As a disciple of the church of sales science…………I have to confess that I am as guilty as that other one over there for using jargon when communicating on my topic of great passion……….. sales team productivity and return on investment (see…….I told you so!).  I would like to boast that I created all the terms I like to use, but I can’t.  Some of the terms I like and use are old, some new, some borrowed, some blue.  The thing that strikes me about the lexicon of sales jargon is that so many sales managers and directors attach a wide and variable range of definitions to the same term.  I am not sure if anyone has ever attempted it before, but here comes my attempt at a short glossary.

Sales team optimisation =  The analytics that align sales team design and process with the designated customer based and prospect pool in such a way as to ensure maximum productivity and return on investment.  It is the science of engineering a sales system for the sales team to drive  effectiveness from resource available to deliver maximum revenue.  Typically executed by sales management on an annual basis, as an integral component  of whole-company annual budgeting.

Sales Exec effectiveness = The sales team needs to be optimised before each member can be fully effective.  So Sales Exec effectiveness relates to the things that operationalise the aspects above, at the individual level.  Recruitment profiling to get the right Sales Execs, training on the aspects above, incentives/reward systems to motivate desired behaviours,  coaching, mentoring and any intervention to up-skill.

Sales team productivity = Relates to the customer and prospect visit activity rate and the quality of the visits.  It can be thought of in terms of the degree to which the Sales Execs are visiting the right person at the right frequency,  for the right time, with the right solution, delivered within the right business relationship.  Sales team productivity, therefore, is an outcome of both Sales team optimisation and Sales Exec effectiveness .

Sales team mobilisation = The total cost (investment!) to fully recruit, induct, train, equip, remunerate, incentivise, directly manage the sales team, including cost-to-serve  direct support to the same customer base, as applied by customer facing teams like Customer Service, Technical, Quotation support et al. Often divided down into Cost-of-Visit and Cost-of-minimum Account Management.

Sales team return = is the revenue (or margin) return from the total cost in mobilising the sales team.  It can be defined as the incremental revenue or sales growth returned on the investment to put the sales team into the market, ie the difference in revenue or margin between having a sales team compared to not having one.  Sales team return, should correlate to productivity, and is another output of optimisation and effectiveness.

Joins us next month as we continue with part two of this topic…….

Visiting The Next Level’s website can help put this discussion in perspective. Or simply send us a message via the Contact Us section and we will gladly answer any questions you may have or organise to come out and have a discussion as to what The Next Level Sales System can do for you and your business.