What should you be doing in terms of Sales Training, Sales Planning and Sales Leadership to improve your sales performance?
- Grow your people
- Grow your business
Sales Survey Methodology
Mercuri’s Sales Excellence Survey covers 926 respondents from 20 Countries. What you hear are voices from more than 500 enterprises worldwide, across 13 industry categories. The responses cover 53 key areas of Sales Excellence which gives us reason to conduct this study every 4 years.
The survey is an objective study of the reality we find ourselves in as sales professionals. Each individual & organization is best positioned to make sense of the outcomes of this study, in ways that are meaningful to further their aspirations.
- What makes sales leaders tick?
- How do some companies excel in sales?
- What drives their success regardless of sector, size or economic conditions?
- Do their stories offer insights that can help replicate their success?
The Global Sales Lens
Seeing through a global lens in 20 countries, the survey had 926 respondents. They rated themselves on 7 performance parameters using a 1 to 10 scale. These scores were used to arrive at the Top 10 (T10), Bottom 10 (B10) and Middle 80 (M80) percentile performers.
The respondents also assigned scores on a scale of 1 to 7. This detailed 33 sales practices across a diverse area:
- Implementing Sales Strategy
- Developing Sales Processes
- Sales Support tools,
- Team and Sales Behaviours
- Competence
- Perception / Image of Sales function.
Variations in scores assigned to these drivers by the Top 10 performers and the Bottom 10 highlight the differentiators that help the Top 10 excel. This is the ‘big picture’ as seen through a single global lens. The diversity of respondents makes the findings universal in their application value. It does not end there.
At Mercuri International, we appreciate the diverse environments we find ourselves in as a Sales Community. Our quest to uncover secrets of sales excellence, makes us take a closer look into our world through three other lenses.
Top 10 Drivers of Global Sales Excellence
Here are the top 10 Sales Practices on which Top Performers rate themselves significantly higher compared to their bottom peers. They are listed in order of decreasing differences between the ratings. These Sales Practices could be among key drivers of Sales Excellence for Top Performers.
Account Management Planning
Each member of your sales team has a systematic account management planning process for each of their customers. Top performing companies score high in allocating sales resources for each of their customers. An account management plan specific to the requirement of every customer is standard and best practice.
Sales Strategy is documented in writing
Only 14% of all people in a company know its sales strategy, say studies.
Top performers seem to overcome this risk by documenting their sales strategy, for consistency of communication.
Defined sales training modules
A process is only as good as its implementation. Top performing companies don’t stop with defining sales processes and work flows. They get better at supporting their people to live those processes by developing sales training modules and checklists for each step of the sales process.
Explicit sales topics
Companies at the top of the performance spectrum are inclined to take sales beyond execution and leverage the strategic value of sales by ensuring that their corporate strategies include explicit sales elements.
A detailed description of workflow
Flawless execution being the hallmark of good sales, top performing companies attach a premium to documenting detailed descriptions of the sales processes and work flows.
Cross function approaches
Top performing companies are far ahead at elimination of silos. They enable the sales team to initiate and adopt a cross functional approach with other teams, to address Customer requirements holistically.
Customer Relationship Management Systems
At top performing companies, the CRM system serves to hardwire the whole organization to a customer centric approach. These companies ensure their sales teams update the CRM. This enables them to stay in tune with Customer requirements in real time.
The image of sales inside the company is excellent
Top performing companies recognize the inherent need for achievement and gratification in the sales mindset. They hold Sales in high esteem. The intrinsic pride of belonging to such an environment in itself could be a powerful driver of performance for sales people.
A blended approach to learning and sales training
Use a blended approach when developing the sales competence of your sales staff. Whether it’s digital, instructor led or sales apprenticeships. Top performing companies leverage technology to support learning initiatives. This personalized approach blends classroom training with virtual learning to develop sales team competence.
Defined sales strategy
The company sales strategy is clearly defined. Defining a Sales Strategy is the first step to ensuring alignment around business objectives. Doing this much better than others is a big enabler of sales success. This ensures your sales people in diverse and dispersed locations rally around the sales cause. The result, a clearly defined sales strategy communicated across the organization.
How Mercuri can help
Your sales results are only as good as your sales team and sales leadership. We support you in execution and coach across teams and borders, helping you to align sales. Creating a new way of working across the whole organization.