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Key Sales Trends
Quota Attainment
The numbers are in from CSO Insights. They've released their latest 2013 Sales Performance Optimization Study after surveying over 1500 firms of various size and across multiple industries.
Since 1994 CSO's comprehensive research tracks key trends and various data points across sales organizations with teams of less than 25 to greater than 500 salespeople, with revenues less than $1 million to greater than $1 billion.
While increasing since a low in 2009, there was a flattening of sales reps making quota between 2011 and 2012. Average % of sales reps making quota:
- 2012 - 63%
- 2011 - 63%
- 2010 - 59%
- 2009 - 52%
As for achieving overall sales targets, the following breaks down the average % of companies hitting revenue goals:
- < 75% of Goal - 23%
- 75%-89% of Goal - 15%
- 90%-99% of Goal - 20%
- 100%-109% of Goal - 34%
- 110%+ of Goal - 8%
That's 42% of firms meeting or exceeding their 2012 revenue targets. Interesting to note that the 23% for firms achieving less than 75% of revenue targets was an increase from 14% a year earlier. With market turmoil and increasing targets, clearly not everyone is out of the woods yet.
More...
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New 2013 2nd Edition!
42 Rules to Increase Sales Effectiveness
by Michael Griego  |
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Champions and Masters 
As college basketball NCAA Champions get crowned this week (congrats Louisville), and attention shifts to The Masters (the PGA's next major golf tournament), competitive people paying attention are enthralled with excellent performances in both wins and losses along the way.
It's a microcosm of the sales world.
Like sports at any level, it's a battle out there in the sales arena. Company leadership places bets on recruits (salespeople), coaching staffs (management), and organizational machinery (infrastructure). There is training, practice, strategy, gameplans, adjustments, talent assessment, technique, mechanics, equipment/product, skill essentials, skills development, mental toughness, analysis and reviews. Lots of moving parts that could go awry.
Sports Champions win many games along the way to the top of the heap. Same with Sales Champions. Some small deals (games) - the ones you have to win and are expected to win. Some large deals - the key deals that you need to learn how to win if you're going to be a Top Producer in your company or industry. The losses in previous rounds (months/quarters/years) are but grooming experiences that go down hard but teach lessons for future success. It's a rare Sales Super Star who hasn't had a bitter loss on the way to a championship year.
To stretch the analogy, Sales Champions are also Sales Masters. There are no fluke Sales Super Stars. Top Sales Rookies have a history of previous success. Top Sales veteran producers consistently play an "A Game." They have mastered selling skills with experiences, knocks, wins and losses that have honed a finely tuned professional selling machine, a literal Sales Master.
Having a championship season and career?
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Top 3 Sales Priorities in 2012 vs 2013
When CSO's were interviewed and asked in 2011 what their top sales priorities were for the coming 2012 year, across the globe they said:
1. Increase Sales Effectiveness (56%)
2. Increase Revenues (52%)
3. Improve Up-Selling/Cross-Selling (38%)
When interviewed in 2012 for the upcoming 2013 year, CSO Insights research reveals a potentially different emphasis, or a clarified focus:
1. Capture New Accounts (65%)
2. Increase Sales Effectiveness (52%)
3. Increase Existing Account Penetration (36%)
It appears that driving new business in New Accounts is back in vogue. Improving Sales Effectiveness will always rate high - so much to work with (executing selling process/methodology, assessing and developing salespeople, adopting the right tools and technology mix). Growing existing accounts (Account Penetration) and deal sizes (Up-Selling/Cross-Selling) are variations on the theme to Increase Revenues.
No real surprises here. Seems like a settling back down into sales normalcy.
More...
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Rule #4 - It's All About Your Customer
So if it's not about you (Rule 2) and it's not about your products (Rule 3), then what is it all about? Well, who's left? It's all about your customer. In sales, the customer is number 1. The customer rules. The sun rises and sets with customers whose purchase of products pay the bills. This should come as no surprise. Then why do we sometimes forget our focus? Because, of course, it's easy to default to focusing on ourselves and our products.
The best companies get this right. When I worked for IBM early in my career it was ingrained in all of us that the customer came first. IBM is a world-class services, engineering and manufacturing company. It's a world-class sales, service and support organization. Across every plant and field branch office, make no mistake that all efforts evolved around ultimately satisfying customer wants and needs. From my perspective, at IBM, Sales is King, but the Customer is Number 1. All employees moved toward the fulfillment of keeping customers coming in and staying in the fold and growing their relationship with Big Blue.
I've never forgotten how that priority permeated the culture of the organization. While there was a healthy respect for our own products, sales prowess and service reputation, there was an almost reverential feeling toward our existing customers and prospects. This carried over into how we as salespeople approached, serviced and sold to them. It wasn't always perfect, but the culture drove the effort. Even our selling process (in the 1980s) carried the mantle Customer-Oriented Selling.
With the correct focus on the customer, the foundation for sales success and thus effectiveness is laid....
Do you put your customer's first?
Get the Book...
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Edison on Sales Success 
"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
- Thomas Edison, American inventor |
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