Sales

Performance
Report
Key findings and trends: H1 2019
01 Introduction
The report contains key sales performance findings from Q4 of 2018
and Q1 of 2019. Its main goal is to bring knowledge to sales leaders
who are looking to drive better performance in 2019 and ensure that
their teams are efficiently on-boarded and trained. Use this sales
performance data to compare your results with more than 133 other
companies ranging in team size and annual revenue.

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02 Who Participated
This report was conducted via a quantitative survey completed by
133 sales leaders. In the survey we asked multiple choice questions
about quota attainment, ramp time, sales onboarding, and challenges
that their teams face throughout the sales process. We also looked
at what top performers do differently and better.

We were able to get results from a wide range of participants driving

anywhere from 0-45M in annual revenue.

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03 Key Findings
On average, it takes 2-3 months to close a deal, but more than 18% of companies
will experience sales cycles longer than 6 months (selling enterprise deals).

Quota attainment is all over the map. This indicates that sales leaders need
a more systematic way to set quotas and could likely benefit from a set of
industry best practices.

Overall, sales leaders are not particularly happy with their sales training.
34.8% of sales leaders admit that they have little to no formal sales training
for new hires. 32.5% believe their teams are being inconsistently trained
amongst other challenges.

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03 Key Findings
Sales leaders believe that pipeline building is the area in the sales cycle
where their teams struggle most, followed by negotiation. Specifically, they
don’t believe their reps are able to successfully highlight value for price to
justify the investment.

Two things holding sales teams back from closing more deals include a lack
of urgency and a misaligned sales narrative. These are two areas where sales
leaders can double down on talk tracks and trainings for their team.

Sales leaders believe ramp times are lengthened by complex products and
markets. Finding a way to efficiently transfer knowledge about the offering
and industries you sell into is critical to early success and reducing ramp time.

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03 Key Findings
Sales leaders believe that top performers are most focused on quality by
better prioritizing decision makers and strategic accounts. They are also wildly
productive and able to complete a high volume of work efficiently.

Here are the top five traits sales leaders identify in top performers.

1. Focused on quality - able to prioritize decision makers

and strategic accounts

2. Wildly productive - excellent time manager skills and

adoption of internal tools

3. Volume - complete a high volume of work

4. Organization - remember key details and are diligent

about follow-ups

5. Relationship Building — build authentic and trusting

relationships with clients

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04 Key Takeaways
1. W
 hen setting quotas think of creating a bell curve
We analyzed sales calls throughout the entire sales process. Early stage
calls - discovery, demos - involve a lot of back and forth between the rep
and the prospect. In the last quarter successful reps took about 2 meetings
in the early stages, one focused more on discovery and the other more on a
product demo or solution discussion.

2. F
 ocus more of your coaching on early-stage pipeline
It’s not uncommon for sales leaders to get in the weeds of late-stage deals
when speaking with reps 1:1. However, since pipeline building is the area
where reps struggle most be sure to spend ample time discussing how to
identify decision-makers and break into strategic accounts.

Clearly outline the volume of activity your reps need in their early stage
pipelines, include emails, meetings, and demos given, so that they don’t
neglect pipeline building when juggling later-stage deals.

3. Align on a talk track that drives urgency

Sales leaders wholly admit that they need to do a better job of getting the
team trained on a consistent sales narrative. However, that narrative should
also contain a storyline and supporting stats that work to convince prospects
to buy now. Don’t rely on reps to write and validate the story or drive urgency
-- these talking points should come from the sales leader or sales enablement
so that everyone is on the same page.

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04 Key Takeaways
4. Bring in subject matter experts
With technology getting increasingly complex it’s critical that your sales
team feels confident talking about the product and truly understands the
nuances of the industries they sell. Bring in product leaders frequently to
lead educational sessions and to answer outstanding questions about your
tech, including how it is secured, serviced, and supported.

Invite a client or industry expert to speak with the team or consider a field
trip so that your team can see the customer’s world firsthand.

If you under-invest in these types of trainings you team will not be as confident
speaking with prospects and will take much longer to ramp.

5. F
 ocus more of your coaching on early-stage pipeline
While some reps are naturally good at prioritizing how they allocate their time
across accounts and then able to complete a high volume of work to crack
into them, for others this might not come as naturally. It will help if you guide
the team through bi-quarterly account planning exercises so that everyone
has a roadmap to follow that you’ve reviewed.

This roadmap should help your reps prioritize things like: the percentage of
time they’re going to dedicate to certain verticals, the accounts they’ll go
after in order of priority, when they’ll prioritize those accounts, and which
divisions to sell first. It should also list the anticipated number of touches it
will take to crack into that account and any messaging that might be used
to personalize outreach.

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05 Interested in learning more?
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic check
out our Definitive Guide to Sales Coaching.

You can also check out some of our top blogs on improving
how you onboard and train your teams using new technologies
like Conversation Intelligence:

• Here’s How Top Reps Run Sales Demos

• Discovery Calls with Educated Prospects
• What’s your Ideal Discovery Flow?
• Win More Deals with Multi-Threaded Conversations

Interested in more great content like this?

Visit our Resource Center

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 About Chorus.ai

Chorus.ai is a Conversation Intelligence Platform that records, transcribes, and

analyzes business conversations in real-time to coach reps on how to become
top performers. With Chorus.ai more reps meet quota, you ramp new hires
faster, coach the existing team effectively, and everyone in the organization can
collaborate over the actual voice of the customer.

Chorus.ai is funded by Emergence Capital, Georgian Partners, and

Redpoint Ventures and is headquartered in San Francisco, US.

Learn more at www.chorus.ai.

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