Sales KPIs: The best KPIs for Sales Teams
The sales team is an integral part of any B2B business.
After all, with no sales, there’s no revenue.
And so, many managers make it a daily task to find new ways of improving their sales operations.
But how can you know what elements of your sales team need improvements? or if your changes are having any impact at all?
Sales KPIs help you identify areas of improvement and the overall performance of your sales operation.
Let’s break down the best sales KPIs to track at any sales team.
How to Use Sales KPIs
Now, before we get started, we need to go over how to properly use and interpret KPIs.
After all, KPIs are nothing more than indicators and metrics.
As a result. They exist in within a larger context inside your company. A KPI can only tell you where to look for changes in team performance, but it cannot tell you what is behind said change.
For example, let’s say that suddenly your lead generation numbers from your sales team are down 20%. At first, you might think this is pretty bad.
But it could also be positive. It could be that your sales team has found a better approach at lead generation that results in leads that close at significantly higher rates. Your team is now generating fewer leads but more sales.
Every single KPI exists within a context, keep this in mind when tracking and reviewing KPIs at your company. Remember to always have a closer look at what is actually causing the changes in your KPIs.
Top KPIs for Sales Teams
Now it’s time to review some of the best KPIs for any sales team.
Keep in mind that not every company is the same, so some of these KPIs might or might not work for you depending on your business.
Lead Delivery / Marketing Qualified Leads
Lead Delivery (or Lead Generation) might be the first KPI you start tracking for your sales team. After all, every sale starts with a lead.
How many leads is your team generating every month? What sources are generating the most leads, is it your website, outbound calls or in-person meetings?
First Response Time
After your leads are generated, how long does it take for your team to reach out for the first time? Ideally, you’d want this number to be as low as possible.
After all, the longer you wait, the more likely it is that you could lose out on a sales opportunity.
Account Contact Rate
Out of all the new accounts (leads) created? How many of them are actually receiving communications from your team? Are any of the leads falling through the cracks? If so, why?
Ideally, you’d want your Account Contact Rate to be as close to 100% as possible.
Account Engagement Rate
Following up on the previous KPI, we have Account Engagement Rate.
This KPI refers to the number of leads that responded and engaged with your business after your first contact. For example, let’s say that your sales team contacted 100 leads and 40 of them responded with interest in your product or service. In this scenario, your Account Engagement Rate would be 40%.
Reviewing the channels and messaging of your sales outreach can be key in increasing your Engagement Rates. Do you get higher engagement rates through phone or email?
Client Acquisition Rate
Next, we have what might be the second most important KPI for many, the Client Acquisition Rate. This one refers to the number of leads that become paid clients after engaging in communications with your sales team.
Let’s say your team has generated 100 leads, out of those leads, 20 ended up turning into clients. Your Client Acquisition rate would then be 20%.
Meaning that, in average, you would need to generate 5 leads to generate one sale.
You can see, however, how improving some of the KPIs that we’ve mentioned earlier can increase your Client Acquisition Rate as well.
Average Revenue Per Account
Now it’s time to talk money.
Average Revenue Per Account is pretty self-explanatory. Take the total number of revenue generated by each client and divide it by the total number of active accounts.
You can take this a step forward and look at the Average Revenue Per Account Per Industry and identify sectors that are more valuable for your business.
Upsell / Cross-Sell rates
Once you’ve acquired new clients, your next step might involve upselling and cross-selling into other products and upgrades.
Upsell and Cross-sale rates are calculated by looking at the total number of upsells and cross-sales in relation to all your accounts.
Let’s say you have 100 active client accounts and you have managed to upsell to 20 of them. Your upsell rate would then be 20%.
Churn Rates
Churn is incredibly important for any business.
After all, acquiring new customers is generally more expensive than retaining existing customers.
Keeping an eye on your Customer Churn is so important that we have written an in-depth guide on Customer Churn and how it affects your business.
Customer Satisfaction
Through the entire sales cycle, it is important to keep tabs on your customer satisfaction scores.
After all, a happy client is more likely to stay with your business and respond to upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
Our favorite way to calculate customer satisfaction is through Net Promoter Scores, which we have discussed extensively on our guide to Customer Loyalty.
Customer Lifetime Value
This is another important KPI that can have a significant impact on your business.
Customer Lifetime Value refers to the expected revenue that a customer might generate for your business.
This metric seeks to calculate the average value that a customer will generate through its lifetime with the business. That way, you can budget your customer acquisition efforts accordingly.
Calculating this metric is a bit more complicated than most. But don’t fret, we have written an in-depth guide on Customer Lifetime Value and how to calculate it.
Start tracking KPIs with a CRM
Now that you know the value of tracking all these sales KPIs, you might be wondering how to get started with tacking them?
A CRM can help you collect and analyze all the data about your interactions of your customers.Ready to get started? Read our guide on what a CRM is and how it can help your business.