7 Sales Performance Metrics to Accurately Benchmark and Assess Your Salespeople

Performance tracking is an integral part of any salesperson’s career. And yet, whether you outsource your sales outreach or have an internal team, several companies find a way to drop the ball somehow, tracking the wrong elements or perhaps not tracking much at all. Worse yet, some businesses invest in all the right tools and then never actually follow up by reading the reports or checking the metrics they’ve been monitoring. In any case, it's time to make a change and pay attention to what matters.

When you’re trying to assess your sales team, some performance metrics will be more valuable than others. Of course, you may already have your own in mind, and that’s a great start. To assist you in making sure that your team is up to snuff, we’ve collected a list of seven of the most important metrics to watch when you’re benchmarking your sales staff. 

1. Actual time spent selling

The amount of time your sales agents spend actually selling products or services is an important benchmark. After all, you may have a sales team that is spending 50% of their day behind the desk handling admin work, and that’s not helping anyone’s sales numbers. Make sure that you have someone to handle all the desk work so that your sales team can focus on the sales and make more deals to help your business grow. 

2. Lead response time

If your salespeople are doing their job well, lead response times will be short. People will get back to messages, return calls, or otherwise move forward in the buying journey quickly and efficiently. If you notice that someone on your team is leaving a lot of leads that don’t respond for days or even weeks, that could be a sign that they need more training in this area. After all, the longer it takes someone to respond, the more time they have to reconsider. 

3. Total contract/sale value

Of course, you do have to consider some of the sales numbers here. Your best salespeople will be the ones who are getting higher sale amounts, bigger contracts, and higher dollar amounts per transaction. Someone who closes a single deal 10 times is not as good as someone who closes one deal that is worth five of those single deals combined—it’s a matter of getting a bigger return on your investment and utilizing your resources. 

4. Annual recurring revenue

Good performers don’t just make one or two sales on occasion. They have a steady stream of deals closing and coming in throughout the year. They also have repeat business that relies on them for whatever they need. That’s why you need to measure the annual recurring revenue for each of your salespeople. Just because Jeff was salesperson of the month for six months last year doesn’t mean that he’s kept it up this year. Follow up on how much revenue people are making each year, and how much of it is repeat business. 

5. Overall sales growth

Although it seems like an obvious one, that’s exactly why it’s on the list. You need to make sure that among all the other metrics, you aren’t forgetting to measure the overall sales growth of each of your people. This includes any time periods that you like. You can follow monthly sales growth, annual growth, etc. Just make sure that you’re keeping tabs and that your sales team’s numbers are growing. If you notice things are going in the wrong direction or if sales are getting stagnant, you’ll be able to jump in and course correct faster and easier because you’re already aware of what’s going on. 

6. Lead-to-opportunity (LTO) and opportunity-to-close (OTC) rate

Conversion rates are important, but you can’t just measure how many leads become sales. That’s a good metric to have. However, you also need to be measuring the lead-to-opportunity rate and the opportunity-to-close rate. The first, also known as LTO, refers to how many leads people are converting into potential opportunities (warm/hot leads). It gives you a chance to see how well people are doing in this part of the sales process. Then, you can measure the opportunity-to-close rate, or how many leads they convert to sales, to see how this part of the transaction is working. 

This allows you to focus on the exact steps in the journey that need attention and make more focused corrections for improved business all around. 

7. Customer satisfaction rate 

Of course, none of the metrics matter if your salespeople aren’t keeping customers satisfied. Make sure that you’re tracking satisfaction metrics (surveys and responses, reviews, repeat customers, etc.) to follow up on your sales team’s efforts and make sure that you’re not just making sales. You should be making relationships with lifetime customers, and that’s the approach your salespeople should take in every interaction they have. Measuring customer satisfaction is just as important to your sales success as it is to any part of your business. After all, if people aren’t happy, they’re not going to spend their money with you. 

Skip performance tracking and leave it to the 24/7 agents at Smith.ai 

You have a lot on your plate right now and it can be hard to keep up with a busy sales team. It can be even harder to free up your time for more sales interactions when you have so much to do in terms of returning calls, checking emails, etc. Fortunately, we’re here to help. The dedicated virtual receptionists at Smith.ai aren’t just for answering phones—we can also provide full-service solutions for outreach campaigns.

Ask about our 24/7 availability and how we can work with you to create a custom plan to manage it all. We’ll even help with things like scheduling, lead intake, and other admin needs, no matter what you have in mind. And we’ll track the metrics of all of it to help you see that things are running like a well-oiled machine. 

To learn more, schedule a consultation to discuss what the 24/7 virtual receptionists at Smith.ai can do to help your sales. You can also reach us at hello@smith.ai or (650) 727-6484.