5 Tips to Increase Sales Productivity This Quarter

Many Small and Mid-sized Businesses (SMBs)  are looking for ways to Increase their Sales Productivity over the next few months. We have always been told (and believe) that "If you do a few things well, you will be successful."

The following 5 easy-to-implement Tips should significantly increase your sales and reduce your cost of sales.

1. Define Goals, Metrics and Reports Have a team meeting and get agreement to a 90-day program. Set weekly goals, metrics and reports. If it doesn't get measured, it doesn't get done. Result: Team focus on closing sales
2. Leverage Lead Process All leads need to be contacted and qualified in 24 hours or less.  Fastest response time is king these days.  I just contacted a software company and was told that it would be two days to hear back from a sales rep. I'm now talking with their competitor instead of them. Result: More Qualified Leads
3. Increase Sales Calls per Week The average outside sales rep can make a maximum of 10 customer sales calls per week (2 per day). Three quick ways to increase sales calls: - Add an Inside Sales Resource - Add a web service like WebEx or GotoMeeting to add two extra web sales calls per week - Ask for referrals on every call Result: More Sales Calls per week
4. Increase Skills & Knowledge Create weekly in-house workshops to improve closing skills, best practice sharing, meeting skills, phone skills, product knowledge, competition and industry issues. Workshops should be held during non-selling hours and run no more than 45 minutes. Implement web-based meetings if your team is geographically separated. This is one of the best suggestions in improving sales productivity. Result: More Deals in Forecast
5. Improve Sales Recognition Most sales teams are pretty beat-up right-about-now. Reps sell more when recognized on a regular basis. Set up weekly recognition in a team phone or web meeting. A happy Sales Rep is a more productive Sales Rep! Result: More time selling and more sales closed.

Which Sales Productivity Tips are working for you this year?

Sales Productivity Tip: Measure Key Sales and Marketing Ratios

William Hewlett, Co-Founder of Hewlett-Packard often said: "What gets measured gets done." You can increase Sales Productivity if you focus on Tracking, Reporting and Reviewing these Metrics on a regular basis.

Five Key Sales & Marketing Metrics

1. Closed Sales Ratio
2. Qualified Lead Ratio
3. Pre-Qualified Lead Ratio
4. Marketing Response Ratio
5. Sales Cycle Ratio

Here are the Five Key Sales and Marketing Metrics and their descriptions:

1. Close Ratio

Measures the number of Sales Orders Closed divided by the number of Total Sales Deals that were listed in a Sales Forecast.

Example: It takes 5 Qualified Leads to close 1 Sales Order. This would be a 20% Close Ratio.

2. Qualified Lead Ratio

Measures the number of Qualified Leads divided by the number of Pre-Qualified Leads in the Sales Funnel (or Sales Pipeline).

Example: It takes 10 Pre-Qualified Leads to get 4 Qualified Leads. This would be a 40% Qualified Lead Ratio.

3. Pre-Qualified Lead Ratio

Measures the number of Pre-Qualified Leads divided by the Total Suspects that responded to all marketing events.

Example: It takes 100 Suspects to get 30 Pre-Qualified Leads. This would be a 30% Pre-Qualified Lead Ratio.

4. Marketing Response Ratio

Measures the number of Suspects divided by the total number of contacts sent marketing communications documents.

Example: It takes 1000 names on list to get 20 Suspects to respond. This would be a 2% Marketing Response Rate.

5. Sales Cycle Ratio

Measures the Date a Suspect has first Contact with a company minus the Date an Sales Order is Closed/Booked by the company.

Example: It takes an average of 6 months for a new Suspect to become a New Customer (or book its first sales order). This would be a 6-month Sales Cycle.