3 Emerging Metrics for Today’s Sales Manager

3 Emerging Metrics for Today’s Sales Manager: by Dan Perry
Buyers are more self-directed and demand a different sales person.  And this requires a different sales manager.  CEOs that have terminated Sales VPs recently state performance is only part of the reason.   The other is the inability to get consistent performance from sales managers.  Sales VPs pressed for time ask what an ‘A’ Sales Managers look like today. ‘A’ player Sales Mgrs. know that the buyer has changed. They must change as well if their teams are going to be successful. 
Below is our Emerging Sales Manager Assessment Tool.  This tool will help you determine if your Sales Managers are prepared for the future.

Three emerging metrics needed for SMs: (weight these higher this year than other metrics)

1. Revenue Contribution Ratio:  Over 35% of quota is achieved from big deals. These deals ensure you will exceed your quota. ‘A’ player SMs know how to get these deals done.  Great Sales Managers consistently review sales rep opportunities.  They involve the proper resources in the company to get the deal done. These guys have pipeline reviews that stimulate buyer action.  And are actively involved in a deal over 2X the ASP for their team.  A Sales VP cannot get into the weeds of every deal. They must rely on their Sales Mgrs. to do this work.  Better have a good one.
2. Forecast Accuracy Percentage:  You can count on ‘A’ SMs to forecast every quarter within 85% accuracy.  They map every opportunity to a Customer Centric Buying Process.  Forecasting is according to where the buyer is in their process, not the seller.  ‘A’ player SMs can predict their sales when they are still leads. 
3. Selling Weeks Ratio:  You cannot afford open Sales Manager or Sales Rep Positions. ‘A’ player SMs today use Linked-In and Intra-personal connections ensuring no open territories.  We call that an internal bench.  Do you realize that for every open territory, team quota attainment drops by 13%?  This causes unnecessary strain on the team to make up the gap. Ensuing margin erosion occurs due to the frantic need to shorten the sales cycle.  One word describes this situation: Ugly.

The first step is determining your current Sales Mgrs. talent level. Use the tool to dive deep into actions your Sales Mgr. needs to perform weekly.  It has ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ SMs answers to  given scenario based questions.  Answers to these questions will help you assess your SMs for these emerging metrics. It will also identify gaps these SMs have. You can then create development profiles to help them succeed.
One of our clients recently focused on these metrics in their talent assessments. Evaluating over 55 sales managers caused us to notice:

• Superior SM quota performance directly correlated to high scores on the three metrics.
• Low scores on these metrics correlated to high scores in more traditional competencies. (i.e. Planning and Adaptability)
• Only 20% of SMs scored exceptionally high in these new metrics.  ‘A’ players were easy to recognize.

The implication is simple: SMs who exceeded their quota last year scored high on these emerging metrics.  Making the number is critical this year.  CEO and company loyalty is at a new low.  Great SM talent is at a premium. They need to perform well on these metrics.
Call to Action:

• Assess each Sales Mgr. on the three metrics using the assessment tool. Total time per Sales Mgr.=15 minutes
• Create Individual Development Profiles (IDP) for gaps identified during the assessments. Total time per Sales Mgr.=15 minutes to create the IDP and 15 minutes every other week to check on their progress.
• Measure yourself (the Sales VP or Director) on these three metrics.  Do you need a development plan?

Leave a comment or contact me here.  We will help review your output of your Sales Manager Assessments from this free tool.  We can also assist in creating development profiles that did not score well.  Your quota is counting on it.

Author: Dan Perry

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