Benchmark Report
Benchmark Report
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Introduction
Excuses won't save you; sales leaders are responsible for producing results regardless of economic conditions. Where will improvements make the greatest impact on performance in your sales organization? Most companies track their own performance year after year to measure their improvement, but few take a quantitative look at how they compare to other organizations. The purpose of this report is to help you identify some of these areas by comparing your current sales practices, based on your responses, to the practices of World Class Sales Organizations. The responses you provided for this report were based on several questions featured in Miller Heiman's annual, global study of sales organizations, the Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study. This study reveals the activities that are shown to have the greatest impact on producing results that are common goals for most sales organizations: Average account billing Sales force quota attainment Number of qualified opportunities/ leads Customer retention Forecast accuracy Revenue growth World Class Sales Organizations were significantly more likely to report year over year growth in these metrics. This report provides graphs and descriptions of how your responses compare to the activities that produced measureable sales results for these high- performing organizations.
Focus
Monitor
Sustain
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Developed as a framework to help sales leaders organize their thoughts and strategies for achieving sales results, this system has become a centerpiece for communications and planning sessions with our clients. The system should be viewed starting from the center with the concept that all strategy emanates from customer requirements. No strategy should be set unless it is based on customer requirements. Each of the elements that surround the customer forms your overall sales strategy. Next, take a look at your customer management strategies. How does your organization create opportunities and manage these opportunities to close? And, does your strategy support how client relationships are managed on an ongoing basis? Finally, examine how your strategies will be sustained. Is your organization structured in a way so decisions can be made quickly? Do your managers have specific roles and understand what they need to do to execute against organizational strategies? Is your entire organization supported by critical components like systems, marketing programs, and compensation plans that enable efficiency?
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In Conclusion
While benchmarking has been used for years as a continuous improvement discipline, it is still relatively new to sales. Measuring top- line revenue influences in your organization can be accomplished through a few simple activities. Choose a small number of highly relevant metrics to measure. Create an internal baseline on those metrics, with a commitment to measure consistently over time without changing the definitions or metrics. Report on the metrics and make them visible. Create actionable improvement plans based on the results. When discipline is applied across the six elements defined in the sales system, companies will see growth in key sales performance metrics, including revenue. While there are many other factors that can influence revenue and profitability, sales leaders must be held accountable for the activities within their span control.
Next Steps
Schedule a consultation based on the results included in this report. Well schedule time for you with a consultant who has experience in your industry to answer questions about the activities in this report and provide recommendations for improvement. This report is based on your responses to a survey of 25 questions about sales best practices. These questions are from a more extensive set of questions included the annual Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study. Miller Heiman offers additional benchmarking services for companies that want to further explore how their organization compares to the best practices of World Class Sales Organizations. Our full benchmarking services can provide you with additional insights to help guide your sales performance initiatives: Input from more participants in your organization for a more comprehensive view of the activities being practiced by your sales force. Comparisons of your sales practices to others in your industry (for industries where data is available). Perception differences among functional levels in your organization: executive leadership, sales management, and field level. To discuss our benchmarking services, contact us at www.millerheiman.com/ benchmark. Or call us at: North and South America: 877-678-3389 UK: 0800 132595 Asia Pacific: +61 (02)9909 8699 Across the Globe: +44 1908 211212
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Copyright 2010 by Miller Heiman, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the publisher. Publisher Miller Heiman, Inc. 10509 Professional Cr., Suite 100 Reno, NV 89521 877-678-3389
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