Sales Halftime Report: 3 Quick Checks to Recover Lost Ground

The fiscal year is almost over for many of us. If you’re on target with your company sales goals and strategies, congratulations! Keep up the great work. But if you are behind, clearly, you have some catching up to do. Don’t despair, though. There’s still time to recover lost ground.

The question you might be asking yourself might be: What changes will move the needle the most? Furthermore, where should I spend my time, effort, and money for the greatest impact?

Here are three quick checks to diagnose performance shortfalls and recover that lost ground.

1. Examine revenue from existing customers – While the tendency is to look to new customers, it’s critically important to manage your existing customer base first. Simply put, it’s the surest path to revenue growth. And there are several ways to do this:

• Run a report on revenue by customer and compare that to last year. Have those numbers dropped off? If so, you should figure out why. Many times, events such as key customer personnel or account manager turnover can have a huge impact on the relationship. Have any accounts been neglected or at risk? Are they growing as you expected? If not, why?
• Do your analysis and schedule key account reviews to get the facts and a plan.

2. Examine revenue from new logos – Have you landed the number of new logos you expected? If not, are you generating enough leads? If not, which lead generation activities are performing well, and which aren’t? Do you need to change your marketing mix or messaging moving forward? Are leads converting into opportunities at the expected rate? If not, are unqualified leads passing through to your sales team, or are your sales reps not executing effectively? Run a report on disqualified leads by lead source and rep, and look for patterns. Then ask yourself
   • Is your Win Rate, Average Deal Size, or Sales Cycle Time meeting expected? If not, then conduct some opportunity reviews to better understand why. Are you losing or are deals just getting pushed? Are your reps discounting to win? This could highlight a sales execution issue or competitive issues.
   • Finally, if you have a sales cycle longer than three months, the clock is really winding down for you. Identify your “must-win deals” this year and create strategies to give yourself the best shot at success this year. 
3. Examine revenue by sales rep – Start by running a report on revenue and bookings by sales rep. For the reps that are behind expectations, are there any surprises? Are any at risk of washing out or leaving on their own? It can take three months just to replace a rep, so it is much better to retain them if possible. This starts by getting their performance where it needs to be. Do you know their strengths and weaknesses? If not, then consider using a predictive simulation to identify their training and coaching needs. 

It is easy trying to “Boil the Ocean” to turn around performance, but starting with these three checks usually helps you find the simplest, most obvious actions to make your numbers matter.

What are you doing to improve your sales hiring process?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. If you are satisfied with the average over 1 in 3 success rate for new sales hires, then continue doing what you are doing. But if you want to improve your odds, then consider using a predictive simulation to improve quality, consistency, and efficiency throughout the process.

For B2B sales organizations needing to minimize the risk of bad hires and move fast to land the best applicants, the Sciolytix Sales Performance Predictor (S2P2) is a next-generation talent assessment that quickly and accurately predicts quota attainment while delivering an engaging, differentiated experience for candidates.

Traditional hiring assessments are usually better than gut instinct, but like any tests, candidates hate taking them. Furthermore, traditional assessments only predict potential and not performance. S2P2 puts candidates into realistic selling situations with 3D avatar simulations, scores their interactions with virtual prospects, and through AI, predicts their expected quota attainment. 

S2P2 gives your managers insight to avoid bad hiring decisions, improves hiring objectivity and consistency, and shows candidates you are a forward-thinking company that takes their development seriously. 

Bottom line, we are revolutionizing the way organizations hire, onboard, develop talent, and create a fair hiring process for all. Predictive simulations are the latest enhancement we’re adding to that arsenal of products.