Training Industry Magazine - Spring 2023 - 52

Filling the
Gaps in
Your Sales
Training
Investment
By Russ Sharer
Measuring sales performance in
any company is relatively easy. You
simply track the number of new deals,
renewals, margins and revenue. These
are well-understood key performance
indicators (KPIs) for any sales team, and
it's been repeatedly demonstrated that
those organizations that focus on KPIs
get better results.
Given that KPIs are essential to the
sales team and management, are you
tracking the right ones to achieve your
business goals? When management
sets the appropriate KPIs, the sales
team
better
understands how their
performance is measured and where
to focus their time and energy. KPIs
also
identify weaknesses and direct
your sales training's focus. Choosing
strategic KPIs provides a barometer for
individual sales performance and helps
| 52
determine the sales tools, training and
compensation required.
KPIs also need to adapt to suit changing
market conditions and business
goals. Since the COVID-19 pandemic,
companies have had to cope with supply
chain disruptions that affect customer
buying decisions. Inflation is having an
impact on budgets. Buyers are better
educated and more proactive, directly
affecting how to approach selling.
The result? Your KPIs may no longer be
relevant. Sales leaders may fail to adjust
KPIs, which affects sales performance.
Uncertainty can also result in too many
KPIs, too few or ineffective KPIs.
Choosing the right KPIs depends on
your industry, business model, goals and
other factors. Once you identify those key
behaviors that help reach company goals,
you can fill the gaps in your sales training.
How to Establish Curated KPIs
Choosing
the
correct
KPIs
results
in higher profits. The management
consulting firm ZS surveyed 200 middle
managers about their success with KPIs,
and found that market leaders weren't
tracking more KPIs than market laggards
but were tracking different and more
complex APIs.
If you try to track
too much, then
vital information
may be lost.
High-growth companies tend to curate
their APIs, identifying the factors
most relevant to business objectives.
Approximately half of the companies
ZS surveyed also started tracking new
KPIs, aligning desired sales results with
business objectives and abandoning
KPIs that were no longer relevant. Their
research showed that high-growth
organizations revisited their KPIs
regularly, whether annually or quarterly,
and adjusted them as needed.
It also pays to use calculated KPIs (i.e.,
metrics with multiple data points that can
be shaped into a single metric). Calculated
KPIs can give you a better indication of
performance and enable better-informed
decision-making. For example, ZS reports
that 50% of high-growth companies
look beyond customer spending and
track customer lifetime value, including
purchase frequency and longevity factors.
In curating KPIs, choose KPIs that
connect sales to the organization.
Sharing the data with other departments
provides greater transparency and a
perspective on overall performance.

https://trainingindustry.com/continuing-professional-development/resources-for-the-learning-leader/the-strategic-planning-toolkit/ https://www.zs.com/insights/five-ways-that-middle-market-companies-use-kpis-to-drive-higher-peformance https://www.zs.com/insights/five-ways-that-middle-market-companies-use-kpis-to-drive-higher-peformance https://trainingindustry.com/wiki/learning-technologies/experience-api-tin-can-api/ https://trainingindustry.com/articles/measurement-and-analytics/measure-these-kpis-to-prove-trainings-impact-cptm/ https://trainingindustry.com/articles/measurement-and-analytics/3-important-kpis-to-track-using-your-lms/

Training Industry Magazine - Spring 2023

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