. Vacations and big-screen tele-
visions are great for many people, but don’t forget about the power of public recognition in
front of their peers.

Develop a Sales Support Function

1. Formalize the Sales Support Function: add a Director of Sales Support to your organization,
or add these responsibilities to an existing department or function. Read our summary “Over-
haul your Sales Support Process” and download our Sales Support Checklist.
2. Measure your Effectiveness: use our Sales Support Effectiveness Survey to determine how
you can help your sales team more effective.
3. Build Useful Sales Tool & Collateral: work with Marketing Communications to create white-
papers, data sheets, proposal templates, case studies, pricing sheets, product positioning
tools, and other items that facilitate sales.

5 ACHIEVING CORPORATE SALES TARGETS HOW-TO GUIDE

4. Find an Opportunity Management Tool: evaluate your current Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) system and ensure you have accurate data, reporting functionality, and
opportunity management features. Use our CRM Program Playbook to learn more about how
these systems can help you.
5. Mandate a Sales Reporting Process: provide your sales team with a Sales Call Reporting
Tool and Sales Forecasting Tool to provide reports on individual calls and sales cycles.
These are simple tools that can be used in lieu of having enterprise CRM or Sales Force
Automation (SFA).
6. Identify & Strategize on Key Accounts: conduct meetings with each salesperson to strategize
on key account plans. Use our Key Account Planning Tool to document goals & objectives,
and develop an action plan for each major account.

Measure and Monitor Sales Results

1. Review Metrics on a Consistent Basis: keep tabs on your key performance indicators and
opportunity pipeline by scheduling a weekly review session. Use the Sales Analysis Tool to
proactively track results for Product Sales, Segment Sales, Channel Sales and Sales Team
Revenues by salesperson.
2. Adjust Strategy Based on Performance: based on your results, adjust your management
focus. It may be necessary to rally the troops to increase a particular product’s sales, or to
increase output for a market segment or territory.
3. Define Repeatable Best Practices: document what is working for your top salespeople by
modifying scripts, redefining processes, and sharing knowledge among peers.

6 ACHIEVING CORPORATE SALES TARGETS HOW-TO GUIDE

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