For me, a big part of this is to look at the numbers. Checking historical sales and service delivery numbers is important to be able to understand what is really possible with the resources at our disposal. There’s no point in setting ridiculously lofty goals without determining what’s possible with the resources to hand, especially if the business is not open to making the investments necessary to deliver the goals.
Numbers to review will include some or all of the following:
- deal values, deal profitability
- deal values delivered per team / per rep
- sales cycle time
- Lead to MQL - SQL - SAL - Opportunity identified - Proposals issued - Deal WON / LOST
- analysis of where potential deals are getting stalled in the sales process
- what effect positive tweaks to conversion rates will have on deal-win ratios
- market size
- competitive positioning
Going through this analysis will help to set realistic goals.