Chief Revenue Officers and sales leaders often find themselves facing a common challenge: how to increase sales velocity and achieve revenue goals. In the quest to accomplish this, the instinctive reaction is to focus solely on the pipeline and generate more opportunities.
After all, it seems like the easiest lever to pull. In the past, businesses would hire armies of SDRs and allocate significant budgets to marketing to fill that pipeline. However, in the current economic period, this approach may not be so easy or effective.
The reality is that a myopic focus on pipeline alone can lead to pouring water into a bucket with holes in it. Yes, you might have a steady stream of opportunities flowing in, but are they converting at the desired rate? Are you truly maximizing your sales velocity? These questions can only be answered through a data-driven approach that delves deep into sales velocity trends and analyses each lever of the sales process.
Data exploration, analysis and trends
To truly impact sales velocity, sales leaders must embark on a journey of data exploration and analysis. This means diving into the trends, going a layer deeper and understanding why they are what they are, and identifying potential areas for improvement. Only by taking a meticulous and data-driven approach, you can gain valuable insights that will help you simulate the gains needed to hit your revenue goals.
For example, if your average deal value trend line continues to decline, yet average length of sales remains stable, perhaps the greater priority should be on deal value.
Improving Opportunity Quality via Qualification
Another crucial aspect of this analysis is evaluating the effectiveness of your current opportunities. It's not enough to focus solely on the quantity of opportunities in your pipeline. Quality matters just as much, if not more. By scrutinising each opportunity, and enhancing your qualification methods, you can identify potential bottlenecks, objections, or gaps in your sales process that may be hindering your sales velocity.
Perhaps your value proposition needs refinement, or your sales team requires additional training in objection handling, implementation of a best practice qualification methodology (such as MEDDPICC).
Pinpointing these issues is essential to maximise the conversion rate and accelerate deals through the pipeline.
Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis should extend beyond the immediate sales process.
Consider evaluating your lead generation efforts, marketing strategies, and buyer journey.
The buyer's journey
Are you attracting the right leads? Is your marketing messaging resonating with your target audience? Are there any friction points along the customer journey that could be optimised?
Understanding the entire buyer's journey and aligning it with your sales process can significantly impact sales velocity.
Lagging Initiatives
We should remember that pipeline initiatives usually lag in terms of revenue gain, perhaps 2-4 quarters out depending on solution. However win rate gains have the potential to be implemented and revenue gain to be realised within the same quarter.
Continuous measurement
Finally, it's vital to continuously track and measure the impact of any changes or optimisations made. By implementing a data-driven culture within your sales organisation, you can monitor the effectiveness of your initiatives and refine them accordingly.
Sales velocity is not a static metric; it requires ongoing analysis and adaptation to stay ahead in a dynamic business environment.
Summary
While the pipeline is undoubtedly an important lever to pull, focusing solely on opportunities can be a shortsighted approach.
To truly impact sales velocity and maximize revenue, sales leaders must embrace a data-driven mindset. By analysing sales velocity trends, understanding the underlying factors influencing conversion rates, and making data-backed optimisations, you can ensure that you're not pouring water outside of the bucket.
Elevating your sales velocity requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses the entire sales process, from lead generation to deal closure.
So, let the data guide you on your quest for accelerated sales velocity and revenue growth.
Can Sales Velocity Labs help me?
In short, yes. Our Sales Velocity Diagnostic offering will uncover unparalleled sales insights.
Using our proprietary techniques, we'll deliver a comprehensive analysis of your sales velocity benchmarks, trends, blindspots and trend simulations. Our insights and recommendations will empower you to define targeted sales optimisation strategies that are laser-focused on delivering measurable ROI.
In addition, the pricing for this offering is completely transparent. Use our calculator below to understand your fixed price:
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Kunal Pandya
Founder & CEO
Sales Velocity Labs
