Sales targets for 2022 are set, but how are businesses preparing to hit them? According to Salesforce, even before the pandemic, 57% of reps expected to miss their quota for the year, despite 72% reporting that management sets quotas with a data-driven approach.
While high sales turnover undeniably contributes to the problem, even the most stable sales teams are usually driven by a handful of star players who make a big difference to the bottom line.
Imagine if every member of your sales team performed to the ability of your top sellers.
In order to replicate their success, it’s time to look beyond revenue and start measuring sales behaviours, says Andy McDonald, CEO, Cloudapps. By utilising two behavioural science strategies, businesses can get everyone to quota in 2022 – and focusing on those in the middle of the leaderboard is the quickest way to move the dial and hit targets.
Create more top performers by driving the right sales behaviours
The top 20% of most sales teams account for more than 50% of all revenue generated. So, what separates the top 20%? If chief sales officers (CSOs) continue to profile sales success on revenue alone, they’ll never know. Sales success is behavioural and behavioural change can be measured. If it can be measured, that means it can be managed.
With greater visibility into sales behaviours, it’s possible to identify which are driving sales success and which are bad practice. CSOs can then ensure top behaviours are replicated across the team. But companies should not take a ‘one size fits all’ approach to achieving this. They should instead invest time and resources into fine tuning the behaviours of individuals.
Alongside the highest and the lowest performers, there’s a vast middle ground of emerging talent: those who are doing all the right things but aren’t closing the big deals. A lack of experience might be letting them down and CSOs can provide the right training in response. Equally, by measuring revenue alone, businesses are missing insight into ‘maverick’ sellers – those who might be hitting targets, but who are doing so in all the wrong ways. Addressing these behaviours specifically can reduce compliance risk and eliminate toxic deals.
CRM systems are full of the sales behavioural insights you need to raise standards amongst these middle performers to improve productivity, effectiveness and ultimately drive revenue. The trouble is these insights are not readily accessible.
Adding sales intelligence software will enable businesses to utilise CRM to pinpoint the top behaviours that are driving sales success in real time. This technology can automatically suggest the most impactful next action to take for any deal, ensuring reps don’t take a wrong turn. It also drives more winning sales behaviours and informs highly personalised coaching to help businesses address skills gaps and allocate resources to those who need it.
Motivate the team and incentivise success with gamification techniques
The second strategy, which is widely recognised as essential to maintaining momentum, is to address team motivation. CRM gamification techniques, based on behavioural science, are proven to resonate with sales reps, resulting in a team that follows your sales processes, with the basics covered every step of the way.
Using competitions, countdowns and leaderboards, gamification taps into salespeople’s competitive instincts to boost productivity, while helping to develop a motivated and engaged team. Gamifying behavioural change adds value to even the least exciting tasks and activities, which becomes habit forming.
This is particularly important in the new digital sales era, with reps often working remotely and unable to celebrate winning deals with their team. Uniting teams in this way leads to positive sales behaviours across the board, resulting in greater productivity, reduced staff turnover and increased revenue.
Incentivising success appeals to reps at all levels – those at the top want to maintain their performance, while others are keen to grow – but fine-tuning the behaviours of those in the middle of the leaderboard will be key to unlocking revenue in 2022.
