Doesn’t every sales team wish every month had an extra day, like our own version of Leap Year? As sales cycles become more complex, and more stakeholders get involved all sellers, regardless of what industry or audience they’re selling into, could use just a little bit more time.
The time to talk about sales productivity is now. A recent Deloitte survey of more than 100 senior tech leaders asked, “What is your company’s primary area of focus?” with the top three areas being:
Efficiency
Productivity
Growth
As our recent webinar, "Maximizing Sales Productivity in 2024" proved, it’s no surprise why this is such a hot topic. Our engaged audience listened in as I and others shared their top insights and suggestions for sales productivity over a lively session.
It really got us thinking, what can teams do differently this month, versus last month, to get ahead?
4 Key Principles for Greater Sales Productivity
In a recent team meeting, our own revenue director reminded us all of an important distinction: We’re all being asked to DO MORE. More sales activity, more growth, more this, more that. But in reality, it’s not just about MORE. It’s about doing more of the right things, the ones that make you feel that your team is consistently progressing in the right areas and delivering the most customer value.
So I ask again, what can your team do differently?
Leaders are looking for ideas of all sizes, big moves and small ones, to drive greater efficiency and productivity, overall reducing sales team burnout and maximizing every second spent getting deals on the table.
In the webinar, we’ve outlined four key principles to consider that will lead you to greater productivity amongst your team. They are:
- Process Optimization
- Data Accuracy & Visibility
- Performance, KPIs & Coaching
- Technology Integrations
Let's take a closer look into each of these areas...
The importance of Process Optimization in sales productivity:
Process optimization is the systematic approach to analyzing and improving business processes to maximum efficiency.
It’s critical because it identifies bottlenecks and areas where processes can be streamlined. It also simplifies sales and marketing automation, so we can say goodbye to those five workflows we have for one process.
As a result, we are reducing the time and effort required to move deals through the pipeline.
Examples of Process Optimization in sales productivity:
| Enrolling contacts into sequences | Sophisticated lead routing to improve marketing-sales handoffs |
| Creating a better buyer experience and removing friction points | Using AI tools to drive productivity (real-time writing support, coaching, content suggestions, etc.) |
The importance of Data Accuracy & Visibility in sales productivity
The next principle to explore is data accuracy and visibility, which is honestly a win-win for sellers and customers.
It’s a win for your customers, giving them a consistent path from the very first touch through product adoption and onto renewal. They’ll feel understood and appreciated because you are able to provide them with relevant personalized messages.
For your sellers, they’ll spend less time finding information and more time strengthening relationships and selling, which of course is what we need them to be focused on! The more you concentrate on the upfront work of keeping data accurate and visible, the more your sellers can spend time on the things that matter most with the additional context they need in their day-to-day.
Examples of Data Accuracy and Visibility in sales productivity:
| Enrolling contacts into sequences | Sophisticated lead routing to improve marketing-sales handoffs |
| Creating a better buyer experience and removing friction points | Using AI tools to drive productivity (real-time writing support, coaching, content suggestions, etc.) |
The importance of Performance, KPIs & Coaching in sales productivity
I come from a coaching background in sports performance, and this principle is probably the one that I am most excited about when it comes to revenue operations and sales productivity. When you’re looking at performance metrics, KPIs, and coaching through the sales and revenue leader lens, three key things need to happen to make this principle work magic for you—and your business:
- Align sales goals to business objectives. I can’t stress the importance of this enough. Sales goals and business objectives should be evaluated frequently enough that they can adapt to a changing market, but not so much that they produce a confusing, misaligned environment. Bring in your proper stakeholders to chime in on these conversations to ensure everyone is marching in the right direction with the right goals in place.
- Along with your goals, you should also be reviewing performance on a regular basis, as this will help you spot issues before they become detrimental to your business. It may also help you spot trends among the team so you can scale solutions within their overall professional development to enhance performance and productivity.
- Be transparent with your goals and KPIs so that members of the team can see where they stand, and who is performing very well. Encourage sharing what is working, and recognize people for great work. This will create a team coaching environment where each member of the team can learn from each other.
- And finally, you want your coaching to be proactive and laser-focused on productivity.
Examples of Performance, KPIs & Coaching in sales productivity:
| Daily shared dashboards of team progress and performance | Weekly marketing campaign analyses |
| Weekly sales review meetings | An ICP go-to-market strategy, created by RevOps then reviewed/approved by all senior leaders within the business |
The importance of Technology Integrations in sales productivity
Bridging those gaps between your tech and your overall alignment among, well, humans, is critically important. But to keep everyone aligned and informed of how sales performance and productivity are helping to meet business goals, an evolved tech stack is a foundational must-have.
That’s why the last (but certainly not least!) principle is all about technology integration. This could be about introducing new tech, consolidating tech, or avoiding tech stack fatigue. You’ll want to re-evaluate if the tools or software you have on hand are contributing to your overall sales productivity, or if it’s actually causing a friction point. (It’s all connected, as these may well be the friction points you’ve pinpointed through frequent performance and productivity reviews.)
This can be an overwhelming task, but finding the right partner to help you identify, migrate and/or implement the tailored tech stack you need is fundamental to business growth and productivity.
For example, partners can help you:
- Identify the friction points in your sales tools.
- Evaluate if your current tech stack is being fully utilized, and find new ways to drive higher ROI of your current tools.
- Get your team out of tech stack fatigue, and make sure everyone is using their tools efficiently and properly.
- Audit your existing tech stack to ensure data integrity, to support better automation and accurate automation flows.
Examples of Technology Integrations in sales productivity:
| Using a technology like Gong to understand win/loss reasons | Implementing an automated lead-routing app (like Distributely) for quicker lead or opportunity routing |
| Integrating a deal dashboard within Hubspot | Integrating ABM software to include intent and predictive insights to quickly score and prioritize leads |
Stay tuned as we uncover more tips and strategies to make the most of these four key sales principles in sales productivity to help you maximize your own sales productivity in 2024.
And if you missed the webinar, don’t worry. Check out the replay, below:
