If you want to increase your revenue, you shouldn’t hire more reps.
Not immediately, that is.
Instead, focus on understanding how your team is currently performing.
Because just by improving your core team’s performance, you can increase your revenue up to 70%.
But if you hire without fixing your sales enablement problems, you’re just going to throw more money down the drain.
So here are some tips to help you better measure sales enablement to improve rep performance and increase revenue.
Why You Should Measure Sales Enablement
Sales enablement consists of the processes, technology, content, and other tools that enable your team to sell more efficiently.
Ultimately, if you can cut back on inefficiencies, you end up with a better ROI on your sales investments.
Take this data from Forbes, for instance. It says that the average salesperson only spends 35% of their time on core selling. The rest likely goes toward researching prospects, shoring up their pitch desks, and a fair amount of procrastination.
Now let’s say you have a rep who works inefficiently and unpredictable but magically is able to hit their quota every quarter. Would you consider this a good rep?
Of course not!
Because as competitive as the field is, sales is a team sport. As the sales leader, you have to be able to depend on your reps to bring in predictable revenue.
Plus, if a rep is hitting their quota too easily, you haven’t set it high enough. And that’s potential revenue you’re leaving on the table.
How to Measure Sales Enablement
Now, let’s talk about how to measure sales enablement.
That example we just gave illustrates perfectly why measuring sales enablement has to be two-fold. You have to measure both the inputs and the outputs.
Sales inputs = the processes, content, activities, and technology that your reps implement on a day-to-day basis
Sales outputs = the results of those activities (e.g. revenue, prospect engagement, deal size, pipeline health, etc.)
Only when salespeople implement good inputs and have correlating positive outputs can you consider that a “good” rep.
Let’s look at the relationship between inputs and outputs to see the consequences of each:
| Bad Outputs | Good Outputs | |
| Good Inputs | Input-Output Misalignment | Predictable Revenue |
| Bad Inputs | General Incompetence | No Predictability (Accidental Success) |
- Good Inputs, Good Outputs: This is ultimately where you want everyone to be, where each rep predictably and reliably is generating revenue.
- Bad Inputs, Good Outputs: While the end result is good, the rep is accidentally successful, probably due to a factor outside of their control (i.e. a “plug and play” kind of company where no strategic selling is necessary).
- Good Inputs, Bad Outputs: This is usually because your designated inputs aren’t aligned with your outputs, so you need to recalibrate to what will move the needle.
- Bad Inputs, Bad Outputs: This is just your run-of-the-mill incompetence, so you need to coach the person to improve their inputs, so you get better outputs.
To know where a rep stands in this matrix, you need to measure both sides of the equation.
18 Sales Enablement Metrics to Measure
Now let’s dive into some specific metrics that you should track. In order to track these, you’ll need a CRM to track activities and pipeline results, as well as coaching intelligence software to track behaviors.
(If you want to learn more about coaching intelligence technology, download our free guide here.)
Inputs: Sales Activities
Let’s start on the first side of the equation: measuring your reps’ sales inputs. Here are some specific input metrics you’ll need to know.
1. Adherence to sales process
Your sales process is designed to push reps into behaviors that will drive deals. Understanding which reps are sticking to that process can help increase deal value and win rates.
2. Technology usage
You likely have a wide variety of sales technology at your disposal. However, if your reps don’t use them, they’re not going to benefit from them. It’s important to understand which tools certain reps are struggling to use so you can coach and train them.
3. Content effectiveness
If you’ve invested in sell sheets, product videos, email templates, or other types of content, it’s important to know how those are performing. That way, you can see whether they’re positively (or negatively) influencing the sales process.
4. Time to quota attainment
Given the high cost-of-hire for reps, it’s important to make that money back as quickly as possible. Time to quota attainment will help you figure out whether your onboarding efforts are working effectively.
(For tips on how to build an effective onboarding program, download our FREE onboarding eBook right here.)
5. Number of careless sales behaviors
By tracking the mistakes reps make to derail your deals, you can identify performance gaps and coaching opportunities.
6. Actual selling time
Many reps spend far less time actually selling than performing secondary tasks. Increasing the amount of time your reps spend selling can improve their overall performance.
7. Sales activity
Reps need to make calls and send emails in order to generate and engage prospects. If a rep’s activity level is low, then you need to work to get those numbers back up.
8. Sales force turnover rate
If your sales force is turning over at an exceptionally high rate, it’s possible you need to revisit your processes and culture. That way, you can become a place where reps will become successful, and want to stick around.
9. Rep engagement
The more engaged your reps are, the more successful they’re going to be. If you have trouble keeping reps engaged, you’ll need to address that through coaching.
Outputs: Sales Results
Now, let’s take a look at the other side of the equation. Here are some of the outputs you should be measuring.
10. Quota attainment
Obviously the most important sales result is whether or not they’re reaching quota. If your reps aren’t able to hit this number, then you need to “pull up the hood” and see if you can diagnose the problem.
11. Quota distribution
One of the best ways to improve overall quota attainment is to focus your sales enablement on the “middle 60%”, your core performers. Even a 5% shift in their performance can yield over 70% increase in revenue, according to the Sales Executive Council.
(For tips on how to figure out which reps you should spend your time coaching, click here for a FREE webinar on how to foster top-performing sales teams.)
12. Length of sales cycle
The length of a B2B sales cycle increases as more decision makers become involved in the process. By looking at a particular rep or deal’s sales cycle, you can identify areas where there may be friction points. Then, you can coach the rep to enable them to better overcome that friction.
13. In-funnel conversion rates
As a prospect moves through the pipeline, there are several conversions that they go through: MQL to SQL, SQL to opportunity, etc. By improving even one of these conversion rates, you can achieve a major impact on your revenue.
14. Win rate
Ultimately, if you’ve got a lot of deals in the pipeline but none of them are closing, then that’s a clear sign that something has gone wrong. Either these prospects weren’t properly qualified, or a rep isn’t effective at moving them to a close.
15. Average deal size
Larger deal sizes are a sign that your reps are communicating your value prop strongly and effectively. If you keep attracting small deals, you should reevaluate your messaging.
16. Sales velocity
When it comes to measuring success in sales enablement, sales velocity is a highly valuable metric. The longer leads languish in the pipeline, the less likely they are to eventually close.
17. Sales efficiency
If you’re investing a lot of money into your sales organization but aren’t seeing results, then that means you need to rethink how your organization operates. This could mean changing your processes, replacing certain team members, or other key changes.
18. Sales rep lifetime value
Ultimately, a rep’s success is defined by how much money they bring in. Identifying a reps’ LTV can help you identify your top performers. Then, you can examine their behaviors and transfer them over to reps who may be underperforming.
Final Thoughts on Measuring Sales Enablement
If you want to improve the amount of revenue your sales team is bringing in, then you need to track the effectiveness of your sales enablement efforts.
By measuring both inputs and outputs, you can identify where a potential breakdown in performance is actually occurring, and take actionable steps to fix it.
But some of these metrics are difficult to measure just through your CRM. That’s why you need coaching intelligence technology to surface and manage some more qualitative insights.