The Sales Metrics That Will Actually Matter in 2016

For the longest time, sales reps have been bound to activity metrics. How many calls are you making? How many emails are you sending? How many product demonstrations have you booked? These metrics (along with quota) helped managers determine whether a rep was doing their job well or falling short.

But what if those metrics suddenly lost their value? What if instead of activity-based reps, we had something totally different?

As another year comes to an end, the old sales playbook is starting to fade, and an entirely new school of thought is emerging. It’s one that’s focused less on making the maximum amount of calls or sending the maximum amount of emails, and more on developing, maintaining, and strengthening relationships.

And this means that what is being measured is changing, too. Here are three sales metrics that will matter more than ever in 2016.

1) Customer Success

How successful is your customer after they purchase your product? What type of impact does it have on their business? Has their pain point turned into a point of strength?

Sales is no longer about getting someone to sign on the dotted line, setting up their new service, and then wishing them good luck. Instead, reps need to ensure that their customers are not only surviving, but thriving with their product. They must follow up with clients, offer assistance with problems, and help them strategize for the future.

As Forrester's Kate Leggett points out in a blog post, customer success is what’s behindincreasing existing revenue, and influencing new sales. One customer’s success can prompt another prospect to try to your product or service in hopes of attaining a similar outcome. But this virtuous cycle only kicks off if you actively promote and track customer success.

To measure customer success, formulate a customer "health" score. What do the financials look like? How many customers do they have? Get a handle on their business' health as it pertains to your product and then monitor the metric over time.

You can also measure your customers' growth. After all, the best sign of business success is growth. Ask if the company is hiring, taking on more business, or improving customer retention rates. 

2) Loyalty

Churn is still a great metric to measure, especially on a rep-to-rep basis. A rep who maintains a healthy relationship with each of their clients is likely to have a lower churn or cancellation rate. Again, sales is about relationships, and rapport makes a huge difference.

Loyalty, however, is not only about the customer’s feelings towards the sales rep, it’s also about the rep’s loyalty to the customer. According to Jason Wesbecher, “The best [sales reps] are intensely loyal to their customers and step in to solve problems. If things happen to go awry after the sale, the sales rep works on their behalf to fix the situation. This is the social contract that all great salespeople live by.”

The easiest way to measure loyalty is through net promoter score. An NPS measurement simply asks whether or not someone is likely to recommend your service or product to someone else. The rep, and their relationship with the customer, plays a major role in this rating.

3) Customer Feedback

The final thing to measure is your customers’ feedback. What are they saying about your reps? What do they like about their connection to the company, and what do they not like?

Customers need to feel that they have a voice. Offering them a chance to give feedback and provide insights is a great way build a long-lasting and meaningful relationship.

This HBR article from Tom Atkinson and Ron Koprowski points out that the two biggest pet peeves a buyer has with sales reps is a failure to follow their company’s buying process, and a failure to listen to their needs. Managers can determine from customer feedback how well their reps are working with clients in these areas if they take the time to solicit regular feedback. It might be unpleasant to hear where your sales process is failing customers, but getting the chance to right a wrong before a customer jumps ship is invaluable.

To collect customer feedback and report on it, send out a survey. Pose a few questions to your customer base and determine how they feel about your sales process and reps. Remember: Customer feedback shouldn't be solely about the product; it should also cover how clients feel about the company as a whole.

You could also hold a customer day. Invite some folks to your office or headquarters for lunch and talk to them one-on-one. Note their facial expressions and body language when they reflect on their rep.

Instead of making calls for the sake of making calls, reps are instead turning their attention to relationships and what happens after they make a sale. The metrics that matter have shifted, and the modern sales rep is adjusting accordingly. These three metrics are worth watching as you bring your sales team into 2016.

Collectied By...... hubspot

Moral Practices in Sales & Marketing

A marketing strategy details how a business can offer products and services to satisfy the needs of members of a target market. Ethical marketing ensures that the needs are real and that the products and services meet those needs. Over the long term, an ethical marketing strategy is effective because customers derive the benefits they expect from using the products or services your company offers

Your sales and promoting activities need to follow moral standards if you hope to avoid sanctions from restrictive agencies and loss of name with customers. you'll be able to get steering on moral practices from business and promoting associations and develop your own internal policies. moral firms knowledge to respect the rights of all stakeholders within the business whereas creating choices that area unit within the interests of the corporate.

Professional Conduct

Ethical conduct in sales and promoting suggests that employing a skilled approach to customers, competitors, members of restrictive bodies and company colleagues. Characteristics of such conduct embody respectful interactions, thought for cultural diversity and nondiscriminatory behavior toward those that area unit totally different than you. you've got to behave honestly, portray things and merchandise accurately and build constructive contributions to discussions concerning issues and solutions, and you need to observe the applicable laws and rules the least bit times and cling to company ethics policies.

Competition

Healthy competition delivers worth to customers whereas permitting firms that contend to earn associate applicable come on their investment. moral behavior during a competitive setting includes supporting honest competition, competitory on the premise of accurately representing your merchandise and services within the marketplace and fulfilling your obligations in straightness.

Pricing

Following moral pointers in evaluation suggests that costs need to be clear while not hidden charges. the patron should knowledge a lot of he's aiming to pay once he makes the acquisition. Your costs need to mirror each {the cost|the worth|the price} you incur in delivering the merchandise or service and also the value the client expects to receive.

Products

Ethical sales and promoting provide solely safe merchandise that area unit appropriate for his or her supposed use. provide of the merchandise includes activity directions that the client will follow to form the merchandise work as supposed, providing client service to resolve issues and managing issues objectively by applying applicable solutions. Following these moral pointers is nice business apply as a result of it will increase client satisfaction.

Research

Businesses get personal data concerning their customers throughout sales activity and research. moral apply suggests that you respect the privacy of shoppers and safeguard their information. you've got to follow privacy legislation and inform customers that you simply area unit aggregation their information, allow them to grasp its supposed use, use the information just for that purpose and destroy it firmly once you not want it.

Promotion

Sales and promoting embody promoting your merchandise and services to potential customers. moral promotion portrays your offers honestly and accurately, while not links to engaging lifestyles that aren't relevant. you've got to push your merchandise and services on their own deserves and highlight those options that members of a target market would possibly notice valuable once promoting thereto market section..

How to Discover New Customers Through Networking

As a little business owner you most likely already use sales and selling techniques to seek out new customers. however did you recognize that you simply will use networking to form a replacement supply of incoming work? once done systematically, little business networking will assist you find new customers and kick start relationships that will eventually cause new customers. to not mention a number of the opposite advantages of networking, as well as finding opportunities for learning, plan generation, and business growth.

To get you impressed to induce out there and network, here are some ways in which you'll use networking to seek out new shoppers.

Attend Events in Your area people

Take your time to explore skilled teams in your community; you'll have an area Chamber of Commerce, associate industry-specific cluster, or perhaps a a lot of informal native business owners’ cluster that meets on an everyday basis.

Getting attached  native events can offer you instant access to business homeowners in your community United Nations agency will become an excellent referral supply for your business.

Host Your Own native Events

If you wish to require the thought of native events a step more, think about hosting your own workshops, lectures, or categories in your community. whether or not your target market is customers or different businesses, hosting an incident is an excellent thanks to begin networking. It conjointly offers you associated your business quality and helps establish you as an professional in your field, which may cause different business homeowners seeking you out for networking opportunities within the future.

Ask for Referrals and proposals

Once you’ve gotten out there and have met some like  colleagues, it’s time to plant the seeds for future referrals and proposals.

Explain what you hope to accomplish, what your long-run goals ar for brand new business, and  discuss however referrals work into your arrange. Then, build it terribly straightforward for your contacts to refer you by providing all of the knowledge they will would like -- your product/service list, your contact info, relevant links, business cards, brochures, etc.

And, maybe most significantly, be willing to refer the professionals you're networking with within the same approach. you have got to be willing to assist others get the word out concerning their businesses, particularly if you're asking them to try to to a similar for you.

Explore a venture

Joint ventures occur after you aggroup with a fellow business owner to accomplish a project along. This generally includes the event, marketing, and execution of a project that falls in line with a strategic alliance. the most important advantage of a venture is that you simply typically double your investment and your reach, and hopefully your profits, after you aggroup with the proper person. you'll establish venture opportunities through networking, and you'll conjointly realize further networking opportunities through a venture, thus it typically comes full circle.

Take Advantage of on-line Networking

Although there's a massive distinction between face-to-face networking and on-line networking, the latter can give variety of advantages. Not solely will on-line networking assist you meet colleagues you'd have not had the chance to satisfy, however it can even set the muse for in-person networking. Explore wherever there could be opportunities to satisfy up at trade events or collaborate on comes, and choose it.

It takes a time investment and a solid arrange, however with numerous on-line networking choices, you'll expand your network quickly while not ever deed your workplace. Then, use those on-line connections you have created to develop real-world, lasting cooperative relationships that may cause you to an improved business person.

Networking could be a powerful tool for all little business homeowners, for each skilled development and finding new customers. it's going to take a time investment to line the muse, however networking is one amongst the most effective ways in which to forge important relationships that may assist you grow your business within the future.

The Marketing History of Porn in America

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