Setting SMART Sales Rocks

Setting SMART Sales Rocks

by | Sep 27, 2024 | Sales, Strategy

A lot has been written about making Rocks SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound), but I have yet to see it applied to the added context of the Sales Department. This blog was written to add this context in order to help sales departments set better rocks and sell more stuff!

Before we dive in, for the purposes of this blog, it helps to understand these different types of rocks by differentiating a couple of types of rocks that I see in sales:

  • Building Rocks – Rocks that require the building of processes that likely result in new activity metrics
  • Performing Rocks – Leveraging current processes to drive existing metrics

Building Rocks are about implementing new structures or processes, and performance Rocks are part of the normal “day job” of the sales or revenue team. I am not a huge fan of performance rocks, but there is a place for them.  More on that later!

Also, some use the “R” as “Realistic,” but from my perspective, “Realistic” and “Achievable” are the same, so I go with “Relevant!”

Specific

The “S” component of SMART rocks is for “Specific,” which is pretty simple.  A “Specific” Rock is crystal clear. In short: What needs to be accomplished? Who owns the Rock? When will it be complete? 

When it comes to sales, one thing to consider is that the Rock may be cross-functional, so it is important that the right person owns the Rock.  For example, most B2B businesses get leads through both sales and marketing. If implementing processes to get more leads is a Rock, the marketing person may not be the best person to own the Rock as the Revenue Leader may have a more comprehensive perspective.  At a minimum, sales and marketing might be involved in building the Rock.

Examples of Specific Sales Rocks:

  • Example 1- “Implement a process to reduce the average deal close time from 45 days to 35 days by the end of Q4, owned by the head of sales operations.”
  • Example 2- “Generate 50 new Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) from the Northeast region by the end of Q4, owned by the CRO.”

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • Is it a cross-functional Rock that needs members of both sales and marketing?
  • Are there key milestones to hit along the way?

Measurable

Rocks should always be measurable to ensure that the rock is focused on impact and that the success of the work done on the rock can be determined.

Sales is a very metric-heavy part of the business. While “measuring” Rocks in other departments might be binary (yes/no) from a completion perspective, try to avoid this when it comes to Sales Rocks so that there are measurable results from the Rock being complete.

Your Rock should target impacting the highest level (lagging or leading) metric on your scorecard to be impacted by the work on the Rock. Another way to think about this is to ensure that the metric the Rock targets is the lowest metric in the funnel that will be impacted. For context, here is an example of relatively standard metrics in the funnel for a generic sales process:

  • # of MQL leads
  • MQL>SQL conversion rates.
  • SQL>Discover Conversion Rates
  • Discover>Proposal Conversion rates
  • Proposal win rates

These metrics are likely macro metrics to be tracked monthly or quarterly instead of activity metrics.  Also, consider what outcome you are looking for. I have seen organizations have # of leads as a Rock when they really want more Sales-Qualified Leads (SQLs). 

Here is a contrast of two different Rocks:

  • Rock 1 
    • Owner: Marketing Leader
    • Rock: Increase the # of leads
  • Rock 2
    • Owner: Revenue/Sales Leader
    • Rock: Increase # of SQLs

These two Rocks would likely look different.  Which one would work for you?

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • What is the highest-level leading/lagging metric (closest to the bottom of the funnel) you can use to measure the success of this Rock long-term by using trends in the monthly or quarterly scorecard?
  • How can you ensure it’s more than a “yes/no” completion check?

Achievable

Your Rocks should stretch your team but remain realistic. Take stock of your resources and ask whether the goal is truly attainable. 

For “Performance Rocks,” given the current processes in place now, consider if the Rock is realistic. For example, if your team is closing 50 deals per quarter, it’s unlikely they’ll jump to 100 overnight. An achievable Rock might be “Close 60 deals by the end of the quarter.”

Another consideration with that example is if you ask for better results than you usually expect from the team, what gives? Will it come at the expense of driving another metric?  If so, that might be part of the plan for the Rock.  If not, then why aren’t the better results expected each quarter? 

For “Building Rocks,” does the Rock owner and their team have the capacity to build?  Sales is different from other departments in the business because the sales team is directly connected to generating revenue. So, work on Sales Rocks should be reserved for roles in the sales organization that are non-quota bearing, as they take time away from sales reps revenue-generating activities.  

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • Does this Rock elevate the expectations of your sales team? If so, why isn’t this always expected? What other metrics may be negatively impacted?
  • Given sales quotas, is there bandwidth on the team to own and complete this Rock?

Relevant

Rocks need to be relevant to your company’s vision and longer-term goals. Each Rock should tie directly into a larger goal—ideally, one of the Measurables on the 3-Year Picture on your Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO™). For example, if your company’s goal is to increase market share in a specific region, a sales Rock might focus on acquiring new customers in that region.

Depending on your business, another test of relevancy is to ensure that you keep in mind the perspective of your Target Market or Ideal Client. For example, if there is a desire for the sales team to generate leads, are all leads treated equally, or might it be a good idea to target the Rock around getting ideal client leads? 

Examples of Relevant Sales Rocks:

  • If your company’s lagging metric is revenue growth, a relevant Rock for a business that is shifting focus to healthcare might be “Generate $500K in new revenue from the healthcare sector by Q4.”
  • If improving customer retention is a company-wide focus, a sales Rock might be “Increase customer renewal rates by 5% by the end of the quarter.”

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • Does this Rock support a Measurable on the 3-Year Picture on your Leadership V/TO™?
  • Does it align with the overall business vision?
  • Is your Ideal Client considered in the context of the Rock?

Time Bound

The Rock should have a clear deadline or timeframe. Per EOS™, this will typically be the end of the quarter when you get together to plan out your next quarter. Every Rock needs a deadline, but it’s also important to consider how long it will take to build and implement it. 

Sales Rocks often require infrastructure or systems that take time to build and implement, while the results may come later. Keep this in mind when setting timelines and expectations by considering how long it will take to build and implement the Rock and how long it will take for results to be realized.

One approach to this is for the Rock to be built this quarter, which will have a goal to affect a metric in 3 or 6 months.

Examples of Time-Bound Sales Rocks:

  • “Implement a process in Q2 that will result in $200,000 of additional recurring revenue by the end of Q4.”
  • “Complete 100 sales calls by October 31st, with weekly targets to track progress.”

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • What is the deadline for completing this Rock?
  • When should the goal for results realistically be set for?
  • Have you accounted for the time it takes to build and implement the solution?

Conclusion

Setting the right sales Rocks can transform your business. By making them SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound – you ensure your team focuses on the right goals, tracking progress, and aligned with the company’s long-term vision. As you plan your next quarter, apply the concepts in this blog to set and crush your Rocks!

3 Challenges You May Be Having With Your Scorecard

3 Challenges You May Be Having With Your Scorecard

by | Mar 20, 2023 | Strategy

Developing the scorecard that works for your business is a journey.  There are some common challenges that entrepreneurs face along the way.  This blog is written to help you take action to improve your scorecard and shorten the journey.

We will look at three common challenges that entrepreneurs face with the scorecard by providing:

  • The symptom
  • The likely cause
  • Suggested actions for improvement.

 

Symptom: Team members are not accountable to their numbers

Likely Cause Suggest action
Setting the wrong tone for your scorecard.  The purpose of the scorecard is not to punish but to enable your team to hit their numbers through skills development or process improvement.    Implement a culture of coaching. If team members understand that leadership is there to coach and help them, they will feel more personally accountable.   
The goals may be unrealistic. If you set your goals with the superstar in mind,  you are setting up your team’s mid and lower performers for ongoing failure.   Ensure the goals are realistic and all team members can hit their numbers.

 

Symptom: We are hitting our activity numbers, not business goals. 

Likely Cause Suggest action
Activity and leading metrics are not aligned with the Business Plan / V/TO®   Leverage your client journey as the path to connect activity metrics to your business goals and ensure you are gathering your client’s perspective along the way.
You may track the right metrics, but the goals are not high enough.   If your activity metrics are aligned with your business goals, then keep the metrics, raise the goals, and give team members what they need to succeed.
Not enough time – if you have just recently input your metrics,  they may  not have had time to affect the high-level business goals.  Make sure you have given your activity metrics enough time to affect your business goals, and keep an eye on how your activity metrics are connected to the leading metrics to meet your goals.

 

Symptom: Long streaks of red or green on your scorecard or metrics that never prompt action.

Likely Cause Suggest action
You are tracking things that can’t be controlled weekly.  The big idea with using a scorecard in your leadership and departmental meetings is to track metrics that prompt action every week. For example, tracking lagging metrics for individuals is not a great idea. If you’re not taking action on those metrics, could you remove them from your scorecard and track the activity or leading metrics that will prompt action weekly.

 

Remember that your scorecard is a journey.  Ensure that you are getting to the root cause before you make changes to keep your scorecard moving in the right direction.

DOWNLOAD THE SCORECARD CHECKLIST

 

4 Strategies for Aligning Sales and Marketing

4 Strategies for Aligning Sales and Marketing

by | Jul 28, 2022 | Strategy

Sales and marketing are historically misaligned, which is very curious given their goals are really the same, right? If sales and marketing both have the same goal of bringing more clients into the business, it doesn’t make sense that this misalignment still occurs. And technology and communication have evolved to the point that this misalignment should no longer be acceptable. So how can you bridge this misalignment? Here are four strategies for aligning sales and marketing:

  1. Track the right scorecard metrics
  2. Develop an aligned messaging plan
  3. Create cross-functional processes
  4. Align your tech and data

Let’s look at each one of the 4 strategies to align sales and marketing from a before and after perspective:

  • Before: Sales and marketing exist as foes in silos
  • After: Sales and marketing are aligned and working together to bring on more clients and sell more to their clients.

One point to reinforce, as we always do at Convergo, is that businesses should be focused on acquiring and retaining ideal clients, not just any client. Ideal Clients are the ones that can buy everything that you sell and that your business is optimized to serve. That concept is woven throughout this blog.

Calculate the value of an idea client Workshop

Track the Right Scorecard Metrics

Before: Sales and marketing have their own metrics that are completely unrelated. Marketing is pursuing scorecard metrics like website traffic or # of leads. In the meantime, sales managers hammer their sales teams to do more demos or deliver more proposals. What is missing from these metrics? Remember the Ideal Client concept?

After: Website traffic and number of leads are put by the wayside because they don’t consider the ideal client.

An Alternative metric is # of Ideal Prospect leads. This is the number of leads that come in that meet the Ideal Client Profile (ICP) criteria.

How does this promote alignment? First, marketing and sales agree on the ICP, and leads are filtered against this. Marketing then focuses its efforts on generating the right leads, and sales prioritizes closing them instead of chasing their tails with clients that are not necessarily good for the business. By the way, it is much easier for marketing to have a more narrow focus, and it takes fewer sales reps to close ideal clients and filter out suboptimal ones.

Develop An Aligned Messaging Plan

Before: Marketing is creating content and executing a plan that is based on their assumptions about a fictional persona that they assume is correct because they get no feedback from the sales team on what real people are saying.Meanwhile, the sales team complains that the marketing team is passing along leads that are not closable. They get frustrated, and the two sides maintain life in their silos.

After: The content plan is based on an Ideal Client Profile with personas created and agreed upon by both sales and marketing. Sales and Marketing have regular meetings where the sales team shares common questions, concerns, and outcomes that their clients and prospects are asking about and sharing.

Then, the content hits the mark, and sales reps have begun actively sharing content to support their efforts to serve their prospects and clients.

Create Cross-Functional Processes

Before: Marketing has their processes to create content and tactics to increase website traffic and generate “leads, ” which have a very low close rate. In their mind, they are succeeding because all that they are being asked to do is to generate leads.

Sales teams are managing their sales process. A low percentage of leads are actually sales qualified, and even fewer advance to later stages in the sales cycle.

After: The “Sales Cycle” has been replaced by a “Net-New Experience” where sales and marketing work together to bring the Ideal Clients into their business and usher out the ones that are not good fits.

Only Ideal Prospects are in the pipeline, and sales reps help them through the Net-New Experience using documented processes supported by marketing content that answers their questions, generates trust, and helps them seamlessly navigate the experience with your business.

Align Your Tech and Data

Before: Marketing uses platforms to execute tactics like email marketing and may have access to databases of companies in their market that might fit their profile. A lead is created and passed off to sales, often with limited information.

Sales uses their “CRM” for their sales process to close business. They don’t have visibility to what content the prospect might engage with and therefore are serving the prospect only knowing part of the picture.

In the meantime, client data is trapped inside a proprietary ERP that sales has no visibility to, limiting potential cross-selling possibilities.

After: The CRM is a single source of the truth, with Marketing, Sales, and Operations enjoying a 360-degree view of the Ideal Prospect/Client from when the prospect is totally unaware of your business to where they are buying everything they can from you.

Conclusion

Given advancements in CRM and Marketing Automation from companies like Hubspot, the excuses for Sales and marketing working in silos are disappearing. Stay tuned for more detail on each of these 4 strategies in separate blogs.