By leveraging the most predictive leading indicators, Chief Sales Officers (CSOs) can significantly enhance sales team productivity and accelerate revenue growth.
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Sales productivity is limited by the current state of analytics
CSOs have more data and insights at their disposal than ever before — yet many still find that something isn’t adding up. They may overlook the metrics that truly drive performance, resulting in analytics initiatives that fail to deliver meaningful gains in sales productivity.
Discover a proven framework trusted by top-performing sales organizations to align strategic objectives with the most impactful performance data. Our exclusive infographic has insights for CSOs on how to pinpoint high-value metrics, focus on what matters most, and customize their approach by product, channel, and region—eliminating the guesswork and driving results.
Drive sales productivity with a tiered model
To decide which performance metrics are most relevant, follow the guidance below.
Use a tiered model to design sales performance metrics
Organize performance metrics into tiers to simplify the tasks of finding and communicating relationships among seemingly disparate metrics.
Tier 1: Definition of productivity — Metrics such as revenue per time period, profitability, and customer and revenue retention that describe the primary function of a sales role.
Tier 2: Lagging indicators — Descriptive metrics that can be used to assess historical performance, such as deal count, win rate and average deal size. Examine these lagging indicators to determine which are most impactful for the business and most useful for comparing sellers.
Tier 3: Leading indicators — Predictive metrics that measure seller activity and signal future sales performance, such as lead response time, interaction quality and sales cycle time. In collaboration with key stakeholders such as chief sales officers (CSOs), hypothesize which leading indicators contribute to sales outcomes, and then test these hypotheses with tools like linear regression analysis or AI capabilities within the RevTech stack. Lean on your CSO to empower sales enablement to work with frontline managers to identify which activities are believed to drive success — and then have sales operations test these correlations.
Focus on maximizing adoption to increase sales productivity
After separating performance metrics into tiers, the next step, in partnership with your CSO, is to roll out the model to the frontline organization. To foster user adoption and engagement, emphasize the model’s benefits, such as helping sellers focus on behaviors that have the greatest impact on sales productivity.
While sales managers can be opinionated about their preferred metrics, leaders can improve trust by being transparent about how the model was built, delving into the technical details if necessary and presenting examples and evidence of the model’s effectiveness.
Measure the model’s impact on sales productivity
Once the model rolls out, measure and reevaluate it on a regular basis. This involves:
Establishing productivity baselines to use as a future point of comparison
Periodically determining whether the current tier 3 metrics remain the best leading indicators
Making tier 3 metrics more visible by adding them to dashboards, town halls, sales kickoffs, etc.
Using tier 3 metrics as a basis to coach sellers, based on their performance outcomes in tier 2 metrics
Continually redesign performance metrics
Sales performance metrics shouldn’t stay the same over time. As business conditions shift and new challenges emerge, the connection between seller behaviors and outcomes also changes. That’s why improving productivity isn’t a one-time fix, it’s a continuous process. To stay ahead, work with your CSO to build an adaptive strategy that evolves with the business.
Help the team by:
Using sales outcomes to define lagging indicators
Identifying quantifiable seller behaviors that could serve as leading indicators
Testing how well those behaviors predict outcomes, so the metrics stay focused and useful
Every six months, CSOs, sales operations, and enablement leaders should:
Look at what top sellers are doing and talk to frontline managers to form new ideas about what drives success
Use data to test those ideas and measure the impact
Share updates with managers and train them to coach using the new insights
Frontline managers should then:
Use comparative data to understand each seller’s strengths and skills gaps
Coach based on individual performance, not just team averages
Support sellers with a mix of behavior-based and outcome-based metrics
Sales productivity FAQs
How can you increase sales productivity?
To increase sales productivity and effectiveness, develop an explainable framework of seller performance metrics organized into a clear hierarchy that links quantifiable metrics and enables sales operations leaders to prioritize the metrics based on comparative analysis. This brings clarity to teams and sets the groundwork for tracking and coaching.
How do you calculate sales rep productivity?
To calculate sales rep productivity, conduct an assessment on where sellers are focusing their time using the Gartner Seller Time Spend Assessment diagnostic tool. The assessment evaluates 56 activities to provide a holistic view of how sellers use their time and enables you to identify potential areas for increased sales force efficiency. By understanding how sellers currently allocate their time, you can determine opportunities to optimize time management and enhance productivity.
What is a leading indicator?
A leading indicator is a metric businesses use to predict future trends or events. In the context of sales productivity, leading indicators help sales leaders predict which sales representatives are likely to be most successful.
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