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1. How To Guide
Achieving Corporate Sales Targets
Executive Summary:
This report has been designed to provide practical advice for analyzing
past sales performance, and achieving future targets.
Use this brief 8-page Best Practices Report to:
 Prepare for the Planning Process
 Engage & Align with Marketing
 Understand your Customers & Markets
 Benchmark and Improve Sales Talent
 Examine Previous Sales Performance
 Forecast Future Sales Results
 Motivate your Sales Team
 Develop a Sales Support Function
 Monitor & Measure Sales Results
Read this report to align sales & marketing, improve your sales
effectiveness, and set achievable sales targets for your team.
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2. 2
Table of Contents Page
Prepare for the Planning Process 3
Engage & Align with Marketing 3
Understand your Customers & Markets 4
Benchmark and Improve Sales Talent 5
Examine Previous Sales Performance 5
Forecast Future Sales Results 6
Motivate your Sales Team 7
Develop a Sales Support Function 7
Monitor & Measure Sales Results 8
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3. 3
Preparing for the Planning Process
Step 1 - Build a Sales Growth Team: build a small, cross-functional
team and develop a Sales Growth Team Charter. Hold a kick-off
meeting to set sales planning goals, schedule meeting times, and get
organized for the planning process.
Step 2 - Develop a Sales Planning Charter: use our Project
Charter template to document the goals and objectives for the
planning process, and set plan completion timelines.
Step 3 - Discuss Acquire, Retain, & Expand Strategy: most
organizations can benefit from a simple three-pronged approach to sales
strategy that everyone can understand:
 Acquire - recruit as many new customers as possible
 Retain - work with customer service to reduce churn
 Expand - sell additional products into existing accounts
Step 4 - Introduce SPIN Selling Framework: Neil Rackham’s SPIN
Selling is the most validated consultative sales methodology, backed by
empirical research into over 30,000 real-world sales calls. If you have
not read this book, consider purchasing a copy for each member of your
team.
Engage and Align with Marketing
Step 1 - Define your Sales Process: use Demand Metric’s Sales
Opportunity Pipeline Tool to help define your sales process. Look for
the “Stages” tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet & customize your
process accordingly. Use our Sales & Marketing Alignment tool to
benchmark & identify gaps between the sales & marketing departments.
Step 2 - Discuss Lead Generation Programs & Results: Read our
Marketing Automation How to Guide if you need ideas. Determine
your Marketing Effectiveness Quotient and consider getting certified
in Demand Generation Best Practices.
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4. 4
Step 3 - Agree on Definition of a “Lead”: use our Lead Scoring
Index and Qualified Lead tool to determine which criteria are
essential for a prospect to be considered a lead, and to define various
parameters for lead quality. For more background on Lead Scoring, read
“Score Big with Lead Scoring”.
Step 4 - Develop a Lead Nurturing Program: not all leads are in a
position to buy at the time of first contact with a salesperson. Read our
summary “Align Sales & Marketing with Lead Nurturing” to
automate this lucrative marketing process.
Step 5 - Improve Lead Generation Capabilities: if you have a call
center, evaluate your cold-calling maturity with our report “Making
Cold Calling Work for You”. Alternatively, consider outsourcing lead
generation to a specialist firm. Use our Web Marketing Scorecard to
increase web-based leads.
Step 6 - Discuss Demand Generation Platforms: look into platforms
like Eloqua’s Conversion Suite or Pardot which integrate email
marketing; lead scoring & nurturing; web analytics; campaign
management; performance measurement, and more. Read our best
practices report on Marketing Automation.
Understand your Customers & Markets
Step 1 - Evaluate your Customer-Centricity: use our Customer-
Centricity Checklist to help your organization become more customer-
centric, and less product-focused.
Step 2 - Profile Profitable Customers & Segments: use our
Customer Profile template to analyze your customer “types” and review
“Market Segmentation, Targeting, & Positioning” if you need help
with defining your target market segments. This exercise focuses on
what the organization is doing RIGHT. Use our Marketing
Segmentation Tool to analyze market sizing, market segments and
customer profiles.
Step 3 - Produce Case Studies to Demonstrate Value: work with
marketing to produce Case Studies that can be posted on your website
or delivered by your sales team.
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5. 5
Step 4 - Conduct a Product Sales Analysis: use the “Product &
Service Sales” tab in our Sales Analysis Tool to determine which
product lines are growing or declining.
Step 5 - Benchmark Customer Satisfaction Rates: use our
Customer Satisfaction Survey template to quickly get metrics for
customer loyalty and gauge risk for key accounts.
Step 6 - Position & Differentiate your Products: use our Product
Positioning Tool to help your sales team understand how your
products stack up to the competition in the industry. To position your
individual products, use our Competitive Product Positioning Map.
Step 7 - Inform Product Management: start the process of informing
product management by distributing Product Feature Request Forms
to your team of customer-facing salespeople.
Benchmark and Improve Talent
Step 1 - Conduct a Skills Assessment: use our Sales Skills
Assessment tool to benchmark the skills of each salesperson, and
identify any key areas for training to improve sales talent.
Step 2 - Evaluate Sales Team Performance: use our Performance
Review template to create professional development plans for each
member of your sales team.
Step 3 - Provide Consultative Sales Training: use our report,
“Adopting Consultative Selling” to build a training workshop and a
common toolset for your team to work from.
Examine Previous Sales Performance
Step 1 - Conduct a Segment Analysis: using the “Segment Sales”
tab in the Sales Analysis Tool, determine which market segments or
territories are producing the most and least sales.
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6. 6
Step 2 - Perform a Channel Sales Analysis: using the “Channel
Sales” tab in the Sales Analysis Tool, evaluate which partners and/or
sales channels are providing results.
Step 3 - Evaluate Sales by Salesperson: using the “Sales Team
Results” tab in the Sales Analysis Tool, examine your sales team in
terms of New Revenue, Renewal Revenue, and Total Revenue, relative
to goals for each salesperson.
Step 4 - Review/Set Key Performance Indicator Goals: use our
Key Performance Indicators Worksheet to set goals for improving
these critical metrics. Here are a few examples:
 Average Revenue/salesperson/year
 Average Revenue/customer/year
 Average Years of Customer Lifetime
 Productivity Metrics (dials, talk time, opportunities)
 Cancellation Rates
 Customer Retention Rates
 Closing Rates (opportunities/contacts)
 Customer Satisfaction Survey Results
 Sales Growth by Product Line
 Number of New Customers Acquired
 New Opportunities/quarter
 Leads from Marketing/quarter
 Closing Rate from Marketing Leads
Forecast Future Sales Results
Step 1 - Create Annual Sales Target: based on your Sales Analysis,
and working with senior management to determine reasonable goals,
set an achievable sales target for your team. Be sure to break your
goals down by New & Renewal Revenues. Use our Sales Forecasting
Tool to help you with this process.
Step 2 - Determine Staffing Requirements: if you will require more
full-time employees to hit your target, work with Human Resources to
get more talented staff in the door. Use our Account Executive job
description if you need help there.
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7. 7
Step 3 - Set Quotas for your Sales Team: using the “Sales Team
Revenue Goals” tab in the Sales Analysis Tool, set goals for new
revenue and renewal revenue for each salesperson.
Motivate your Sales Team
Step 1 - Review Sales Compensation Plan: take a look at your
current compensation plan to ensure that corporate objectives are
aligned with individual salesperson objectives. If necessary, look at re-
working your compensation package.
Step 2 - Provide Monthly or Quarterly Incentives: most salespeople
respond well to incentive programs for winning sales contests and
overachieving goals. Vacations and big-screen televisions are great for
many people, but don’t forget about the power of public recognition in
front of their peers.
Develop a Sales Support Function
Step 1 - Formalize the Sales Support Function: add a Director of
Sales Support to your organization, or add these responsibilities to an
existing department or function. Read our summary “Overhaul your
Sales Support Process” and download our Sales Support Checklist.
Step 2 - Measure your Effectiveness: use our Sales Support
Effectiveness Survey to determine how you can help your sales team
more effective.
Step 3 - Build Useful Sales Tool & Collateral: work with Marketing
Communications to create whitepapers, data sheets, proposal
templates, case studies, pricing sheets, product positioning tools, and
other items that facilitate sales.
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8. 8
Step 4 - Find an Opportunity Management Tool: evaluate your
current Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and ensure
you have accurate data, reporting functionality, and opportunity
management features. Visit our CRM Topic area to learn more about
how these systems can help you.
Step 5 - Mandate a Sales Reporting Process: provide your sales
team with a Sales Call Reporting Tool and Sales Opportunity
Pipeline Tool to provide reports on individual calls and sales cycles.
These are simple tools that can be used in lieu of having enterprise CRM
or Sales Force Automation (SFA).
Step 6 - Identify & Strategize on Key Accounts: conduct meetings
with each salesperson to strategize on key account plans. Use our Key
Account Planning Tool to document goals & objectives, and develop
an action plan for each major account.
Measure and Monitor Sales Results
Step 1 - Review Metrics on a Consistent Basis: keep tabs on your
key performance indicators and opportunity pipeline by scheduling a
weekly review session. Use the Sales Analysis Tool to proactively
track results for Product Sales, Segment Sales, Channel Sales and Sales
Team Revenues by salesperson.
Step 2 - Adjust Strategy Based on Performance: based on your
results, adjust your management focus. It may be necessary to rally the
troops to increase a particular product’s sales, or to increase output for
a market segment or territory.
Step 3 - Define Repeatable Best Practices: document what is
working for your top salespeople by modifying scripts, redefining
processes, and sharing knowledge among peers.
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