Setting SMART Sales Rocks

Setting SMART Sales Rocks

by | Sep 27, 2024 | Sales, Strategy

A lot has been written about making Rocks SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound), but I have yet to see it applied to the added context of the Sales Department. This blog was written to add this context in order to help sales departments set better rocks and sell more stuff!

Before we dive in, for the purposes of this blog, it helps to understand these different types of rocks by differentiating a couple of types of rocks that I see in sales:

  • Building Rocks – Rocks that require the building of processes that likely result in new activity metrics
  • Performing Rocks – Leveraging current processes to drive existing metrics

Building Rocks are about implementing new structures or processes, and performance Rocks are part of the normal “day job” of the sales or revenue team. I am not a huge fan of performance rocks, but there is a place for them.  More on that later!

Also, some use the “R” as “Realistic,” but from my perspective, “Realistic” and “Achievable” are the same, so I go with “Relevant!”

Specific

The “S” component of SMART rocks is for “Specific,” which is pretty simple.  A “Specific” Rock is crystal clear. In short: What needs to be accomplished? Who owns the Rock? When will it be complete? 

When it comes to sales, one thing to consider is that the Rock may be cross-functional, so it is important that the right person owns the Rock.  For example, most B2B businesses get leads through both sales and marketing. If implementing processes to get more leads is a Rock, the marketing person may not be the best person to own the Rock as the Revenue Leader may have a more comprehensive perspective.  At a minimum, sales and marketing might be involved in building the Rock.

Examples of Specific Sales Rocks:

  • Example 1- “Implement a process to reduce the average deal close time from 45 days to 35 days by the end of Q4, owned by the head of sales operations.”
  • Example 2- “Generate 50 new Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) from the Northeast region by the end of Q4, owned by the CRO.”

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • Is it a cross-functional Rock that needs members of both sales and marketing?
  • Are there key milestones to hit along the way?

Measurable

Rocks should always be measurable to ensure that the rock is focused on impact and that the success of the work done on the rock can be determined.

Sales is a very metric-heavy part of the business. While “measuring” Rocks in other departments might be binary (yes/no) from a completion perspective, try to avoid this when it comes to Sales Rocks so that there are measurable results from the Rock being complete.

Your Rock should target impacting the highest level (lagging or leading) metric on your scorecard to be impacted by the work on the Rock. Another way to think about this is to ensure that the metric the Rock targets is the lowest metric in the funnel that will be impacted. For context, here is an example of relatively standard metrics in the funnel for a generic sales process:

  • # of MQL leads
  • MQL>SQL conversion rates.
  • SQL>Discover Conversion Rates
  • Discover>Proposal Conversion rates
  • Proposal win rates

These metrics are likely macro metrics to be tracked monthly or quarterly instead of activity metrics.  Also, consider what outcome you are looking for. I have seen organizations have # of leads as a Rock when they really want more Sales-Qualified Leads (SQLs). 

Here is a contrast of two different Rocks:

  • Rock 1 
    • Owner: Marketing Leader
    • Rock: Increase the # of leads
  • Rock 2
    • Owner: Revenue/Sales Leader
    • Rock: Increase # of SQLs

These two Rocks would likely look different.  Which one would work for you?

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • What is the highest-level leading/lagging metric (closest to the bottom of the funnel) you can use to measure the success of this Rock long-term by using trends in the monthly or quarterly scorecard?
  • How can you ensure it’s more than a “yes/no” completion check?

Achievable

Your Rocks should stretch your team but remain realistic. Take stock of your resources and ask whether the goal is truly attainable. 

For “Performance Rocks,” given the current processes in place now, consider if the Rock is realistic. For example, if your team is closing 50 deals per quarter, it’s unlikely they’ll jump to 100 overnight. An achievable Rock might be “Close 60 deals by the end of the quarter.”

Another consideration with that example is if you ask for better results than you usually expect from the team, what gives? Will it come at the expense of driving another metric?  If so, that might be part of the plan for the Rock.  If not, then why aren’t the better results expected each quarter? 

For “Building Rocks,” does the Rock owner and their team have the capacity to build?  Sales is different from other departments in the business because the sales team is directly connected to generating revenue. So, work on Sales Rocks should be reserved for roles in the sales organization that are non-quota bearing, as they take time away from sales reps revenue-generating activities.  

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • Does this Rock elevate the expectations of your sales team? If so, why isn’t this always expected? What other metrics may be negatively impacted?
  • Given sales quotas, is there bandwidth on the team to own and complete this Rock?

Relevant

Rocks need to be relevant to your company’s vision and longer-term goals. Each Rock should tie directly into a larger goal—ideally, one of the Measurables on the 3-Year Picture on your Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO™). For example, if your company’s goal is to increase market share in a specific region, a sales Rock might focus on acquiring new customers in that region.

Depending on your business, another test of relevancy is to ensure that you keep in mind the perspective of your Target Market or Ideal Client. For example, if there is a desire for the sales team to generate leads, are all leads treated equally, or might it be a good idea to target the Rock around getting ideal client leads? 

Examples of Relevant Sales Rocks:

  • If your company’s lagging metric is revenue growth, a relevant Rock for a business that is shifting focus to healthcare might be “Generate $500K in new revenue from the healthcare sector by Q4.”
  • If improving customer retention is a company-wide focus, a sales Rock might be “Increase customer renewal rates by 5% by the end of the quarter.”

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • Does this Rock support a Measurable on the 3-Year Picture on your Leadership V/TO™?
  • Does it align with the overall business vision?
  • Is your Ideal Client considered in the context of the Rock?

Time Bound

The Rock should have a clear deadline or timeframe. Per EOS™, this will typically be the end of the quarter when you get together to plan out your next quarter. Every Rock needs a deadline, but it’s also important to consider how long it will take to build and implement it. 

Sales Rocks often require infrastructure or systems that take time to build and implement, while the results may come later. Keep this in mind when setting timelines and expectations by considering how long it will take to build and implement the Rock and how long it will take for results to be realized.

One approach to this is for the Rock to be built this quarter, which will have a goal to affect a metric in 3 or 6 months.

Examples of Time-Bound Sales Rocks:

  • “Implement a process in Q2 that will result in $200,000 of additional recurring revenue by the end of Q4.”
  • “Complete 100 sales calls by October 31st, with weekly targets to track progress.”

Summary of Key Sales Considerations:

  • What is the deadline for completing this Rock?
  • When should the goal for results realistically be set for?
  • Have you accounted for the time it takes to build and implement the solution?

Conclusion

Setting the right sales Rocks can transform your business. By making them SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound – you ensure your team focuses on the right goals, tracking progress, and aligned with the company’s long-term vision. As you plan your next quarter, apply the concepts in this blog to set and crush your Rocks!

What can a Fractional Revenue Leader Do?

What can a Fractional Revenue Leader Do?

by | Oct 10, 2023 | Strategy

Small business owners are often faced with a decision dilemma of hiring the right leader for their leadership team. The two ends of the spectrum are:

  • The leader that I know and want for my business is not affordable
  • The leader that I can afford will be different from the leader I want.

There is no more need to struggle with this dilemma! The proliferation of fractional services now enables business owners to get the quality leader that they want at an investment level they can afford. Alignable’s August Small Business Labor Report found that 32% of SMB employers are focused on hiring contractors and part-timers. 

While the leadership positions are part-time, there’s still much to do! So, setting up the fractional engagement for success is crucial to ensure all expectations are aligned. When you boil it down, there are three high-level categories to consider. Using the context of a Revenue leader:

  • Leadership, Management, and Accountability (LMA): Developing and leading sales and marketing teams.  
  • Building: Implementing or optimizing the sales and marketing infrastructure for ongoing improvement
  • Doing: Doing the work. Active participation in sales cycles

This differentiation can be helpful when scoping, setting expectations, and for ongoing communications. Let’s peel back each of them…

LMA

Developing and leading a team is typically the most impactful way a sales or revenue leader spends their time. Long-term sales success is contingent on the ongoing development of the sales reps. So, when the sales team is developed, the entire team’s performance grows exponentially.

This is a big problem in many small businesses when they elevate their best sales rep to be a manager, which can be a big mistake. Sales can be positively affected by this setup in the short term. Still, the long-term impact is that the sales team does not realize their potential from a development perspective.

From sales leadership to graphic design, there are countless functions within the revenue department. Outsourcing many of these functions may be a great play for small businesses, especially with the marketing disciplines. So, vendor management falls into the LMA category. This can take a huge load away from the Visionary/Founder.

Building

We view “building” as the process of building or optimizing infrastructure. If nothing exists, building involves developing processes and associated KPIs to get to the point of having a basis for ongoing improvement. For companies that run on EOS, ongoing improvement happens in annual and quarterly planning meetings to set “Rocks” (building priorities) that can then be tracked in weekly L10s, 

“Building” then might mean building new processes or possibly optimizing existing ones to improve on existing metrics or input new ones.

Building can be a challenge for a Fractional Revenue Leader for a couple of reasons:

  1. Capabilities – A wide variety of disciplines are needed in the revenue space (sales process, content writing, graphic design, etc.). I have yet to find the unicorn that has all of these capabilities, so the Revenue leader needs to lean on other resources to help with building.
  2. Bandwidth – Fractional leaders typically have a consistent amount of time allocated for each of their clients. So, they do not have a surplus of extra time to be able to add or remove scope every quarter to support building. 

Fractional firms like Convergo might have the back office bandwidth to support their clients from a building perspective while the Fractional Revenue Leader is fulfilling their normal scope of duties.

Doing

The need for “doing” the work in the revenue space might involve countless different functions:

  • Sales: Strategic relationships, managing sales opportunities, outbound prospecting, sales engineering, 
  • Marketing: Content writing, graphic design, web design, web development, SEO, social media management…

Like building, the unicorn that can do all these things does not exist on this planet. That said, a Fractional Revenue leader can perform any of this work if they have the skills and the time.  

One unique way that we help with “doing” at Convergo is that we can place a Fractional Sales Professional for the visionary that is ready to take off the sales hat or needs to complement a sales team to approach a new market.

Conclusion

In a perfect world, some would argue that a leader is supposed to spend all of their time enabling their team to perform and drive results by leveraging their LMA skills and abilities. The reality of small business is that leaders sometimes need to wear many hats, so more than LMA might be required.

In closing, it is essential to have complete clarity about what a fractional leader will be doing before they come on board. An experienced, fractional leader will have a process to ensure that this is understood and included in a tight statement of work before an engagement begins.

Benefits To Focus On Cross-Selling To Your Clients

Benefits To Focus On Cross-Selling To Your Clients

by | Jun 5, 2023 | Sales

B2B services organizations typically have goals to grow their business.  The interesting thing is that they often miss the biggest opportunity to grow that is right under their nose. It is pretty hard to argue that it is a lot easier ot sell to current clients than to new ones. Most quoted statistics reference that it is 10x more expensive to sell to a new client than en existing one.

Five benefits to focusing on cross-selling to your clients.

  1. Increased revenue: Cross-selling allows B2B organizations to generate additional revenue streams by selling complementary or related services to existing customers. By offering a broader range of services, organizations can tap into new revenue opportunities without incurring significant customer acquisition costs.
  2. Deepening customer relationships: Cross-selling services is an effective strategy for strengthening relationships with existing customers. By expanding the range of services provided to a customer, B2B organizations deepen their engagement and become more embedded in the customer’s operations. This increases customer loyalty and reduces the likelihood of them seeking alternatives from competitors.
  3. Competitive advantage: Cross-selling can provide a competitive advantage by differentiating the B2B organization from its competitors. Offering a comprehensive suite of services that addresses a customer’s diverse needs can make the organization more appealing and valuable to customers. It positions the organization as a one-stop solution provider, giving them an edge over competitors who may offer a more limited range of services.
  4. Cost savings: Cross-selling to existing customers is generally more cost-effective than acquiring new customers. The B2B organization already has an established relationship with the customer, reducing the need for extensive marketing efforts and associated costs. Additionally, existing customers are more likely to be receptive to cross-selling efforts as they already trust the organization and value the existing services provided.
  5. Market expansion: Cross-selling services can open doors to new markets or customer segments. By identifying additional services that cater to different industries or sectors, B2B organizations can enter new markets with existing customers. This diversification reduces dependence on a single market segment and helps mitigate risks associated with market fluctuations.

Maximize Your Efforts

To maximize the effectiveness of cross-selling services, B2B organizations should focus on understanding their customer’s needs, developing a comprehensive service portfolio, training sales teams to identify cross-selling opportunities, and maintaining strong customer relationships through ongoing communication and support.

Download Your Cross-Selling Potential Questionnaire