KPIs for sales teams:
- Conversion of leads to qualified opportunities
- Conversion rate from one stage to the next
- Time to move from one stage to the next
- Number of opportunities by stage in the sales process
- Close rate on opportunities
- Performance to goal
Do you know how your sales team is performing?
An organization can have assumptions – and be way off.
The only way to know for sure is to make sure the stages of your sales process are clearly defined, and then measure how opportunities are progressing through it, as well as how quickly they’re moving through.
You can accomplish these goals by tracking some key sales team metrics.
Here’s what you need to know about KPIs for sales teams.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
KPIs in sales provide a way for you to measure how well your organization’s goals are being met. As well as understanding if your strategy is correct and how well it is being executed.
Why you need sales process KPIs
In addition to insight on how well your sales team is performing, there are several other important reasons you need KPIs for your sales processes. These include:
- Making necessary adjustments to both process and individual behavior that will help you stay on track.
- Solving, not just patching, sales performance problems.
- Identifying and analyzing sales patterns over time.
Your sales department needs to know where they stand at any given moment, so they know what to do next and how they should be spending their time.
Sales leadership needs these metrics to know where to steer the ship to keep sales growing and both productivity and morale up.
The rest of the organization has to be in the loop, too, so they can keep supporting growth with better leads, better delivery, invoicing, financial planning and forecasting.
What are the big 6 sales KPIs?
There are six key performance indicators that will help you make sure your sales process is running efficiently.
Keep in mind that these KPIs for sales teams should be tweaked to your specific organization’s goals.
- Conversion of leads to qualified opportunities: Knowing how many leads convert into qualified opportunities is a key metric for fueling growth. This important metric drives marketing and lead generation investment, as well as lead-qualification process management before the sales team, begin to work them, ensuring that you’re consistently building a high-quality pipeline.
2. Conversion from one stage to the next: With this information, you can keep track of how many deals fall away at each step, and know where there’s a behavioral or process step (or both) that needs adjusting. - Time to move from one stage to the next: Identifying how long it takes to move an opportunity from one stage of the sales cycle to the next can provide key insights into the sales process. For example, you can identify where leads are growing cold or if more frequent sales follow up or a discount will prompt action.
- A number of opportunities by stage of the sales process: This metric shows how many opportunities (or leads) your organization has by stage, for example, Suspect, Prospect, Qualified prospect or Opportunity, Needs Analysis, Proposal Made, Closed Won, or Closed Lost. Having a grasp on how your opportunities progress through a staged process is a critical metric for forecasting sales and managing your pipeline.
- Close rate of opportunities: This KPI highlights how many opportunities have successfully moved through the sales process. The higher this ratio the better.
- Performance to goal: This is a measure of how well each salesperson and each team has delivered compared to the initial goal assigned. For example, if each salesperson is expected to prospect 50 leads per day, you need to compare that goal to actual performance.
Measuring KPIs for sales teams is vital
If your organization wants to consistently hit sales goals for the long-term, you need to measure and pay attention to KPIs for sales.
Without key performance indicators, you won’t be able to diagnose and correct issues quickly and efficiently, costing you time and precious revenue.
Track these 6 KPIs and keep your sales team and processes on the right track.
