Pour devenir un véritable levier d’amélioration des résultats, le pilotage commercial doit non seulement s’appuyer sur les bons indicateurs clés de performance, mais aussi être utilisé comme un outil d’aide à la décision et un déclencheur d’actions.
Voici comment passer du traditionnel « relevé des compteurs » à un échange dynamique et utile, en temps réel, permettant d’améliorer concrètement les performances de vos commerciaux.
La mesure des performances des commerciaux : un enjeu majeur
Pour commencer, il est utile de rappeler l’importance du suivi des résultats des commerciaux pour votre activité, et de revenir sur sa vocation même.
J’observe en effet sur le terrain que dans de nombreux cas, ce suivi est effectué selon une fréquence et des modalités qui ont été pensées essentiellement pour s’assurer que les objectifs quantitatifs seront bien atteints sur la prochaine échéance.
Or, si c’est un point majeur, bien sûr, les enjeux du suivi commercial vont bien au-delà, et ils sont multiples. Bien mené, ce dernier permet notamment de :
- Disposer d’une vision complète de la situation commerciale à l’instant T, et de prévisions fiables pour les mois à venir
- Faire apparaître les éventuels besoins d’ajustement par rapport à la stratégie commerciale définie
- Identifier les points de difficulté individuels et/ou collectifs et en comprendre les causes sous-jacentes
- Analyser les facteurs de succès pour les dupliquer et transmettre les bonnes pratiques en interne
Autrement dit, le suivi des performances des commerciaux, lorsqu’il est bien effectué et utilisé à bon escient, permet de prendre des décisions éclairées et d’agir en temps réel sur les leviers qui produiront les résultats commerciaux de votre entreprise. Pour en savoir plus, vous pouvez consulter notre article sur le guide des managers ambitieux.
De l’importance du choix des indicateurs clés de performance…
Pour y parvenir, cependant, il faut garder à l’esprit une règle simple :
En matière de performance commerciale, on ne peut améliorer que ce que l’on évalue !
Une évidence qu’il est parfois utile de rappeler, car la tendance générale consiste à se focaliser sur les indicateurs quantitatifs de résultat (chiffre d’affaire, taux de marge, nouveaux clients acquis…) qui ont le mérite d’être les plus simples à mesurer et à suivre, parfois au détriment d’indicateurs qualitatifs tout aussi essentiels, relatifs aux « moyens » d’atteindre ces résultats (volume des leads et des opportunités détectées, adéquation entre « l’effort commercial » voulu par segment client et le réalisé, adéquation des opportunités détectées par rapport aux critères de ciblage, taux de transformation, etc…).
J’ai déjà observé ce cas de figure chez un client qui ne comprenait pas pourquoi les taux de transformation de ses commerciaux étaient faibles, faute de s’être intéressé de plus près à la qualité de leur ciblage : ses vendeurs, dont les objectifs étaient fixés en nombre de rendez-vous à réaliser, menaient pour les atteindre des entretiens avec des prospects qui ne correspondaient pas à leur cible, faisant ainsi chuter leur efficacité globale !
Dans le domaine du pilotage commercial, le risque principal est donc de « passer à côté » d’une information clé ou de mal interpréter les résultats obtenus faute de vision globale, et d’en tirer des conclusions erronées qui vous feront prendre de mauvaises décisions par la suite.
… à celle des modalités de suivi et d’analyse
Au-delà du choix des KPI (indicateurs clés de performance) en tant que tels, la fréquence et les modalités de suivi ont également leur importance :
- Si vous vous contentez de « relever les compteurs » à la fin de chaque mois ou trimestre, par exemple, cela revient à constater une situation a posteriori, en vous privant de la possibilité d’infléchir les résultats observés s’ils s’avèrent négatifs.
- De la même façon, si vous analysez les résultats d’une période donnée sans les mettre en perspective dans le temps, vous risquez d’avoir une vision fausse, ou en tout cas partielle, de la performance effective de vos commerciaux.
Un pipeline commercial très peu alimenté en nouvelles opportunités peut venir relativiser un objectif mensuel atteint « haut la main » par un commercial, par exemple, ou a contrario, un pipeline « plein de promesses » compenser un résultat mensuel en berne.
Je souhaite être accompagné dans le suivi de mes commerciaux
Utiliser le suivi des commerciaux comme un véritable levier d’amélioration des performances
Alors, quelles sont les bonnes pratiques en matière de monitoring de la performance des commerciaux ?
En voici six qui me semblent déterminantes :
1. Définir des indicateurs « quanti » et « quali » pour chaque étape du cycle de vente :
La vente est un process. Au moment d’établir vos tableaux de bord, prenez le temps d’identifier l’ensemble des indicateurs pertinents à suivre pour chaque étape du cycle de vente (génération des leads, qualification de l’opportunité, proposition commerciale, négociation et closing), sur le plan qualitatif comme sur le plan quantitatif.
Voici par exemple les KPI que vous pouvez suivre :
- Sur l’étape génération des leads : Volume (nombre de nouveaux leads générés) + Qualité des leads (correspondance avec les critères de la cible définie)
- Sur l’étape qualification des opportunités : Volume (nombre d’opportunités détectées) + Valeur brute potentielle de l’opportunité + Taux de transformation prévisionnel. Cela vous permettra d’obtenir une « Valeur nette pondérée » pour chaque opportunité (Valeur brute x Taux de transformation prévisionnel).
Sur le plan qualitatif, vous pouvez établir une grille de scoring de l’opportunité précisant les éléments d’informations dont le commercial doit disposer à ce stade pour considérer une opportunité comme suffisamment « qualifiée » (par ex. : organisation interne du client, décisionnaires, enjeux et points de tensions…).
2. Analyser les résultats à la lumière du modèle commercial
En fonction de votre contexte, et surtout, de votre modèle commercial, les résultats observés appellent une interprétation différente.
Si vous réalisez l’essentiel de vos ventes à distance sur une prestation très standardisée, vous aurez probablement un taux de transformation peu élevé, mais un volume très important de devis réalisés en ligne ou suite à un simple entretien téléphonique.
Les contenus du recueil d’informations client et les relances de devis seront alors des éléments clés pour améliorer la performance.
Si vous vendez un service complexe et très spécifique à une clientèle de grands comptes, les opportunités seront beaucoup moins nombreuses, mais un travail de qualification et de co-construction avec le client sera déterminant pour obtenir des taux de transformation et un panier moyen beaucoup plus élevés.
Dans le premier cas, vous considèrerez peut-être que 25% est un très bon taux de transformation, alors que dans le second, vous le qualifierez plutôt de mauvais.
Pour aller plus loin, découvrez le webinar, animé par Laurence Bonhomme, sur les leviers de motivation des collaborateurs.
Webinar : Quels leviers de motivation adopter pour chaque collaborateur
3. Adopter une vision dynamique des résultats
N’oubliez pas, également, que les résultats observés doivent s’analyser et être mis en perspective dans le temps, comme évoqué plus haut dans l’exemple d’un commercial présentant un mauvais CA mensuel assorti d’un pipeline très prometteur.
La notion de temporalité intervient également dans l’analyse des étapes du cycle de vente : ces dernières doivent être franchies dans un certain timing, faute de quoi la probabilité pour qu’une opportunité se réalise baisse progressivement.
Il est donc important que vos commerciaux renseignent dans votre CRM la date à laquelle ils identifient une opportunité et qu’ils identifient le passage d’une étape à l’autre du process de vente, en mettant à jour le montant estimé de l’opportunité (qui s’affine au cours du temps) et le taux de probabilité que la vente aboutisse favorablement.
La fiabilisation de ce taux de probabilité doit reposer sur des critères objectifs partagés entre les commerciaux.
Théoriquement, plus une opportunité se rapproche de l’étape du closing, plus le taux de transformation espéré doit augmenter. Si ce n’est pas le cas, c’est qu’il y a un problème dans le process de vente et cette donnée doit vous alerter.
4. Évaluer – et améliorer si nécessaire – la fiabilité des données utilisées
Il est utile également de vérifier dans le temps le réalisme des hypothèses avancées par les commerciaux lorsqu’ils évaluent le montant prévisionnel d’une opportunité ou leurs chances de l’emporter.
Si l’écart avec la réalité constatée est trop important, en effet, cela risque de fausser votre pilotage et vos décisions, avec parfois un impact lourd (ces prévisions sont notamment utilisées pour planifier les commandes de stock ou la mise en production de marchandises…).
5. Identifier et expliquer les écarts de résultats entre commerciaux
De la même façon, les écarts de résultat entre les commerciaux (sur le C.A., le panier moyen ou le taux de transformation, par exemple) doivent être relevés et étudiés : sont-ils nombreux ou rares, importants ou peu significatifs… ?
Lorsqu’ils existent, ils doivent être analysés et expliqués : la différence de C.A. entre deux commerciaux s’explique-t-elle par un écart de séniorité / d’expérience ? Par la nature de leurs cibles ? Des caractéristiques liées à la zone géographique sur laquelle ils interviennent ? Si ce n’est pas le cas, vous devrez vous demander quelle difficulté ou lacune cela révèle pour le commercial concerné afin de trouver un moyen de les résoudre.
6. Mixer revues commerciales individuelle et collective
Enfin, la situation que j’observe le plus couramment sur le terrain est la suivante : les commerciaux effectuent un reporting individuel régulier fondé sur des indicateurs quantitatifs (C.A., marge, nombre de RDV, taux de transformation…), et leur manager anime une revue commerciale collective hebdomadaire durant laquelle les résultats des différents commerciaux sont passés au crible.
Il est souvent beaucoup plus productif d’organiser des revues commerciales individuelles pour détecter les éventuelles difficultés d’un commercial ou pour l’accompagner efficacement dans le traitement de ses opportunités, et de réserver les temps collectifs à l’évocation des succès, au partage de bonnes pratiques ou encore à l’analyse des difficultés rencontrées sur une affaire quand elles peuvent servir d’exemple pour favoriser la résolution des suivantes.
Effectuer le suivi de vos commerciaux selon ces 6 grands principes vous permettra de développer une vision à la fois globale et précise de la situation commerciale de votre entreprise « en temps » réel, et d’en tirer le meilleur parti en termes de : prise de décision, mise en œuvre d’actions d’ajustement, et in fine, d’amélioration des performances.
Comment gérer votre équipe commerciale dans une situation difficile?
Découvrez dans ce webinar animé par Dominique Seguin, Directeur Général de KESTIO, les 4 clés pour reprendre le contrôle de la situation.
Découvrez également nos formations management pour aller plus loin dans la gestion de vos équipes commerciales.
Thanks to this white paper, you will not only be able to build an effective business model but also implement it in the field using your CRM and sustain it over time. In short, guaranteed performance boost!
What will you find in this white paper?
This white paper is the result of our collaboration with KOBAN.
You have undoubtedly followed our joint series, which consisted of 6 articles published alternately on our two respective blogs. At the end of this series, we wanted to offer you a 'compilation' in order to have a complete and integrated vision for building and optimizing your business model.
As a reminder, a business model describes the optimal sales organization, that is, how to achieve the best possible balance between priority targets, the actions to be implemented towards them, and the resources to achieve this. In short, the business model is necessary for the proper functioning of your company and helps to increase the efficiency and ROI of your sales activities.
This white paper will help you build such a model and translate it operationally into your CRM tool. Everything you need to know to implement it on a daily basis and succeed in optimizing it continuously.
As we told you last week1, a business model is not fixed in time. On the contrary, its ambition is to evolve and improve: indeed, your customers change, working methods change, your company changes, your salespeople change... Finally, as you will have understood, your entire environment evolves - and consequently - your business model must also evolve to remain relevant.
How to analyze my model?
If you have followed our series from the beginning, you are applying your sales model to the letter in your CRM. This also means that all the data painstakingly collected during this period is centralized and usable.
And precisely, you "only" have to exploit this data!
Following the definition of your business model, you were able to define the indicators to follow in order to know the impact of the actions implemented, make relevant adjustments and strengthen the success factors. You will therefore need one or more dashboards to have a precise view of these different indicators.
Ideally, you should have a CRM tool that allows you to customize these dashboards to highlight the analyses you need. Fortunately, with Koban, for example, you can customize your dashboards with the necessary indicators.
Perform a daily analysis.
As KESTIO mentioned in the previous article, the goal is not to analyze your entire business model every day and make significant changes in the first week of implementation.
But still, we like to have a daily view of the main indicators (KPIs), just in case.
These "flash figures," as we like to call them at Koban, are a good alternative. They represent the KPIs that you decide to track daily: number of opportunities won, number of opportunities lost, time spent, conversion rate, costs of opportunities, etc. They are calculated automatically and in real time. And very often, it is at this precise moment that we are very happy to have invested in a CRM (those who have experienced pivot tables will understand!).
The little bonus in all of this? You can display these flash figures right on your homepage (among other places), which allows you to have a direct view by monitoring the proper execution of your business model on a daily basis and to be very reactive in adjusting elements with low impact, if needed.
These indicators can be both common or individual to measure the performance of each of your sales representatives. This is very important as a manager.
These indicators also allow you to manage your sales model on a daily basis and implement small corrective actions before it's too late. For example, you notice that your sales representative X is very far from his monthly targets. You can then schedule time with him to manage him and understand what is "holding him back."
Conduct a more in-depth analysis - The "ANALYSIS" Module.
Beyond daily monitoring, you can – in fact, you must – manage and evaluate sales effectiveness and the sales effort provided by the company (in other words, your business model). To do this, your CRM will once again be your best friend.
Let's take the example of Koban and its specific analysis module. It allows you, among other things, to analyze all your data by creating personalized dashboards: pie charts, curves, tables, histograms, etc.
You can analyze almost everything very easily. More comprehensive than flash figures, dashboards really allow you to highlight relevant analyses: what worked in your model / what worked less well / which segment generates the most revenue / a summary table of sales for each of your sales representatives, etc. Because just as "working a lot" does not necessarily mean "earning money", it is necessary for any company, small or large, to calculate the effectiveness and profitability of its commercial actions in order to focus effort on the best actions.
But remember, your CRM isn't just for managing sales activities; it's also for your marketing efforts to generate qualified leads for your sales team. This data should be an integral part of your analysis to identify areas for improvement and optimization, such as the conversion rate of leads from marketing, the number of prospects generated by marketing, etc. The goal is to compare all sales and marketing data to identify areas for improvement.
Let's not forget that the goal of all this is to evolve your business model.
We cannot stress enough that a business model is forged over time through experience and feedback. It will never be fixed. Hence the importance of having a tool that centralizes all your data and allows you to keep the history in order to compare and challenge the data. This is how you will improve performance, and consequently, increase revenue.
Key indicators not to be missed
Well, obviously too many indicators kill the indicators. The risk is getting lost in a pile of useless studies and not coming up with any relevant analysis. With KESTIO, we have selected the indicators that you must - at a minimum - follow if you want to extract relevant analyses. Of course, other indicators will need to be added depending on your environment and organization:
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CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COST
This one is truly The must-have!
Customer acquisition cost is the average amount spent to convert a prospect into a customer. This investment can include marketing expenses as well as the cost of time spent by the sales representative to convert the prospect into a customer.
Your business model is largely based on the customer segments to prioritize in order to generate the most margin. But to do this, you have to take into account the cost of customer acquisition.
Indeed, if I realize that my "Gold" clients cost me almost as much money as they bring in (because I have a high acquisition cost), this may lead me to review certain elements of my business model: if, at the same time, my "Silver" clients are certainly less interesting in terms of "pure" revenue, but cost me almost nothing in acquisition compared to what they bring me (thanks to a low acquisition cost), this ultimately makes them more interesting than expected...
What do I do? Clearly, we would be tempted to switch the "Gold" clients to "Silver" and vice versa.
Understand that your "GOLD" clients may have had a lower acquisition cost when your business model was set up, but again, the environment evolves as well as your costs... Hence the importance of analyzing your model after a certain time and implementing appropriate corrective actions.
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SALES EFFORT BY TARGET
This indicator allows you to optimize your sales representatives' time. Thanks to it, you can judge the effort of each sales representative on a type of target. You can also make a comparison between your sales representatives, to see who allocates their effort best. This is not to "monitor" your sales representatives. But it is interesting to know, for example, that sales representative A has made an average of 10 physical appointments on a target while sales representative B has made 15 for the same result.
Beyond that, it allows you to identify the targets on which your sales representatives are allocating far too much effort for little result and, conversely, those for which you are not devoting enough effort. As a result, you can adjust your business model accordingly (if necessary).
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SALES CONVERSION RATE
The conversion rate helps identify the performance of a salesperson or team in converting a prospect into a customer.
You can not only analyze the overall conversion rate (i.e., for all your sales representatives), but also the individual conversion rate (i.e., sales representative by sales representative). Again, this is not to "spy" on your sales representatives, but rather to identify the sources that hinder development and thus implement appropriate actions.
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AVERAGE BASKET PER ACCOUNT TYPE
The average basket defines the average amount spent by each customer. This indicator can be tracked per order or for a given period, for the entire lifetime of the customer. It allows you to identify on which customer segment the average purchase basket is the highest, for example – or conversely – on which customer segment the average purchase basket is the lowest.
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NUMBER OF OPPORTUNITIES CREATED
The number of opportunities created is a simple indicator to track the effectiveness of marketing and sales.
Indeed, a high number of opportunities created will reflect several things:
- Marketing generates a lot of qualified leads
- And/or do your salespeople have opportunities with existing clients or through a channel other than marketing (word-of-mouth, client recommendations, etc.)?
In short, your sales and marketing teams are well aligned and doing a good job!
On the contrary, a small number of opportunities created will force you to analyze other indicators. In particular, where do the opportunities come from?
Do they come from marketing or from the sales representatives themselves?
As a result, you'll know which channel to focus on to generate more opportunities.
Again, this list is by no means exhaustive (we are thinking in particular of indicators linked to margin!). These are "standard" indicators that any company can analyze to develop its business model. But there will obviously be other indicators to take into account depending on your internal strategy and your environment.
So, we've reached the end of this joint series between Koban and KESTIO... We hope you enjoyed it and, above all, that these articles have helped you! In any case, we have greatly enjoyed combining our skills and visions to offer you a complete and operational methodology.
And to go further, we have even more surprises in store for you very soon, including a summary white paper and a webinar to discuss the topic with you live and answer your questions directly!
To learn more about CRMs and help you with your projects, find all of our methods and tools here:
1 : Did you miss the previous episodes? Don't panic! Treat yourself to a little catch-up session:
Article 1: What is a business model and how do you build one?
Article 2: How to translate your sales strategy into a CRM tool?
Article 3: 3 key points for building an effective business model
Article 4: Structuring and optimizing your business model in your CRM
Article 5: How to effectively deploy your business model
KESTIO and KOBAN, it's a partnership that feels natural: the former supports SMEs in their commercial development through an online sales coaching platform for leaders, managers and sales representatives; the latter helps them to effectively deploy their strategy and commercial actions by generating maximum ROI, via a high-performance CRM solution.
From this meeting was born an idea (which became a desire, then a reality): to combine our skills and visions to support you in defining and implementing your business model!
Thanks to our previous articles, you have all the keys in hand to build your business model, translate it operationally into your CRM tool, and apply it daily.
This week, we're continuing our momentum by discovering how to successfully structure your sales model and data in your CRM. Indeed, a good sales model can only last if it is based on accessible, relevant, reliable, and usable data! Here's how to make sure they are.
Collect and structure data in your CRM.
The problem with data is that it can change very quickly, and it often needs to be enriched to remain relevant.
Let's take a simple example: employee turnover in a company.
How many responses have you already received to your emails indicating that the contact has "left the company, etc." This is why updating your data is ESSENTIAL, and even VITAL, to sustain your business model.
COLLECT DATA VIA THE CRM
We have already discussed the importance of using relevant data for the proper functioning of your business model. Aside from centralizing all your available data, your CRM tool will allow you to automatically collect very interesting data.
Firstly, some data is easily accessible and available, but not worth entering manually: "generic" data such as turnover, for example, is tedious and time-consuming to enter manually. Fortunately, you can automate the receipt of this type of data via connectors with external sites (such as Corporama). This allows you to automatically retrieve a lot of information and frees up your sales representatives to focus on more "sensitive" information.
In addition to receiving "external" data, you're sure to have internal data in your company that's present in other tools (customer invoicing, production tool, etc.). It may be worthwhile to "bring up" some of this information into your CRM to make the data accessible and usable.
Similarly, by synchronizing your CRM with your information system, you will be able to import the information it contains into other tools, thus avoiding tedious and error-prone double entries. The goal is for relevant information to benefit everyone.
Secondly, a CRM tool will allow you to collect so-called 'personal' data on your customers' / prospects' behaviors. Thanks to the marketing part of your tool, your customers / prospects will be tracked in order to collect information automatically, allowing you to see for each contact:
- The pages of the site he visited – when – and how many times
- If they have opened your quote.
- If they have read the latest email the salesperson sent them.
- If it's a return visit (i.e., if a prospect returns to your site after X amount of time)
- If they have opened, read, or clicked on a button in an email campaign.
- Etc…
In short, this is data that you would not have been able to collect without a tool that does it automatically for you. And this data is very valuable for salespeople. It allows them to judge the level of interest of a contact, their "potential", and thus to refine and enrich your customer knowledge. A "Bronze" customer who reads all your new product emails, clicks on ALL your buttons, and visits your service presentation pages may deserve to be re-qualified as a "Silver" customer? Or at least, it's worth taking a closer look...
Finally, there is the data collected directly by your sales representatives. They are an invaluable source for feeding the CRM with information that you will not find anywhere else (number of machine tools installed, internal validation process, etc.). This data is very heterogeneous and will have to be made usable.
However, we know that sales representatives are often very busy and (sometimes) don't take the time to enter all the data into the CRM. Yet, they know your customers best... To overcome this problem, we can easily add mandatory fields when a sales representative creates a new record. This is quite practical when it comes to data that is essential to the proper functioning of your business model and we realize after 6 months that no one has filled in this field!
STRUCTURE YOUR DATA WITH A CRM
Once again, having data is good, but it is still necessary that this data is centralized, structured and usable. Without this, your business model may not last long...
That's perfect, your CRM is precisely there for that: to centralize data on a single platform and make it accessible.
CRMs offer many practical tips to assist you in this process. Take the example of Koban (with all objectivity, of course! : ))
- You have X contacts on an account record. Perfect, but not all contacts are created equal... Indeed, you're not going to chase up the accountant for your quote, nor the marketing manager for an unpaid invoice. To avoid this kind of mishandling, our CRM displays tags above each contact indicating whether they are the billing contact, the decision-maker, etc.
- Another scenario is that you may want to enter information that is specific to your environment and therefore does not exist 'out-of-the-box' in your tool. Fortunately, any good CRM allows you to add custom fields or objects that you can display on your customer's record.
Let's take a very concrete example: you sell printers to your customers. Some of them have several machines in the company. It is therefore important that you have a clear and direct view of the machine fleet on each of your customer records. In this case, you can create a custom field dedicated to this information and display it in your contact records to collect this data via your sales representatives and make it accessible and usable for your future actions (marketing campaign, segmentation of your base, etc.).
Structure your business model
SALES PROCESSES
Your business model necessarily integrates the management of the sales cycle and the various processes. And that's a good thing, because a good sales tool is there to help you generate more revenue, and more efficiently.
In your CRM, you will be able to implement your sales process according to the segmentation defined by the commercial model (by type of client, by market, by type of offer, etc.). This process, built around the stages of the sales cycle, will allow you to group together all commercial opportunities of the same nature, to monitor their evolution in the commercial process and to easily identify the opportunities that you should prioritize (for example by classifying them by segments: Gold, Silver and Bronze). This gives you a clear and direct view of all your current opportunities, with their probability of success and their level of progress.
The CRM will act as a true assistant for sales representatives, enabling them to monitor all their sales activities, ensure no opportunity is missed, and focus their efforts on the most promising ones (defined according to your business model, of course).
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Last important point, communication!
Yes, your business model is based on data but also on its proper execution by your teams.
The goal is to have all your teams working hand in hand and on the same wavelength. No more situations where each salesperson is the only one who holds (in their head) the knowledge of the clients they are in charge of, or where salespeople and marketers don't speak the same language!
Your CRM tool will help you overcome these difficulties and improve internal communication, thereby facilitating the execution of the business model on a daily basis.
Firstly, you obviously have the entire history of your actions / appointments / calls, etc. on your client files, as well as a "comments" field allowing you to add notes, or specific / important points that will be accessible to all users. Are you on vacation for two weeks?
Does a "GOLD" customer contact you during this time? No problem, your colleague can easily take over thanks to the history of actions and your comments on the record!
But that's not all; there are many other features that allow you to improve data communication within your company. The news feed, which includes all the important actions to stay informed every minute of the day, the ability to attach documents to your files...
In short, your CRM tool will support the deployment of your sales model by allowing you to centralize and leverage all your data and by structuring your sales processes.
All this, of course, with one goal: to facilitate the work of your teams, who will be able to rely on a relevant tool to monitor sales activity on a daily basis!
To learn more about CRMs and help you with your projects, find all of our methods and tools here:
1 : And for those who wish to (re-)discover the previous articles in this series, written in collaboration by KESTIO and KOBAN, it's here:
Article 1: What is a business model and how do you build one?
Article 2: 3 key points for building an effective business model
KESTIO and KOBAN, it's a partnership that feels natural: the former supports SMEs in their commercial development through an online sales coaching platform for leaders, managers and sales representatives; the latter helps them to effectively deploy their strategy and commercial actions by generating maximum ROI, via a high-performance CRM solution.
From this meeting was born an idea (which became a desire, then a reality): to combine our skills and visions to support you in defining and implementing your business model!
Last week, KESTIO discussed on the Koban blog the importance of an optimized business model to increase the efficiency and ROI of your sales activities.
But after clearly defining this model, it still needs to be translated operationally into a suitable tool to track the process daily. And this part can seem quite abstract for people who aren't used to working with a CRM.
As you'll have understood, this week we're going to talk about CRM and, more specifically, how to translate your previously defined business model into a tool such as Koban.
1. A CRM tool for a segmented and actionable database
You have very well defined your customer/prospect segments, but now you need to be able to exploit them. For this, you need a tool that allows you to centralize your data in order to then carry out a clear and precise segmentation.
Theory is great, but how does it work in practice?
- A good CRM allows you to centralize your entire database on a single platform and segment it initially with 'statuses'. The most common statuses are 'customers', 'prospects', 'competitors', etc. The special thing about Koban, for example, is that you can personalize your statuses according to your environment and strategy, which makes your database clearer for you and your employees.
For example, you can create the categories "hot prospects", "cold prospects", "former clients" or any other that seems commercially useful to you.
- TAGS: On each record, you can add tags to segment your database more precisely. Tags are like labels you place “on the heads” of your customers/prospects. For example, you can create a tag category for “industry” or “potential.” This allows you to identify all customers whose tag is equal to “Gold” or “Bronze.” This is very useful for launching highly targeted and personalized sales and/or marketing campaigns.
2. A CRM tool to organize your activity.
You have your strategy, you have your segmented and usable database. It's time to take action!
Indeed, you have defined a list of actions based on your segments; the goal now is not to forget to do them...
Any self-respecting CRM allows you to create customizable action types based on your strategy. You can create as many as you want: task, phone call, email, in-person meeting, phone meeting, video conference, demo, client visit, etc.
The little extra at Koban: you assign a color to each type of action. This way, once in your calendar, you have a very visual rendering that gives you an idea of what your day will be like! Of course, you have access to your colleagues' calendars if you need to make an appointment for them or assign them an action.
3. A CRM tool to save time and automate low value-added tasks.
We all agree on one point: the goal is to save your salespeople as much time as possible so that they can focus on the most profitable customer segments. To do this, CRM and marketing have a role to play.
Does automation resonate with you?
SALES AUTOMATION
You have defined high-potential segments and others with fewer stakes that you can easily identify using your centralized and segmented database.
The goal is to let salespeople handle the most interesting segments and leave the others to... automation (or more precisely, to marketing).
To do this, your CRM will allow you to set up automated scenarios (generally composed of a series of pre-defined emails) that aim to spark your contact's interest, maintain contact without being intrusive, and drive conversion.
This frees up a lot of time for sales representatives and, above all, avoids cold calls, which are very often a waste of time (and therefore money). Not only do the responses go directly to the assigned sales representative, but the results of your 'prospecting' emails are directly linked to the prospect's record (when they read the email, if they clicked, etc.). Thus, if the internet user has shown enough interest, the marketing teams can easily or automatically pass the lead on to a sales representative, who will have their entire history.
DAILY AUTOMATIONS
Beyond automated scenarios, you can set up numerous automations that save time and, above all, prevent you from forgetting reminders or appointments. Yes, a salesperson's brain is full, and it can happen that they forget...
For example, you can set an automatic action in the sales representatives' calendar at the end of each appointment, such as: "send product sheet". Or, schedule recurring visits to your "OR" clients every 4 months. The time slot will be blocked in the calendar, which reduces the risk of forgetting or constantly postponing!
LEAD SCORING
Okay, now we're going to move on to some more advanced features, but they are very worthwhile! To explain it to you very briefly, you can track your website (record visits to your site) and assign points to each page of your site.
As a result, a user will visit your pages and accumulate points as they browse. The goal? To assess their interest and determine if they are "ready" to be directly passed on to the sales force.
Below a defined threshold of points, the user will only receive emails via an automated marketing scenario. On the other hand, above the defined score, the user will be assigned to a dedicated salesperson because they have shown a strong interest in your products / services!
These are just very brief examples of everything you can do and automate in a CRM tool like Koban. These examples illustrate the importance of supporting your business model with features like these to increase your profitability and productivity on a daily basis.
To learn more about CRMs and help you with your projects, find all of our methods and tools here:
1 : And for those who wish to (re-)discover the first article, written by KESTIO and published on the KOBAN website, it's here: What is a sales model and how do you build it?
KESTIO and KOBAN, it's a partnership that feels natural: the former supports SMEs in their commercial development through an online sales coaching platform for leaders, managers and sales representatives; the latter helps them to effectively deploy their strategy and commercial actions by generating maximum ROI, via a high-performance CRM solution.
From this meeting was born an idea (which became a desire, then a reality): to combine our skills and visions to support you in defining and implementing your business model!
What if these hours were simply misused (at least in part)?
One of the causes to consider is indeed the lack of structuring of the sales chain, which can cause a loss of efficiency and sometimes significant hidden costs. We at KESTIO know something about this, since we ourselves faced this internally before readjusting our sales process by optimizing it.
Here's how, and with what results.
1. What does "optimizing your sales process" mean, and why should you do it?
This involves seeking the best cost/result ratio at each stage of your sales process, to achieve optimal performance!
There are at least 2 reasons to do so:
- The current economic climate encourages optimizing the return on investment of each action implemented: tight market, no "natural" growth, therefore a greater commercial effort to provide, a tendency to lower sales prices and increase distribution costs... The companies that fare best are therefore those that manage to preserve their margins, and optimizing marketing costs contributes very directly to this!
- Many companies have not yet truly organized their sales function. However, studies show that at least 40% of salespeople's time on average is spent on "doing administrative work"1. In other words, 40% of your sales payroll is not focused on what creates the most value, namely interactions with prospects and customers! Considering that a salesperson is (sometimes very) expensive and difficult to recruit and retain, it is essential that they focus primarily on their core business…
2. A real-world example of sales process optimization.
Here's an example directly from our own experience at KESTIO to illustrate how a seemingly insignificant activity can quickly become very costly if you don't adopt this approach to reduce its impact.
INITIAL CONTEXT:
- At KESTIO, we have been working for some time with 3 in-house sales representatives in charge of handling the first appointments (qualification of needs) with our prospects.
- Across all their telephone appointments, we observe a rate of approximately 20% of 'no-shows' (which is a good rate compared to averages observed elsewhere).
- With 10 appointments scheduled per day per sales representative, this results in a potential of 30 clients per week (2 per day x 3 sales representatives x 5 days per week) to contact again, solely to schedule a new appointment…
- This represented (until we changed our process) 1 to 2 hours of work per week for each salesperson, which, for 3 salespeople, totaled up to 24 hours per month (or 3 working days) spent on a task with no added value!
When you know the salary cost of an experienced salesperson and calculate what this simple position represents annually, it encourages reflection...
THE SOLUTION IMPLEMENTED:
That's why we decided to implement an automated workflow system: the prospect who misses the appointment automatically receives an email offering 3 new time slots, and if necessary, a reminder a few days later.
This system now allows us to re-book 80% of missed appointments, and the remaining 20% are followed up with a phone call by a specialized provider.
Implementing this simple workflow has allowed us to save several thousand euros per year, while creating better working conditions for our sales representatives, who now spend most of their time practicing the profession they love and are skilled in.
And this example represents only one element among many others on which it is possible to act to benefit from a positive leverage effect!
To identify all potential areas for improvement, it is necessary to ask, for each action implemented, what is the appropriate level of effort to produce in relation to the expected result and the potential generated.
3. How to implement such an approach within your company?
To do this, start by reviewing each step of your sales chain (prospecting, qualification, sales proposal, closing, etc.) by analyzing the tasks attached to them in light of this key question: "Given the same result, what is the most efficient (fastest, least expensive, etc.) way to accomplish this task?"
Based on this, you can build an effective sales system by applying this method:
- Identify potential areas for optimization. For example: time spent by sales representatives on administrative tasks.
- Share best practices within the team. For example: sharing a tool allowing prospects to access available slots in the salespeople's calendars in real-time, without seeing the details of their agenda.
- Define an optimized process. For example: building an automated workflow to follow up with prospects who were unable to attend their phone appointment (integrating the use of the tool mentioned above).
- Test and improve the defined process. For example: improve the wording of the standard follow-up email. Please note: always modify only one element of the process at a time to analyze the impact of each change.
- Generalize and disseminate the optimized process to the entire team for implementation and feedback (continuous improvement loop).
Following this approach for your entire sales process will allow you to build an optimized sales operating model and thus reduce all losses related to uncontrolled factors, to ultimately improve your sales results.
Focus primarily on high-impact and easily achievable areas for improvement (in short, optimize the optimization process itself! 😉)
As you progress, you will improve the performance of your entire sales chain to spend better and less, while increasing the interest in the missions entrusted to your teams!
Want to optimize your sales team's time? In this webinar, learn how to refine your targeting and use appropriate tools to double the number of sales appointments you get per month:
1 : An IKO System study on sales representatives' working time dating from 2013 even put the proportion of this working time spent on what they called "non-sales" at 59% at the time!
L’impact du management sur l’efficience des équipes a suscité de nombreuses recherches. Ces dernières ont confirmé le rôle important du leadership dans l’atteinte des résultats, et son influence directe sur le niveau d’engagement des collaborateurs.1
Dès lors, les différents « styles de management » et leurs effets induits sur la vie des équipes ont été l’objet d’une attention particulière. Cela a notamment permis la formalisation de plusieurs typologies d’attitudes managériales (nous y reviendront un peu plus bas).
Comment décliner ces connaissances en applications concrètes sur le terrain, pour adopter les attitudes managériales les plus favorables à la réussite de votre équipe dans le domaine commercial ?
L’impact du management sur la performance commerciale
1. Définir un cadre garantissant les conditions de la performance
De façon opérationnelle, le dirigeant ou le manager commercial intervient sur de nombreux éléments qui ont un impact direct sur les résultats :
- La définition des objectifs opérationnels : Quel chiffre d’affaire ? Sur quelles offres ? A destination de quelles cibles ? Etc…
- La construction du modèle d’organisation commerciale : Quelle sont les étapes du cycle de vente ? Quelle est la répartition des rôles entre les différents membres de l’équipe ? Etc…
- Sa déclinaison en plans d’action individuels : Quel type d’actions mener ? Sur quels comptes ? Etc…
- L’allocation des efforts et ressources : Quel temps, compétences, ressources humaines, moyens financiers ou logistiques… allouer à chaque action ou objectif ? Etc..
- L’animation de la collaboration entre les membres de l’équipe : Quels sont les « rites » permettant les échanges collectifs ? Quel en est le rythme ? Comment, et par qui sont-ils animés ? Etc…
- Et enfin, le pilotage et le suivi des actions commerciales : Quels indicateurs (quantitatifs et qualitatifs) de mesure de la performance adopter ? Comment les suivre et les piloter (mode d’évaluation, fréquence et modalités du suivi…) Etc…
Il crée ainsi un cadre d’action qui conditionne l’atteinte des résultats.
Au-delà de ce cadre, qui est essentiel, le manager porte également la responsabilité de créer les conditions favorables au développement de la performance de son équipe, en agissant sur ses deux principales composantes : les compétences et la motivation.
2. Manager « l’équation de la performance »
Les compétences et la motivation déterminent à la fois la performance et le degré d’autonomie des membres d’une équipe.
Dans le domaine de l’efficacité marketing et commerciale, manager une équipe c’est donc avant tout piloter ce que l’on appelle « l’Équation de la Performance », qui peut être formulée ainsi :
PERFORMANCE = Compétences x Motivation (individuelles et collectives)
De ce point de vue, le rôle du manager consiste à :
- S’assurer que chaque collaborateur possède l’ensemble des compétences nécessaires à sa réussite au sein de sa fonction, ou soit en mesure de les acquérir
- Évaluer régulièrement le niveau de motivation individuel et collectif des membres de l’équipe et l’évolution de ce dernier
- Créer les conditions favorables à un développement durable des compétences et de la motivation, tant sur le plan individuel que collectif
L’attention portée aux deux plans (individuel et collectif) est un élément essentiel de l’équation, car les membres de l’équipe agissent en synergie, et l’efficacité globale représente plus que la somme des efficacités individuelles (dans une équipe qui fonctionne bien), tout comme (a contrario), une équipe qui dysfonctionne peut annihiler les efforts des individus les plus efficaces et motivés…
Comment développer un management favorisant la performance ?
1. « Connais-toi toi-même »
Connaître les différentes typologies d’attitudes managériales permet au manager de se situer personnellement par rapport à elles, c’est-à-dire :
- D’identifier son « style dominant » au naturel, en d’autres termes le type de management qui correspond le mieux à sa personnalité et vers lequel il tend majoritairement
- De prendre conscience des autres approches possibles pour se donner des marges de choix, élargir la palette de ses outils et faire évoluer ce style, durablement ou plus ponctuellement, en réponse à des contextes, des situations ou des profils de collaborateurs spécifiques.
La typologie la plus connue est celle des 4 styles de management (directif, persuasif, participatif et délégatif), sur laquelle la littérature abonde. On peut également citer les 4 types de leadership proposés dans l’étude de l’EDHEC Business School intitulée « La révolution du leadership », dont l’approche est complémentaire.
Il est donc utile que le manager connaisse ces typologies et se soit interrogé sur sa pratique à la lumière de cette grille d’analyse.
Au-delà de ces références de bases, plusieurs outils peuvent l’aider dans cette perspective : le profil 4Colors (ou méthode DISC), le Feedback 360°, le coaching, les groupes de co-développement entre pairs…
Il doit notamment se poser ces 5 questions clés :
- Quel style j’utilise le plus ? (le plus souvent, le plus naturellement)
- Est-il adapté à mon équipe ? Au contexte actuel de mon entreprise ?
- Quels résultats produit-il ?
- A quel niveau me permet-il de favoriser la meilleure performance des différents profils présents au sein de mon équipe ?
- Qu’est-ce que je voudrais améliorer ?
Il n’existe aucun style de management meilleur que les autres ou plus favorable à la performance a priori et dans tous les contextes !
L’essentiel pour le manager est donc d’identifier les composantes de son style de management et de les évaluer constamment, en situation et au regard du contexte (objectifs, culture d’entreprise, situations rencontrées, variété des profils de ses collaborateurs…), pour agir en conscience dans un objectif d’amélioration des performances de l’ équipe.
2. Déployer le bon style managérial dans les 8 missions du manager
Lorsque le manager est parvenu à une meilleure connaissance de lui-même, il est en capacité d’adapter son style managérial au gré des situations, de ses interlocuteurs, et de l’évolution de leur relation dans le temps.
Par exemple, il pourra adopter un style directif face à un collaborateur présentant un faible niveau de compétences pour obtenir plus rapidement des résultats de sa part, et faire évoluer son attitude vers un style plus persuasif, voire participatif au fur et à mesure de l’autonomisation de ce même collaborateur dans le temps.
Ou développer un management de type participatif, voire délégatif la majeure partie du temps vis-à-vis de son équipe, mais adopter temporairement un style directif dans moment de crise nécessitant des prises de décisions rapides et un passage à l’action immédiat.
Cette connaissance de lui-même donne au manager la capacité de choisir et « doser » en conscience les compétences à activer, dans tous les aspects de sa fonction.
Nous les appelons, chez KESTIO, les « 8 missions du manager » :
- Anticiper
- Décider
- Organiser
- Animer
- Communiquer
- Résoudre
- Piloter
- Performer
Par exemple, sur l’axe « décider », le manager “éclairé” définira le mode de prise de décision non pas en fonction de sa seule personnalité, mais au regard des effets produits sur l’équipe : s’il observe qu’une tendance personnelle à vouloir tout contrôler a pour effet de démobiliser son équipe qui souffre de ne pouvoir prendre aucune initiative, il adaptera son fonctionnement dans l’intérêt de la performance de l’équipe.
Ou sur l’axe « communiquer », il développera plus ou moins l’écoute et le recueil d’avis auprès de son équipe ou les réunions collectives, en fonction du style de management pour lequel il a décidé d’opter et qui lui semble le plus à même d’assurer les conditions de l’efficacité.
Prendre du recul sur soi-même et développer son intelligence relationnelle sont donc des clés qui permettent au manager de prendre les bonnes décisions face à chaque situation et de mettre en œuvre à tout moment les dispositifs les plus favorables à la réussite individuelle et collective de son équipe.
Comment réorienter les efforts de ses commerciaux dans le contexte actuel ? Découvrez dans ce webinar les clés pour manager en favorisant la performance de votre équipe.
1 : Pour un tour d’horizon des différentes études de référence sur le sujet, voir par exemple :
Le mémoire d’expertise « La performance des équipes de travail : quel rôle de la fonction RH ? », Université Paris Dauphine, octobre 2016
Ou encore l’étude de Paul Langevin « Quels facteurs de performance pour quels types d’équipe ? L’avis des managers », HAL (archives ouvertes), Mai 2004. https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00594005/document
Today, financial incentives alone are not enough to motivate sales teams due to recruitment challenges and high turnover. To ensure your sales teams perform at their best and remain committed long-term, it's essential to provide meaning in their work, opportunities to take initiative, and the chance to be part of a collective endeavor. These factors are now crucial for sales professionals.
Motivation is not activated by pressing a button!
The question of sales representatives' commitment calls for a prerequisite tinged with humility:
"You can't motivate someone; you can only create the right conditions for a person to activate their own drive."
This may seem obvious, but it qualifies certain prevailing discourses offering "turnkey" solutions for generating engagement within sales teams (from mobile apps to team-building activities, to incentives of all kinds).
Let's be clear, while these solutions can have a real training effect and stimulate the involvement of a sales team in the short term, the notion of engagement appeals to the deep motivations of individuals, and these motivations have evolved in recent years.
The concept of "meaning" and values are increasingly important, especially among younger generations.
We are seeing a general shift in the priorities of employees, including in the sales sector: less focused on money as an end in itself or on attributes of power, employees today place increasing importance on the meaning of their work and the values conveyed by the company in which they do it, or plan to enter.
This is particularly true of the younger generation entering the job market today, as highlighted in the latest Universum1 study, which reveals a growing attachment among students to criteria related to CSR, ethics, and equality in their career choices:
"1 in 3 students think ethics is an important subject (especially in Business), and 26% consider the ethical principles of companies important."
This is also evidenced by the success of the Student Manifesto for an Ecological Awakening, launched by students from leading schools, including HEC, in which they say they are ready to boycott companies that do not commit to ecology, even if it means earning less.
Money no longer buys happiness... or at least, engagement!
While it's important to acknowledge the nuanced significance of values and ethics in career choices (as the same study indicates that, beyond what people say, business school students still predominantly choose their first jobs based on companies offering high earning potential and strong CV credentials), it's crucial to remember that financial considerations are no longer the sole determining factor, and salespeople are now driven by a variety of motivations.
Beyond ethics, several criteria have become essential in salespeople's career choices, including: having an immediate impact on the company, experiencing collective "professional challenges", and being autonomous in their work.
So, how do you integrate this evolution of sales representatives' aspirations into your management style?
New levers for sales team engagement
Here are several areas you can work on to encourage engagement from your sales teams and develop your company's attractiveness:
- Focus on the company's values and purpose: Feeling useful is crucial for engagement! And to contribute to this, there's nothing like defining your company's mission, giving meaning to its actions, and highlighting its positive impact on society. This is what Simon Sinek calls the 'Golden Circle', which corresponds to the 'WHY?' in his clear diagram describing what makes a company much more attractive and commercially successful than another.
- Promote autonomy and initiative: Encouraging initiative means allowing your sales representatives to participate in decisions that concern them and to be involved in the organization of their daily work (for example, by asking them to define the means to be implemented to achieve their objectives). This also involves letting them experiment (a new pitch, a new sequence of emails, the operation of a new CRM tool, etc.) within a defined framework (objectives, time, etc.) by trusting them and giving them the right to make mistakes.
- Develop "Coopetition" and the sharing of best practices: In a constantly evolving environment, the playing field is constantly changing, and what is best at one moment is not necessarily best the next! Therefore, promoting the sharing of best practices internally is a good way to value the best performers while ensuring that everything does not rest on their shoulders. To do this, you can encourage the establishment of times during which a member of the sales team will train their colleagues on a tool, a technique, or an approach that they apply with better results than others. Thus, the group will benefit from both the benefits of emulation and those of collaboration, and everyone will have the opportunity to highlight their strengths.
A change of posture for managers
While these levers are based on values and give pride of place to collaborative approaches, activating them is not necessarily idealistic and is not 'free' for companies: not only is it a factor of team engagement and stability, but implementing these levers is conducive to agility and innovation, and therefore ultimately to the sustainability and performance of your company.
However, it implies a real change in posture, which can be counter-intuitive for many managers: the "inherited" management styles of recent decades were largely based on a "command and control" logic.
Today, it's about placing greater value on 'doing better' than on 'doing good,' even if it takes more time initially.
By shifting the role of employees from executing systems designed upstream and often applied in a « top-down » manner to reflection and initiative-taking, a significant evolution in the role of managers is induced. Their mission now consists of building a secure and stimulating framework, creating trust, and fostering skills development.
Much more in a 'coach' position and in a support logic, they question and listen to their teams without necessarily wanting to know everything, to help them find the best solutions themselves.
From now on, the competence of sales managers is no longer evaluated by the quality of their answers, but by that of their questions!
A less obvious approach to activate than just the financial lever, certainly, but one that also gives meaning and value to the mission of sales managers themselves!
Are you facing a crisis situation? Have you considered repositioning your commercial action? To find out how, watch this webinar:
- Universum 2019 annual survey on "The major career trends of students in Business and Engineering Schools." A summary of the results can be consulted via this link: http://www.datapressepremium.com/rmdiff/2010661/Communique_presse_V4_09042019.pdf
It also impacts employee engagement. In a context of generational renewal of sales teams and managerial evolution, how do you ensure that you set goals that are ambitious, realistic, and sustainably motivating for your sales forces?
Setting sales representatives' objectives: a strategic topic
Let's first clear up a fairly common misunderstanding.
No, defining individual sales targets does not only consist of setting the turnover that each of them must achieve in order to qualify for a commission!
- Firstly, the criteria considered to evaluate their effective contribution to the company's objectives can be multiple: margin generated, percentage of sales achieved on a particular offer or target, number of new customers signed, etc.
- Secondly, their level of engagement can also be measured by the resources used to achieve it: number of new prospects identified, number of telephone or in-person appointments made, number of sales proposals sent, conversion rate, etc.
- Lastly, objectives can include a collective component and promote cooperation, in addition to individual performance: conditioning variable compensation on achieving a collective revenue threshold beforehand, taking into account the working time spent on internal projects, etc.
It is therefore a real strategic issue involving choices whose impact is not only financial but also managerial: employee engagement and team operating methods partially depend on it.
5 best practices for defining sales objectives
1. Involve the sales team in the reflection
The most common pitfall on this subject is reusing the previous year's model and applying it identically, without questioning its effectiveness. It is useful to plan a consultation phase with the sales team on the subject: get their opinion, their feedback from the field regarding the system already in place, and any suggestions for improvement they may have. Present your own ideas for development before implementing them, in order to test their reaction to the options being considered.
Taking these feedbacks into account ensures greater buy-in from sales representatives to the objectives you will present to them later.
Consulting them does not mean involving them in the final decision, but it is useful to know their perception and to integrate it into your thinking, among other criteria that relate to a more global vision of the company.
2. Define operating variable elements.
As we saw earlier, there are potentially many criteria that can be considered in defining sales objectives.
Remember that each of these criteria must then be regularly monitored and will factor into the calculation of the sales team's variable compensation. You will therefore have to make choices, otherwise you risk creating a complex and unmanageable system!
Select your criteria (preferably at least 2, and no more than 4) and define their weighting according to the importance you give them.
The incentive system you propose must guarantee the motivation and engagement of your sales representatives over time. For example, you can combine a results objective (achieve €500,000 in sales during the year) with a means objective (schedule 8 prospect appointments per week, etc.).
3. Perform a preliminary simulation of the planned system
The best way to ensure the operational aspect of the selected criteria and to verify the overall consistency of the planned system is to test it. Realizing during the year that the system is not working satisfactorily could have serious consequences for the company.
Based on the figures available for year N, perform simulations to verify that:
- the data necessary for establishing the variables are available (already tracked in your current tracking system, or if not, easily / quickly accessible)
- the calculation of multi-criteria and weighted factors is simple to perform (not a complex process)
- The results obtained are consistent (no significant deviation from the current system).
Also, verify that these results are motivating for your sales representatives! Aim for 70% to 80% of the team (at a minimum) to achieve their sales targets and receive satisfactory bonuses.
Discover KESTIO webinars, where we discuss
All topics related to sales performance with our experts:
Fabien Comtet, CEO
Dominique Seguin, CEO
Nicolas Boissard, Marketing Director
4. Establish 'fair' criteria
For objectives to be perceived as "fair" and generate lasting commitment, they should be defined based on criteria that directly depend on the actions of the sales representatives: number of appointments secured, deals won, etc.
Exclude external factors or third-party interventions as much as possible: within the framework of new business models, in particular, Marketing can intervene on all or part of the stages of the sales cycle; it will therefore be necessary to distinguish it from the actions directly attributable to sales representatives.
Also, as far as possible, adopt a qualitative approach: sending out as many sales proposals as possible, for example, should not necessarily become an end in itself; combining it with a notion of conversion rate allows you to more accurately measure the quality of the work done.
Depending on the situation, it may also be important to consider certain disparities (between junior and senior sales representatives, geographical territories covered, account development and pure acquisition, etc.) to reward not only the results obtained but more broadly the efforts mobilized.
5. Communicate in two stages
Once your system is established in a coherent, efficient, and 'fair' manner, don't neglect the (crucial) step of presenting it to the sales team members!
Plan your communication in two stages:
- A collective presentation to the team, which should explain how it works, inform the team of the criteria taken into consideration, and highlight the overall coherence of the system with regard to the company's objectives (financial, strategic, etc.) and the reality on the ground.
- Individual discussion time with each member of the sales team, to specify individual objectives in detail for each person, and answer any questions raised.
Sales representatives should be able to get a clear idea of the variable compensation they can expect, and translate the objectives thus set into action priorities and concrete organizational elements.
Also, remember to specify how key data will be tracked (weekly reporting, CRM tracking, etc.) and how often the results will be evaluated.
If the defined system adheres to these best practices and is regularly monitored and effectively managed once implemented, you maximize the chances that your sales representatives will actively commit to achieving their objectives and results!
To go further, discover in our webinar, 4 keys to regain control in a difficult situation: