12 Effective Ways To Improve Your Sales Efficiency Metrics

Sales efficiency is key to your company’s success. It indicates how well your team uses its time and resources to achieve optimal results. If your sales team is inefficient, you won’t be able to hit sales targets and grow your business as fast as you want. 

In this blog post, we will cover some of the most common challenges with measuring and improving sales efficiency metrics and provide valuable tips and techniques for doing so. We will also show you how to use Wonderway to achieve these goals.  Read on to discover more!

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What is sales efficiency?

Sales efficiency compares the results your sales efforts bring with the expenses needed to achieve those results. This simple formula will tell you if your sales teams or individual members are doing a good job and if your sales efforts are worthwhile. Here is the formula for sales efficiency calculation:

Sales efficiency = Sales revenue / Sales expenses

Let's say, for example, your whole sales team closed $220k last quarter. Considering their salaries, bonuses, rent, any subscriptions and equipment they are using, Internet, electricity, and other upkeep bills, and sales and marketing spend throughout the customer journey, you will come with $110k, meaning your sales efficiency was $220k/$110k = 2.  

If you calculate sales efficiency, you will get a specific number to determine if you are doing a good job and see if your changes are effective.  

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Sales efficiency vs. sales effectiveness: What is the difference?

Sales effectiveness is a company-wide approach to sales that integrates data, processes, and people to drive measurable business outcomes. Sales leaders must measure sales effectiveness throughout the whole sales cycle.  

It's also an area of growing interest among software vendors who see an opportunity in the market for new solutions that help users tackle challenges like generating more leads, getting more deals signed, and driving better execution of their sales processes. 

Sales effectiveness has many definitions depending on the source. But generally speaking, it’s the result of focusing on what matters most to your company and putting processes in place to ensure your team has everything they need to succeed.

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Why is sales efficiency important for your sales team?

Determining which sales efficiency metrics are essential will help you stay on track and ensure you spend your resources and time optimally. Picking the right metrics to track will also help with sales effectiveness, as your sales teams can focus on more specific goals, not just broad numbers.

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What is the essential sales efficiency metric to track?

The most crucial sales efficiency metrics to keep an eye on and ensure maximal results are:

• Total revenue: the vital metric for any business, total revenue is self-explanatory. It's essential to track yearly income and keep an eye on quarterly and monthly changes to ensure everything goes as planned. You can also track recurring revenue generated, which will tell you much about the company's cash flow.
• Customer acquisition cost: this sales efficiency metric will help you determine how much you are spending to bring in a new customer, most of which will be your marketing costs.
• New vs. existing customers/products: this will tell you more about sales effectiveness, not just efficiency, as acquiring new customers and increasing the number of sales of new products is an important goal for any business. But, simultaneously, you want to ensure that your existing customers are happy and that your flagship products are still going strong.
• Revenue per customer: this sales efficiency metric will tell you how much you earn per customer. While you want to make as much as possible per account, if the majority of your income comes from only a few customers, you are at higher risk if you lose them.
• Market share: understanding how well you perform against the total addressable market estimate will uncover the potential room for improvement. If your current market penetration is nonexistent, you should aim to grow it rapidly. On the contrary, if you dominate the market, it would be too much to expect exponential growth to continue.

Tracking sales efficiency metrics seems easy, but there are many challenges that go with it. Let’s discuss the most significant ones.

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The 9 biggest challenges with sales efficiency metrics

While the sales efficiency ratio is a simple formula, determining what affects it and how to track those metrics isn't that simple. Here are some of the typical sales mistakes and efficiency issues.

1. Defining what sales efficiency actually means

We have discussed how company sales efficiency and effectiveness are often mistaken. Improving efficiency will increase revenue from every dollar you invest in your sales process. Improving effectiveness will help you reach your business goals, which doesn't always correlate with increased profits short-term, but will pay off in the long run.

Sales effectiveness and efficacy aren't opposed to one another; they are just different. Your job is to determine what you want to improve and align your processes with that choice.

2. Determining the appropriate KPIs to track

We have talked about some crucial sales metrics, but depending on your situation, you might choose differently. Also, you need to decide if you want to track monthly, quarterly, or yearly metrics. It may seem that a shorter tracking cycle is better, but you should leave enough room for the changes to take effect.

3. Gathering accurate data

While it's easy to compare the gross sales efficiency to last year's, collecting accurate sales data is different. You should track the sales productivity of your entire team, each rep's results, and each sales channel. 

Over time you will see where your team performs well and what you need to change. If individuals have specific strengths, you should double down on them instead of insisting they do things that don't suit them if they have other colleagues who can fill that role more successfully.

4. Misinterpretation of data

Collecting data is one thing, but drawing the correct conclusions matters. Don't act impulsively if you see that sales efficiency drops, especially in the short term. Take a step back and only make a few changes at a time to know which actions bring results.

5. Identifying trends and patterns

Identifying trends and patterns will help you predict future events, ensuring you don't get caught off-guard by events such as the holiday season rush or a few of your employees getting sick. It will also help you uncover room for improvement within the sales process itself, improving sales efficacy overall. 

You may also notice negative patterns within the sales organization, giving you sales training ideas for future improvements.

6. Measuring the results

Once the month, quarter, or year finishes, it's time to gather data and measure sales productivity. Compare everything to the last period, and see how it reflects on other business goals, not just gross revenue. It is where you should think about sales effectiveness and if your processes align with the company goals.

7. Determining root causes

Sometimes things don't go as planned, which is entirely normal. The most important thing is not to panic but to draw the correct conclusions. 

For example, a weak year might be due to global events like the COVID-19 crisis. Or, maybe a few of your employees took maternity leaves, making one of your quarters a bit slower, as you needed to find replacements. 

8. Ineffective sales training

If you determine that the issues are within your team and that your reps should perform better, it's up to you to improve that. Hiring more experienced staff will work, but it's a much better idea to upgrade the skills of teammates already here. 

Wonderway is one solution you can use to improve the results of your sales team. It brings all of your performance data into one place, helps you identify skill gaps, and enables you to provide adequate training to cut ramp time in half. 

To see how Wonderway works, book a demo today.

9. Lack of technology

If it's not staff issues or global factors, problems might arise from your tech stack. Maybe it's time to ditch Excel sheets and cold calling and invest in more sophisticated tools and modern sales channels.

Since we covered all critical challenges, it’s time to discuss solutions to help you improve your sales efficiency metrics. Let’s discuss each in the following section.

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12 ways to boost your sales efficiency metrics

Now that you realize there's room for improvement, let's discuss some concrete measures you can take to improve your sales efficiency metrics today.

1. Define your most important sales metrics

Defining sales metrics should be the first step so you can track your results and understand what you need to improve. Focus only on a few at a time, as it is a constant process, not a one-time fix.

2. Create consistent sales processes

Creating a step-by-step sales process will help your reps perform better and enable you to make careful changes and track results.

3. Create a culture where your reps are constantly improving

It isn't about cracking the whip but creating a genuine culture where growth is encouraged and incentivized. People should be motivated to grow, not pressured, so do your best to create an environment that will help them improve continuously.

4. Make intelligent use of technology

While an outdated tech stack can bottleneck your sales performance, using too many apps will also hinder it. Use quality tools, but choose carefully, as you don't want to waste time on even more training for something that doesn't bring any results. 

Choosing the right sales performance management software is essential.

5. Set up a CRM and sync it with your email and calendar

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) should be the foundation of your sales process. Sync it with your email, calendar, and other communication tools to ensure it becomes a central point of your efforts.

6. Automate prospecting and follow-up activities

While you can't replace everything with automation, prospecting and follow-up are excellent places to start. Set up your automation tools to filter through connections that aren't in your target group. Create a schedule of follow-up activities to keep potential customers engaged.

7. Use lead scoring to identify the hottest leads

Lead scoring will help you stay focused on those leads with higher conversion potential, directly resulting in sales productivity increases.

8. Create a standardized lead-nurturing process

A standardized lead-nurturing process will help you with efficiency and enable you to automate tasks such as sending newsletters, follow-up messages, and similar assignments that would waste your reps' time.

9. Utilize a calendar to schedule meetings and follow-up actions

Syncing meetings and follow-ups across the entire team will help everyone stay on the same page and eliminate redundancy and repetition.

10. Hold weekly meetings to stay aligned with your team

Even though apps help you get a birds-eye-view of the entire team, staying in touch and asking people in person what can be improved is vital. It is especially true if you run remote teams, as it will help you create personal connections.

11. Measure everything and find the sources of inefficiency

"You can't manage what you don't measure"– collect data during the entire sales funnel. Even if you don't analyze everything now, the collected data might come in handy later in your company's development.

12. Recognize and reward success

If a sales team member stands out with stellar performance, honor their efforts and reward them. It will make them feel appreciated and motivate other teammates to give their best effort, knowing it won't go unnoticed.

Since we discussed some helpful solutions, let’s discuss how software can help you improve your sales efficiency metrics.

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How Wonderway improves your sales efficiency metrics

Wonderway will directly help you improve sales efficiency metrics across the board, empowering your sales team in every part of the process. Let's explain how.

Wonderway improves your sales team's performance

Wonderway ensures your sales team can sell more products or services in a shorter period. With our sales performance and efficiency platform, your sales team will become more effective at converting leads into customers and growing your customer base. 

With Wonderway, you won't need to hire as many salespeople to achieve better results. We will provide you with the proper tools and training to grow your business and succeed. 

Collecting sales data across multiple systems can be time-consuming and challenging if you want to generate accurate reports. Having all your data in one place makes generating reports much more straightforward and faster, saving you a lot of time and hassle and reducing duplicate entries or other human errors.

Wonderway brings all of your performance data into one place. Whether you want to track CRM, training progress, calls or emails, we have you covered. Wonderway provides valuable information that helps you understand your business, identify trends, and decide where to focus your efforts. 

Wonderway provides effective training

It is where Wonderway excels – advanced training won't turn your reps into superstars overnight but will improve their overall sales qualities, bringing more results from their efforts. 

You can track your team's progress and quickly identify skill gaps of each team member, preventing them from achieving your sales goals. It helps you create personalized training and provides the best examples to learn from to boost your sales reps' outcomes. 

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Wonderway helps you deliver the perfect onboarding program

Wonderway helps you create a perfect sales onboarding plan, maximizing customer satisfaction after the initial sale. It helps new sales hires get up to speed quickly on your company's products, services, and sales process. It accelerates their time to productivity and efficiency, which is critical in a fast-paced sales environment. 

It lets new hires learn and remember important information about your company and products, which they can use to sell to customers effectively. It all together leads to improved motivation and performance.

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Sales efficiency metrics: Wrapping up

As you can see, keeping an eye on your sales efficiency metrics is one of the most important things you can do to get the most out of your sales efforts. Fortunately, advanced tools such as ATLAS help you track the most critical metrics and improve the sales performance of your team members through adequate training.

Book a demo today to learn more about ATLAS.

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Sales efficiency metrics: FAQ

In case you missed something, or just skimmed over the article, let's repeat some of the most important information relating to sales efficiency metrics:

What are sales efficiency metrics?

These are concrete standards and measurements you can use to track your sales efforts' efficiency. These are total revenue generated, revenue per rep, earnings from new customers, and similar.

How is sales efficiency measured?

Sales efficiency is measured by dividing your total sales expenses by the total amount of revenue generated through sales.

What are the ways to measure the performance of sales staff?

While there are many ways to measure how each individual is performing, here are some of the more important ones:

• Total revenue: total money earned per rep is the starting point of any comparison and will be helpful when combined with other metrics.
• Win rate will determine how many opportunities each rep managed to close.
• Deal size: analyzing only the total money earned per rep doesn't paint the complete picture. Some agents will make fewer sales, while others are better at closing bigger ones. Calculating average deal size will help you assign each member tasks they excel upon. 

How do you leverage sales efficiency?

The best way to get the most out of sales efficiency numbers is to make gradual changes and give them enough time to show results. 

Even if your sales efficiency numbers aren't good now, don't make too many changes at once, as you won't be able to determine which worked. Remember, this is not a one-time thing – improving sales efficiency is something you will constantly work on, so don't force changes.