Key metrics and KPI’s are essential for managers and analysts to monitor and ensure ultimate control of the sales performance and commission management process. It’s important that they are simple by design and easy to understand for any successful sales and revenue-generating team. In this blog, we’ll look at some key metrics for sales commission management and discuss why they’re valuable to the revenue connected workforce.
The term metrics can mean many things to many different people, and so I have broken this down very simply into three distinct classifications that are widely used by sales leaders to drive improvements to sales, productivity, and performance:
• Corporate
• Process
• Diagnostic
The metrics a company will use or adopt are specific to their own set of unique corporate strategies and goals.
Corporate Level Metrics – adopted directly from the corporate mission, vision, and goals.
Valuable data for CXO level executive management.
Metric Examples:
• Profitable sales growth – corporate revenue, revenue growth
• Gross margin increase – corporate GM percentage, GM percentage growth
• New market acquisition – market share growth by segment
• Market share increase – global market share, market share growth
Process Metrics – measuring attainment to targets/goals.
Valuable data for Executive Management, Senior Sales Leadership, and Human Resources.
Metric Examples:
• Revenue and revenue growth, sales vs. forecast, sales vs quota
• Sales to the existing customer base, i.e. upselling, cross-selling, and renewals
• Gross Margin improvement within key strategic accounts
• Product-specific sales such as new products, professional services, maintenance, support
• Performance ranking of regions and reps by plan, region, plan measure
Diagnostic Metrics – analyzing and managing the process metrics internally.
Valuable data for VP of Sales Operations, VP of Revenue Operations, Financial Controller, Sales Operations Analysts.
Metric examples:
• Attainment distribution curves/trends – across regions, various plan measures, product/service lines, and/or market segments
• Sales expense (cost of sales) to revenue (%)
• Cost of sales incentives to revenue (%)
• % discount: this can also be broken down across regions, various plan measures, product lines, and/or market segments
Breaking down the metrics into three classifications makes it easier to understand how dashboards and insights for different levels of the revenue connected workforce can be designed and deployed correctly.
Leaptree Incentivize is a powerful sales commission and incentive compensation management software, 100% native to Salesforce and available via AppExchange. All of the key metrics noted and discussed above can be managed efficiently and cost-effectively within Incentivize. Why not speak to the Leaptree team today, book a demo, and improve the connectivity of your revenue workforce.