If your sales leader asked you how your sales team is doing, what metrics would you look at? Number of closed deals, meetings booked, calls made, or something else entirely?
While key performance indicators, or KPIs, are the best way to see how your team is doing and the health of your pipeline, it can be a little overwhelming with so many different KPIs and data points to look at.
But some are more insightful than others. To help make your life a little easier, here are the 5 best sales KPIs you should be monitoring right now.
Optimizing your sales funnel? Start here.
Tap into the metrics that stand between you and your revenue goals. Get our checklist of basic and advanced KPIs that best-in-class sales organizations use to measure success. Use these slides as the framework to anchor your sales team meetings, training sessions, strategic planning, forecast calls, or executive briefings.
KPI #1: Number of New Leads
Leads are the bedrock of sales. Without leads, you have no sales, and without a consistent flow of leads, sales forecasting is a nightmare. Thats why you need to be tracking the number of new leads your sales team is generating each month.
This metric is your canary in the coal mine--if this number starts dropping, you need to act quickly because the revenue source is at risk.
How you track the number of new leads will depend on your teams definition of a lead. For instance, you may determine that if somebody clicks on a certain page, or signs up for a certain webinar, then they are a qualified lead. Or, if you use lead scoring, you may determine that a certain score determines when someone becomes a lead.
Just remember, this isn't the time for vanity metrics. Dont lower your standards for a lead to make this number look better. A lead should only be considered a lead if there is a real chance of conversion.
It may also be a good idea to track this metric per rep as well as on a team-wide basis which allows you to narrow down which reps may need more support or training on bringing in new business.
KPI #2: Conversion Rate
Having a consistent flow of new leads doesn't mean much unless your team can convert them into paying customers. Thats why you need to keep a close eye on your conversion rate.
Conversion rate is the number of sales divided by the number of leads. It tells you how efficiently your team is converting the leads that enter the funnel.
If this number is low it could mean several things:
- Your reps may need more training or support
- Your sales process may need more work
- Your lead qualification needs work
If you see your conversion rate dropping, its time to dive in and find out what is going wrong. This is another metric that may be best if tracked per-rep to make troubleshooting easier.
KPI #3: Customer Engagement
According to Gallup research, an engaged customer represents a 23% increase in profitability and revenue, making it one of the best sales KPIs to track.
Why?
Simply put, the higher the customer engagement, the more likely you are to convert that lead and create a long-term customer.
Every customer engagement across social media, email, website, and in-person meetings, measures how frequently a lead interacts with your company, but organizations may assign leads different values. For instance, how does email activity compare to social media interaction with your company?
Luckily, Outreach tracks engagement activity metrics and Outreach Amplify uses AI to track customer engagement and provide sales process recommendations.
A low customer engagement score can be a warning sign that a specific deal may not be as solid as you thought, or it may help you identify a problem in your process as a whole.
KPI #4: Churn/Retention Rate
Keeping track of how happy your customers are is also measuring how likely they are to stay a customer, and is extremely important for your organization's long-term health.
Making a sale today is great, but if every sale you make results in a dissatisfied customer who ultimately leaves, or churns, then you have a problem.
This can happen for many reasons:
- They may feel misled about the product
- They may not have been onboarded properly or they may not have adequately supported after purchase
- There may have been misalignment between their problem and your solution
Regardless of the reason, you want long-term customers to stay and watching your retention rate is the best way to see if you're succeeding.
KPI #5: Pipeline Velocity
Pipeline velocity tells you how a deal moves from prospect to close, whether it's won or lost, and identifies the sales cycle length, deal size, and win-rate to tell you how much money is moving through your pipeline every day.
In truth, the specific number isnt that important, but you should identify a benchmark to judge your entire pipeline process. If your conversion rate goes down your pipeline velocity will be negatively affected, but if your sales cycle goes up, your pipeline velocity will be positively affected.
So how exactly do you calculate pipeline velocity?
This one is a little more complicated, so stick with me. You multiply the number of qualified opportunities, your win-rate, and the average deal size together. Then divide that number by your sales cycle (in days).
If you could only look at one KPI, pipeline velocity would likely be the best sales KPI to keep track of, simply because it gives you such a holistic view of the health of your sales system.
As a Sales Manager, there are a lot of things that you have to keep track of. You're the captain of the ship, and you need to be watching for rocks ahead. Knowing what warning lights to keep an eye on is key to your success.
Thats what these KPIs are, warning lights that something isn't right.
If you aren't tracking these KPIs already, talk to your Outreach customer success rep about where in the platform you can find the data and metrics you need.
