7 Tips to Maximize Performance & Meet Sales Goals This Year

As a sales leader, there are likely several big sales goals your team is working toward this year. You worked hard creating those goals and ensuring they were SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely), but now it's time to actually achieve them. What are your strategies to achieve those goals?  

The single most important thing you can do for your team is to create a motivating environment where they can thrive. Ensuring they have access to the right data, technology, processes, and skills will go a long way to improving sales performance and meeting sales goals.

Let’s explore some sales success tips that can help you achieve your goals faster!

1. Track and Monitor Sales Performance

Diligently tracking sales performance is one of the most important steps you can take to ensure your team is successful. But simply tracking data isn’t enough. You’ll need to pinpoint the most important data points and then determine the timing at which they’ll be most effective. 

For example, you’ll probably want to track call volumes and lead response times weekly to ensure the little things are being done in the right way. You’ll have plenty of time and opportunity to make small tweaks as needed. KPIs like win rates can be tracked monthly, which will give you enough time and space to see general trends. Some of the larger numbers, like Average Lifetime Value and Customer Acquisition Cost are more likely to be useful on a quarterly basis when you’ll have a more accurate data point.

2. Leverage Technology

Technology can play a huge role in eliminating some of the more manual processes that used to take up so much of a sales team’s time. Analytics tools can give your team detailed insights into the patterns and needs of your prospects, allowing them to target potential clients more precisely. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms streamline the sales process for the entire pipeline, ensuring your team members never miss a touchpoint. Call tracking and analysis programs record and transcribe each call your team makes, allowing you to compare lead behavior with certain types of calls and create the perfect call scripts.

3. Reduce Your Sales Process

Prospects like a quick and easy sales process. If the process is too long or too complicated, you run the risk of losing someone halfway through. How do you ensure your sales process is as simple as possible?

First, automate as much as you can so you eliminate any gaps caused by human error. Sending automated emails eliminates much of the time a team member would take crafting and sending one email. 

Next, identify and eliminate as many pain points as possible before the sales process even begins. For example, ensure your team is completely clear on pricing to eliminate the need for lots of back-and-forth conversations during the process. 

Lastly, create an action plan identifying each step of the sales process so the prospect knows exactly what will be happening and when. A step-by-step plan that has been agreed upon by both parties should eliminate any surprises that may have come up otherwise. 

4. Improve Your Close Rate

There are plenty of small steps you can take to improve your close rate, but most techniques boil down to three essential steps:

1. Understand your customers and their objectives. Do the right research and ask the right questions so you know exactly what your customers want.
2. Be prescriptive. Be able to clearly explain the value your product or service will provide so they know exactly how it will help them meet their objectives. 
3. Be confident. If your product or solution truly is the best option for your customer, make sure they believe it. 

What can you do to help your team master these techniques? Invest in their development! A sales coach can work with your team members to strengthen skills ahead of important meetings and reflect on the outcomes of those meetings in healthy ways that help them, and their results, to grow. 

5. Develop the Team’s Skills

In a previous post, we discussed in detail the 8 sales skills all sales representatives need:

1. Adaptability & Flexibility
2. Organization
3. Time Management
4. Industry & Product Knowledge
5. Problem-Solving and Decision-Making
6. Active Listening
7. Effective Communication
8. Confidence & Resilience

These skills can be attained and improved if you lead by example, set clear expectations of your team members so they know exactly what you require from them, and encourage continuous learning and development. 

6. Fill Skills Gaps with New Talent

You may find yourself with gaps in certain skills on your team that are better filled by bringing new team members on board. Don’t forget that this is the perfect chance to provide a co-learning opportunity for your new and existing team members! Existing team members have the opportunity to share their current skill sets with their new teammate, while the new member will be able to pass along their unique skills to the team and allow everyone to grow.  

7. Invest in Coaching

Investing in the development of your employees can have many benefits, including:

• Reducing turnover
• Attracting new talent
• Maintaining engagement
• Creating leaders from within
• Boosting job performance
• Improving employee satisfaction

Sales teams who have access to effective coaching have 24% higher quota attainment. Investing in coaching now will help your employees develop new skills that will make them both more effective and more engaged in their work.

Valor: Coaching Your Sales Team to Success

We mentioned at the beginning that creating a motivating environment for your sales team to thrive is the most important thing you can do to ensure success in meeting your goals. What is more motivating than having world-class performance coaches personally helping your team members develop mindsets and behaviors that will allow them to perform at their highest level? 

Valor’s elite coaches will customize each coaching session to fit the needs of your organization, your industry, and the individual challenges each of your team members may be facing to ensure they are building and enhancing the correct skills. 

While coaching with Valor will help increase the sales skills of your team members, you may also notice benefits you hadn’t considered before, like the development of new leaders, less turnover, and a new environment of learning and growth.

Conclusion

Successfully meeting big sales goals requires a comprehensive strategy. While you can ensure the correct technology and data points are in place, your team can simultaneously build their confidence, their skills, and their mindset with a Valor coach. 

Request a demo to learn more about Valor Performance Coaching and how it can help you reach your sales goal this year.