Sales Performance Holds Steady Year-Over-Year, But Growth Plans Take a Big Jump
For the second year in a row, the number of sales people meeting quota was 63%. This, in turn, contributed to overall revenue plan attainment of 88% in keeping with last year’s high-water mark. The ability of sales forces to deliver consistent results against last year’s higher revenue targets reflects an improving business climate but is, nevertheless, impressive.
2013 brings its own challenges with both higher revenue targets (16.4% higher, on average) and plans for significant growth (12.2%, on average) in sales organizations during a time of the lowest levels of sales rep turnover ever recorded. “The immovable object (reps staying put) and the irresistible force (growing orgs) means something’s got to give,” said Barry Trailer, managing partner. “We believe you’ll be seeing a spike in turnover/rep movement this year.”
The report also highlights other significant trends. “Social selling in B2B will not grow as fast as everyone thinks, mobility will be bigger, and Big Data could be huge,” said Jim Dickie, managing partner. “While social media has seen big increases in numbers of users, benefits are still uncertain. But there’s no uncertainty at the enthusiasm individual reps and, by extension, companies running fast to keep up, are showing for tablets and other mobile devices.” Dickie added, “This isn’t just about displaying traditional data on mobile devices but rather leveraging these devices in new ways.”
Assembling, analyzing, and leveraging operational as well as sales data continues to fuel Big Data’s promise but companies are still trying to figure out the best way to do this.
Enhancing lead generation, and better alignment between sales and marketing are high on the list of planned initiatives but the data show that the real payoff from these comes when combined with consistent sales process implementation. It would be terrific to leave it to marketing to generate all leads but the reality for most reps today remains self-reliance. However, source of leads alone is not as big a difference maker as one might imagine—or reps might dream.
When firms in which marketing generated the majority of leads were compared with those where reps generated most of their own leads, the differences were not great. It was only when sales process was added to the mix that it suddenly appeared the reps not only were getting more leads but were also much more effectively executing with these leads (see table).
In addition to the 200+ page analysis based on all the survey responses, CSO Insights has also created benchmark reports for vertical industries. These include Manufacturing Professional Services, Software, Advertising/PR/Media, Distribution, Medical Devices, Telecom and Insurance. Details on the 2013 Sales Performance Optimization study can be found on the CSO Insights’ Reports webpage or can be obtained by contacting Laura Andrus at Laura.Andrus@csoinsights.com.
About CSO Insights
CSO Insights (http://www.csoinsights.com) is a sales and marketing effectiveness research firm that specializes in measuring how companies are leveraging people, process, technology, and knowledge to improve the way they market to and sell to customers. For 19 years, CSO Insights’ surveys of over 12,000 sales effectiveness initiatives has been the standard for tracking the evolution of the role of sales, revealing the challenges that are impacting sales performance, and showing how companies are addressing these issues.
Media
• To interview Jim Dickie, please email Jim.Dickie@csoinsights.com or call 303-521-4410
• To interview Barry Trailer, please email Barry.Trailer@csoinsights.com or call 916-712-9621
• To obtain a PDF copy of the full report, please email Kim Cameron at kim.camerson@csoinsights.com or call 775-831-9013
•Tag: sales performance, sales effectiveness, sales optimization
