As a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), you already know that sales velocity is a critical metric for driving revenue growth. But here's the thing—tracking sales velocity goes beyond just the surface-level numbers. To truly understand and optimize your sales performance, you need to dig deeper into the metrics that drive sales velocity.
In this article, we'll dive into the sales velocity metrics that CROs like yourself should track and analyze to stay ahead of the game. With each one I will also give examples of levers you can pull in your enablement teams and levers you can pull outside of enablement.
Deal Size and Average Selling Price (ASP)
Let's start with deal size and ASP, my friend. These metrics provide insights into the value of your sales transactions. By understanding the average deal size and ASP, you can gauge the profitability of your deals and identify areas for improvement. Keep an eye on these metrics to ensure your sales team is focusing on high-value opportunities and maximizing revenue potential.
Non-enablement levers to pull: Raise prices of products, offer complimentary products or services
Enablement levers to pull: Coach towards value selling and make price irrelevant or make sure your team is building an ROI/business case for your product or service as part of the sales process
Win Rate
Ah, the win rate—this metric measures the percentage of deals your team successfully closes. It's all about turning prospects into paying customers, right? Tracking win rate allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your sales strategies, identify potential roadblocks in your sales process, and make necessary adjustments. A high win rate indicates that your team is doing something right, while a low win rate calls for a closer look at your sales approach.
Non-enablement levers to pull: Optimise SDR outreach and targeted marketing
Enablement levers to pull: Optimize your discovery and demo process. After working with several companies, I can tell you that focusing on discovery alone will help dramatically with your win rates. If your win rates suck, the first place I would look is your discovery.
Sales Cycle Length
Time is money, my friend! That's where sales cycle length comes into play. It measures the duration it takes for a deal to move from initial contact to closed won. By monitoring sales cycle length, you can identify bottlenecks or areas where deals get stuck, allowing you to streamline your sales process and reduce time-to-revenue. Shortening the sales cycle can have a profound impact on your overall sales velocity and revenue generation.
Non-enablement levers to pull: Optmize your sales process. Match your sales stages and exit criteria with the buyers or customer buying process. Erase all fluff.
Enablement levers to pull: Optimize selling time for your sales team and the process to find content, SME’s, or RFP process.
Number of Opportunities
Now, here's a metric that often gets overlooked: Number of opportunities. Too many times a sales rep’s time and opp efficiency is poorly managed. This is an operational and time management focus that can provide massive value for your team. Stats show that the ideal ratio of selling time to non selling time is 70/30 (when you account for lunches, internal non sales meetings, etc). However, the reality is more like 40/60 and the sales team time is wasted in redundant and useless meetings, unfocused trainings, and low impact activities.
Non-enablement levers to pull: Increase heads of AEs or SDRs and optimize marketing.
Enablement levers to pull: Optimize onboarding for faster time to ramp, automate menial tasks that take time from customers, and even social selling.
Conversion Rates by Sales Stage
One of my favorites, the journey from prospect to customer—it's a series of stages. Tracking conversion rates at each stage of your sales pipeline provides valuable insights into your team's effectiveness in advancing deals. Analyze the conversion rates from one stage to the next to pinpoint areas where prospects may be dropping off or getting stuck. This knowledge empowers you to address any bottlenecks, refine your sales strategies, and optimize your sales process for maximum efficiency.
Non-enablement levers to pull: Optimize operations internally and support teams so that the customer can go through the stages in a streamlined fashion.
Enablement levers to pull: Optimize coaching and make it unique to each rep so they can be coached on how to increase their skills to increase the conversion from one stage to the next.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
As a CRO, you understand that long-term customer relationships are the foundation of sustainable revenue growth. That's where customer lifetime value (CLV) comes in. CLV measures the total value a customer brings to your organization over their lifetime as a customer. By tracking CLV, you can identify your most valuable customers, allocate resources effectively, and focus on building strong customer relationships that drive recurring revenue.
Non-enablement levers to pull: Proactive Customer engagement to seek feedback and really identify where products or services are helping or hindering the customer’s progress towards their goals or fixing their pain.
Enablement levers to pull: Measure sales effectiveness of strategies and identify areas of improvement by using a consistent and personalized coaching model. You can also implement a tech stack that is integrated into your process to streamline sales process, provide valuable insights, and help deliver on scale a more personalized customer experience.
Tracking and analyzing these sales velocity metrics is key to unlocking the full potential of your revenue growth strategy. By paying attention to deal size, win rate, sales cycle length, number of opportunities, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value, you'll gain valuable insights into your sales process and identify areas for improvement. So, keep your eyes on the metrics that matter, my friend, and watch your sales velocity soar to new heights of success!
Jonathan Kvarfordt
Founding Revenue Enablement Consultant
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