Hitting Revenue Targets

Achieving sustained pipeline growth has been a core business tenet for companies for as long as sales volume has been measured. However, few companies actually hit the pipeline goals they set to help guarantee yearly revenue targets. Why? Close rates vary by salesperson but a 5x of revenue target is typically a safe metric when wanting to generate the pipeline needed to hit quota.  Since most salespeople are provided a revenue target at the start of each fiscal year, business-plans are built around how they’re going to achieve that goal broken down by actions per month. When management sets a target, they expect the salesperson to work backward from that target and provide a realistic plan to achieve it. This information contributes to the overall company strategy that Sales and Marketing Executives develop to achieve scalable, repeatable growth for the new year. Before sales teams can provide usable data, some initial discovery is typically done on how the company is finding new business and how sales and marketing measure success within these parameters.

Example Survey

1. How much time are Regional Sales Managers spending on researching and prospecting new business? How much of that time is dedicated toward end-user targets versus channel partner targets? What is their method(s) of outreach?
2. How is the company finding new accounts to call? Are they expecting their sales teams to research new accounts independently or are they providing these targets? (Finding the right person to engage with can be extremely time-consuming, which is why most salespeople only spend 9% of their time researching).
3. Who is tasked with qualifying leads? Whether it’s a lead from a website, trade show, local event, or a referral, it takes time to connect, qualify and schedule meetings. The average time or persistency for salesperson follow-up is only 2 calls. The average customer requires 6-12 attempts – this provides a serious disparity for marketing teams if they’re going to see any return on investment.
4. Are they currently measuring lead to revenue effectiveness? What percentage of leads are they currently closing and are they measuring that return on investment?
5. Many manufacturers are hiring inside salespeople to tackle the above time-consuming challenges. Do they have dedicated inside sales resources? If so, who is their primary target for their business development efforts, end-users, or channel partners?
6. Regional Sales Managers are in their element when engaged in face-to-face meetings with end-users. How are they getting in front of end-users? Are most presentations alongside channel partners who are introducing the company to their client or prospective client?
7. What percentage of channel partners are Regional Sales Managers working with? Are these channel partners hitting all vertical markets?
8. What is the weekly load on outside sales and inside sales teams? Where are they spending most of their time and how much administrative or busy work are they engaged in versus meeting with customers? (Check our cracking the sales code article for averages).
9. How many meetings are Regional Sales Managers engaged in per week? If they could increase weekly appointments how would that impact their pipeline?
10. How is the company impacted when a salesperson is either fired or leaves the company? How quickly are they able to recover?
11. If they have inside salespeople, are they able to provide customers with web meetings to qualify requirements and cover their products and services?
12. Are their months consistent or heavy at the end of each quarter? How does this impact production and shipping?.

Summary

This isn’t an exhaustive list of questions but this will help shape the business plans received back from sales. Without tackling pipeline, regional sales managers seldom achieve revenue targets set by executive management. Whether a company is hiring inside sales or looking to outsource customer outreach, increasing qualified projects is the key to hitting a 5x pipeline.

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With our experience representing manufacturers, we’ve seen how dedicated resources provides the necessary bandwidth salespeople need to achieve sustainable pipeline growth. WaveOutreach provides the customer research, outreach, appointment setting and follow up resources needed by manufacturers.

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To find out how your organization can benefit from WaveOutreach™ send us an email or give us a call and we’ll schedule a demonstration of our program and how we’re solving these business challenges and more. Contact Wave Representatives for more information at 858-252-2880. Wave Representatives, LLC™ Your Best Partner™ WaveOutreach™