4 key areas to monitor when managing your sales team's performance

To prevent your sales representatives from interpreting it in their own way, gradually deviating from it, or even completely disregarding it, it is necessary to translate this commercial strategy into operational directives and effectively manage its implementation.

To achieve this, be vigilant on these 4 essential points.

Develop an individual commercial action plan with each salesperson  

Defining a clear commercial strategy and presenting it to your team is necessary, but not enough to ensure its effective implementation during the year. This is the purpose of the commercial action plans defined at the individual level.

They are generally co-constructed by the salesperson and their manager, and re-evaluated or updated on a regular basis: annually, semi-annually, quarterly, or monthly (this is then referred to as a MAP, for monthly action plan).

This co-creation is the key to engagement for each salesperson. The frequency can be chosen based on the sales cycle of your products and services, or according to the management style adopted.

Some companies, for example, define annual action plans and then weight the objectives monthly or quarterly according to the seasonality of their business.

For example, a digital services company can generate 50% of its annual revenue in a single four-month period, during which the majority of its subscriptions are renewed.

Each salesperson must have an operational action plan that includes the key data necessary for their daily activity, on points such as: targeting, intensity and the nature of sales actions, in order to have the means to achieve the defined objectives.

Ensure that this individual action plan accurately reflects the business strategy. 

This sales action plan is the operational implementation of the sales strategy defined beforehand. It must therefore reflect it and translate it on an individual scale, taking into account the allocation of sales efforts on your targets, whether in coverage or sales pressure, and the sales organization you have opted for.

If the commercial strategy determines, for example, that 35% of the overall turnover must be achieved on segment A of the customer base and 25% on segment B, two different translations are possible in the individual action plan of one of the sales representatives:

• either they must generate 35% of their revenue from segment A and 25% from segment B themselves (within an organization that distributes the client portfolio by geographic area, for example);
• or they must generate 100% of their revenue from segment A, with other sales representatives responsible for segment B (in the case of an organization with sales representatives specialized by client segments).

Hence the importance of defining the action plan at the individual level, to ensure that the concrete application of the commercial strategy does not lead to multiple, or even divergent, interpretations!

Clearly define the activities to be carried out with your sales representatives

To avoid any risky improvisation on the part of your sales representatives, define precisely with them and for each:

• the targets on which they will work (type of accounts, meeting precise targeting criteria, or even a list of named accounts, and types of contacts targeted within the accounts)
• the type of commercial actions to be carried out, at each stage of the sales process (leads to be processed, calls, physical appointments, quotes or commercial proposals, follow-up, etc.), in front or back office
• the frequency and intensity of these actions, per customer segment (for example, 8 calls and 3 annual appointments for prospects attached to customer segment A)

From a more qualitative point of view, also specify the sales methods to be implemented at each stage of the sales process (for example: company pitch, type of questions to ask in a discovery meeting) and the expected results for each of them (data to be collected during a discovery meeting, elements to be validated to qualify an opportunity during a sales meeting, etc.).

Regular check-ins between salespeople and their manager are essential to communicate these guidelines and monitor their implementation. They allow to identify discrepancies with what is expected, to address difficulties encountered in the field, and to refine the sales tools used (call script, interview guide, standard report to be saved in the CRM, etc.).

The frequency (monthly, quarterly, etc.) and the degree of 'formality' of these follow-up meetings are to be defined according to the level of support you deem necessary; the latter may vary depending on the company's managerial culture and the level of seniority of the sales representatives, in particular.

Regularly analyze the indicators and adjust the system if necessary

As a leader, you are responsible for adhering to the sales strategy and achieving objectives. To do this, it is important to have a global vision of your company's sales situation in real-time so you can manage actions without waiting to know the final result of the fiscal year. 

Equip yourself with the appropriate management tools, including dashboards, to analyze KPIs (key performance indicators) and monitor the actions taken by your sales representatives. This will allow you to detect necessary adjustments and implement them, if necessary. 

Managing your team's sales pipeline, in particular, is a key element in ensuring reliable future revenue. The number, value and quality of the opportunities identified, their creation date and their level of progress in the sales process are all parameters to be analyzed. 

Similarly, if the conversion rates of your salespeople show significant differences for the same product range, this should alert you and prompt you to investigate the cause.

Finally, sales achieved and revenue (in volume, value, by type of products/services, by customer targets, etc.) are, of course, essential performance indicators to measure.

Your sales strategy indicates how you want to structure your development. Analyzing key performance indicators allows you to validate its deployment and adjust operational action plans, without waiting to know the result in terms of orders taken or customer billing! 

Adhering to these 4 key considerations will allow you to effectively manage the deployment of your sales strategy at the operational level, thereby optimizing your chances of achieving your set objectives.