The Best Way To Track Sales vs. Targets in Salesforce
This article is a comprehensive guide to measuring sales versus quota in Salesforce using the Target Tracker.
The Target Tracker is a vital tool because the other ways to measure sales versus target in Salesforce are either challenging or deliver limited benefits.
That's why we built the Target Tracker. It's a straightforward yet powerful way to measure sales versus quota at the salesperson, team, product, and company levels.
Furthermore, the app delivers pipeline quality metrics and funnel visibility that you are unlikely to get elsewhere in Salesforce. It's the perfect tool for managing the sales team and understanding whether you have enough pipeline coverage to hit your budget.
Here's what I cover in this article:
- How the Target Tracker works in Salesforce.
- The Sales Manager Dashboard.
- Ways you can customize the Target Tracker.
- How to learn more, trial, and test drive the Target Tracker.
I've also included links to other great resources that you'll find helpful.
With that, let's start with how the Target Tracker works.
Measure Sales Versus Target In Salesforce with the GSP Target Tracker
Measure won and pipeline deals against
target and quota.
Salesperson Targets in Salesforce
Dave Apthorp is a sales rep at Pyramid Construction. Here's his target record in Salesforce for February.
Dave's quota for the month is $50,000. So far, he's won $10,000 and achieved 20% of his target.
Now, let's look at his pipeline coverage for the month.
Dave's pipeline for the month is $52,000. On the face of it, that's good—it's more than 100% of the target. However, the weighted value of his funnel is $31,000. (The Weighted pipeline is the Probability of each Opportunity multiplied by the Amount.)
As a result, Dave's Expected Revenue for the month is $41,000. That figure is the sum of his won deals and his Weighted Pipeline.
What does that mean?
Dave likely does not have enough funnel to hit his target because his pipeline coverage is too low. The chart on the right shows the negative projected variance against his target.
Beneath this graph, a doughnut chart analyses Dave's funnel for February.
Dave and his manager should be concerned about this information.
That's because more than two-thirds of Dave's funnel for this month is in the Qualification, Needs Analysis, and Proposal opportunity stages.
We need to ask:
Is it realistic these deals will close this month?
If not, Dave's sales performance versus target for the month is potentially worse than projected. We'll discuss how you can quickly identify and weed out unreliable deals shortly.
But first:
Team Targets in Salesforce
The Target Tracker gives you flexibility in defining teams. Often, a team is a group of salespeople, but you can define teams in other ways - for example, based on territories or opportunity types.
Dave is part of the Southern team at Pyramid Construction. Here's their Team Target for February.
Although Dave's forecast is lower than his target, his team is doing well. As you can see, the team has sufficient pipeline coverage, and most deals scheduled to close this month are at advanced stages in the sales cycle.
Shortly, we'll see how the Sales Target Dashboard in Salesforce shows how the overall company is performing.
Product Targets in Salesforce
Some companies also track targets in Salesforce at the product level. Here's the target for February for Generators.
We've already made good inroads into the target with won opportunities involving generators, with pipeline opportunities remaining. It looks like a good month.
How Opportunities Link to Targets
Salesforce opportunities automatically link to target records, which means there's no additional work for salespeople.
For example, with salesperson targets, three pieces of information determine which target the opportunity links to:
- Opportunity Owner. The sales target is for the opportunity owner.
- Close Date. The opportunity's Close Date is the same as the target month. If the Close Date changes, the opportunity unhooks from the existing target record and re-links to the relevant target.
- Target Type. This field is optional. In some companies, salespeople have more than one target - for example, different targets for new and existing logo deals.
In all cases, the linked opportunities are at the bottom of the target page. Here are the deals linking to Dave's February target.
You can customize these features in other ways. For example, some companies use quarterly rather than monthly targets.
Let's briefly look at the pipeline quality metrics we store about each opportunity.
Measure won and pipeline deals against
target and quota.
Pipeline Quality Metrics
Now that we know the opportunities linking to Dave's February target, we can judge whether it's realistic to assume these deals will all close in the month.
There are three metrics the Target Tracker calculates for each opportunity.
- Number of Close Date Month Changes. This metric automatically calculates the number of times an opportunity has slipped from one month to another.
- Days Open. This metric counts the number of days the opportunity is open. The metric stops counting when setting the deal to Closed Won or Lost.
- Days Since Last Stage Change. This metric counts the days since a change in the opportunity stage.
We can see these critical pipeline quality metrics for the opportunities linked to Dave's February target.
For example, this opportunity in Needs Analysis has been open for 180 days. Dave updated the stage 122 days ago, and the deal has slipped four times.
This information means we will likely be sceptical about the deal closing successfully this month. If we want more information, we can click on the Name and drill down to the opportunity.
Either way, Dave has work to do to achieve his monthly quota.
Sales Target Dashboards in Salesforce
The Target Tracker includes dashboards detailing quota performance and pipeline coverage by salesperson, team, product, and the overall company.
For example, look at the top two rows of the Salesperson Target Dashboard. These rows summarize performance versus target for this month.
You can see the performance against quota for all salespeople, a breakdown of the pipeline by month, and the per-salesperson performance. You can also use a filter at the top of the dashboard to zone in on each salesperson.
There's a similar row for next month, this quarter, and this year.
As you can imagine, the teams, product, and company-level dashboards have charts that give you this powerful insight. And, of course, you can drill down on any chart to view the underlying data.
What about the day-to-day reporting needs of first-line sales managers?
The app also includes the Sales Manager Dashboard. I've written an article specifically about its critical target performance and funnel coverage information:
Master Pipeline Coverage With The Sales Manager Dashboard
Moreover, watch out for an upcoming blog post on pipeline view best practices. Sign up for a notification on our mailing list.
Opportunity Conversion Rate Metrics
The Target Tracker provides valuable opportunity conversion rate metrics in Salesforce.
There are several ways to calculate win rates, and I explain each option in this blog post:
How to Measure Opportunity Conversion Rates Correctly
Here's the approach I recommend:
Calculate opportunity conversion rates by comparing the ratio of deals won to opportunities lost in the period. Here's an example:
Dave's opportunity win rate in Salesforce is 29% by record count and 45% by value.
What does this mean?
Dave is successfully winning a higher proportion of large-value deals. We know this because his win rate by value is higher than by record count.
The dashboards also contain win rate analysis charts, which compare the ratio of won to lost deals over a period.
Conversion rates are significant because they help sales managers identify sandbagging and waterlogging. You must control these trends to achieve accurate and reliable pipeline coverage metrics.
Customizing the Target Tracker in Salesforce
Here are some ways to adapt the GSP Target Tracker to your business's needs.
- Appy quarterly or annual sales targets instead of monthly.
- Use a custom field that represents the value of an opportunity instead of the Amount.
- Exclude certain types of opportunities from linking to target records.
- Modify the reports and dashboards based on your sales structure.
What to do next
Here are three steps you can take today to learn more about the Target Tracker.
- Arrange a walkthrough. Contact us, and we'll walk you through the Target Tracker and answer your questions.
- Take a Test Drive. Visit the AppExchange Listing to test the app yourself. There's no installation involved because the test drive takes place in a temporary Salesforce environment that is not connected to your system.
- Take a Trial. Use the 14-day free trial to experience the Target Tracker in your sandbox or production environments. Again, start by going to the AppExchange Listing.
- Read more about tracking sales versus quota. Here are two great blog posts to start with:
4 Ways To Track Targets in Salesforce.
Measure Pipeline Coverage With Confidence.
Now, over to you.
Measure won and pipeline deals against
target and quota.
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