How To Measure Opportunity Conversion Rates Correctly

How To Measure Opportunity Conversion Rates Correctly

Opportunity conversion rates are a critical metric in any sales team.

That’s because when all is said and done, there are only three ways to increase revenue.

  1. Grow the pipeline.
  2. Raise the average deal size.
  3. Increase your opportunity conversion rate.

Of course, they’re all important.

However, improving your sales conversion rates is often the quickest way to increase sales. So naturally, you want to measure the ratio.

Not only that:

Tracking conversion rates helps you understand how to improve individual salesperson performance.

Nevertheless, be careful.

There is a right and wrong way to measure opportunity win rates.

So, naturally, I’ll explain the correct method.

(By the way, before we get started, what about those other two ways to increase sales? Here’s the dashboard chart that shows the trend in the size of your pipeline. And if you’re interested in average deal size right now, read this).

Note about terms:

Most people use the terms opportunity conversion rates, win rates, and sales conversion rates interchangeably. We do the same; I assume these three phrases all mean the same thing.

How To Measure Opportunity Conversion Rates

There’s more than one way to calculate opportunity conversion rates in Salesforce.

The Wrong Way To Measure Sales Win Rates

Sometimes people try to measure win rates as a proportion of the total pipeline.

In other words, the conversion rate is the value of closed-won deals in a month as a proportion of the total open pipeline.

However, this gives a distorted win rate.

For example, let’s say your sales cycle is three months.

That means deals created today are unlikely to close for another two to three months. So they are not relevant to the sales conversion rate for this month.

In other words, if the sales team closes the usual number of deals this month and does a great job creating pipeline opportunities, the win rate is artificially low.

Instead, I recommend you measure your opportunity conversion rate like this:

The Right Way To Measure Sales Conversion Rates

You measure opportunity win rates by comparing the number and value of deals won with those lost in the same period.

For example, if you win 30 deals and lose 70 opportunities in a month, your sales conversion rate by value is 30%. Likewise, if you win $40,000 of business and lose $60,000 in the same period, your win rate by dollar value is 40%.

This method is a clear and straightforward way to measure opportunity conversion rates. It’s also quick and easy to track in Salesforce.

How To Measure Sales Conversion in Salesforce 

This Salesforce dashboard chart shows the ratio of won to lost deals each month.

Opportunity conversion rate report in salesforce showing win rate by Value and Count.

The pipeline, including deals that get pushed from one month to another, plays no part in calculating the conversion rate.

Measuring Conversion Rates by Value and Number

Our dashboard chart shows the conversion rate in two ways.

  • Won % (Count). This metric is the percentage conversion rate in terms of the number of won opportunities.
  • Won % (Amount). This metric is the percentage conversion rate in terms of the total value of won opportunities.

There’s a significant trend in the chart.

The chart shows that in three months – July, August, and October – the conversion rate by Amount was higher than the win rate by Count.

That’s probably a good thing because it means that more high-value opportunities were successfully closed compared to lower value opportunities.

In September, the trend reverses. It appears that more low-value opportunities closed successfully.

That’s something we’ll want to investigate.

The overall opportunity conversion rates are around 35% in this company. Two months – July and October – exceed 40%. That’s relatively high. Is it a good thing? Perhaps. Let’s investigate further.

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Salesforce Opportunity Conversion Rate Report

Here’s the report for the chart.

Salesforce win rate report showing sales conversion rates.
In addition to the Won % (Count) and Won % (Amount), the report shows:
  • Sum of Amount. The total value of Closed-Won and Lost deals in the month.
  • Sum of Amount Won. The value of Won deals in the month.

These additional metrics are helpful because they put the opportunity conversion rates into context.

For example, Shaun Yates has a 100 percent sales conversion rate for October. On the other hand, the Amount Won is only £5,000 – that’s small compared to the total value won by other salespeople in the month.

 

How To Interpret The Opportunity Conversion Report

Like any other Salesforce report, we need to know how to use it.

Here are five insights we can gain from the report above. Don’t forget that we need to validate each idea through further reports and investigation.

  1. Dave Apthorp focuses on higher-value deals. Dave’s Won % (Amount) is consistently higher than the Won % (Count). A previous blog post tells us why that is. Dave featured in the post, The Best and the Worst Salesperson on the salesforce dashboard. It turns out that Dave puts all of his eggs in the two or three biggest deals each quarter. He virtually ignores all the rest.
  2. John Davies has the lowest opportunity conversion rates. On the face of it, John will benefit from coaching to improve his win rates. But we need to check that there isn’t more to it than just that. Is John focused more on new rather than existing customers? Is he operating in a new market? Or is he converting Leads into Opportunities much earlier than other salespeople and then qualifying them out at an early stage?
  3. Sarah Watson focuses on lower-value deals. Sarah’s opportunity conversion rate is much better in Count than Amount. Potentially she needs guidance on her approach to opportunity prioritization. Alternatively, she needs coaching and more experience in handling large deals.
  4. Consistently, Shaun Yates has the highest opportunity conversion rates. Does this mean Shaun is a superstar salesperson? Perhaps. But his full-year conversion rate of 55% is suspiciously high. Potentially Shaun is keeping opportunities out of the pipeline until he’s confident that a deal is almost certainly on. Reviewing the time in stage velocity metrics will help determine this.

Be Careful Using Sales Conversion Rates

Looking at opportunity conversion rates is an excellent way to spot the team leader’s actions that will increase sales.

However, it’s essential to use other reports and dashboard charts to confirm your insights. Most of all, you need to be careful not to encourage tactics that reduce your pipeline visibility.

I’ll explain:

  • Sandbagging: This happens when salespeople keep deals out of the sales pipeline until a positive outcome is on the cards. 

In our example, we might suspect Shaun of sandbagging. How do we know? Well, his win rate is very high. Perhaps he’s a fantastic salesperson. On the other hand, maybe he only introduces some deals into the pipeline when he’s confident of a successful outcome. The impact is to boost his sales conversion rates. Unfortunately, this means we lack complete visibility of the sales pipeline and potential revenue.

  • Pipeline over-inflation: This is the opposite of sandbagging. Deals that are well past their sell-by date never get closed.

There are many reasons why deals do not get closed out of the sales pipelineFor example, optimism that an agreement will happen one day or manager pressure to maintain the size of the pipeline.

Again, the result is to distort funnel visibility.

You can avoid these issues by using opportunity conversion rates in conjunction with other measures. For example, track average deal sizedeal quality metrics, and sales velocity measures.

Using Sales Conversion Rates To Increase Sales

So let’s say our analysis is complete and we’re happy with the numbers.

Here are seven ways you can use opportunity conversion rates to boost your sales revenue.

  1. Opportunity qualification: Low sales conversion rates are not necessarily a bad thing. As Bud Suse points out, there’s no point spending a lot of time and effort on a deal only to come a close second. Far better to qualify out of those deals where you have a low chance of success.
  2. Share and learn: Identify the salespeople with high opportunity win rates. Share and learn from their experience and spread their skills across the team.
  3. Teach: Train and coach each rep on ways to improve their opportunity conversion rates. Walk through a couple of deals they didn’t win, and work out what you can do differently next time.
  4. Territory analysis: Compare conversion rates across regions. Identify and share lessons across territories.
  5. Customer types: Optimize sales revenue by adjusting the balance between new and existing customers.
  6. Value proposition: Test the impact of different marketing campaigns and go-to-market strategies.
  7. Funnel leakage: Use conversion rates in conjunction with Leaking Funnel reports, so we understand how and why deals are lost from the sales pipeline.

Opportunity conversion rate reports are a powerful sales tool. Use them to increase sales revenue in your business today.

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How To Measure Opportunity Conversion Rates Correctly

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12 Must-Have Salesforce Dashboard Charts | With Video And Examples

12 Must-Have Salesforce Dashboard Charts | With Video And Examples

Many sales managers are crestfallen when it comes to Salesforce dashboards.

Sales leaders expect dashboards to give complete visibility of the sales pipeline. They want inaccurate sales forecasts to be a thing of the past.

And they require detailed metrics to highlight when, where, and how to manage, coach, and develop the sales team performance.

Sadly, it doesn’t always work out that way.

Even with many dashboards and reports, managers often still don’t know enough about the sales pipeline’s size, quality, and trend. These constraints limit their ability to manage and coach the sales team.

Furthermore, they cannot look back at historical sales metrics to gain insight that guides better sales performance in the future.

Here’s another thing:

In many reviews and team meetings, people still spend more time arguing about the numbers than working out how to increase revenue.

However, if you’re looking for the best practical advice on Salesforce dashboards, then you’ll love this blog post.

We’ve also recorded a webinar covering the same topic. You can find that webinar recording just below.

Recorded Webinar | 12 Must-Have Sales Dashboard Charts In 2022

Webinar | 12 Must-Have Sales Dashboard Charts In 2022

The Best Salesforce Dashboard

This article is a complete guide to the best Salesforce Dashboard.

In it, you’ll learn all about:
• The 12 must-have charts on your sales dashboard.
• Best practices in using each vital chart and report.
• How to get our free sales dashboard (5,000+ downloads).
• The three pipeline quality metrics guaranteed to improve your sales forecasts.
• Where to find other authoritative free resources.

If you are looking for Salesforce dashboard examples and want complete visibility of your teams’ pipeline and sales performance, then dive into this guide.

Let’s start.

12 Recommended Salesforce Dashboard Charts

Here are the twelve charts we recommend are on any sales managers’ dashboard.

Before building them, remember you can get all twelve straight away by installing our free GSP Sales Dashboard template. After that, you can tailor each of the charts to suit your business.

Pro tip: Whether you install our free template or build the charts yourself, I recommend you also review this blog post:

10 Best Practice Tips For Awesome Salesforce Dashboards.

Here are the twelve:

1. Closed Won Opportunities by Month.
2. Pipeline Deals by Close Date and Opportunity Stage.
3. The Traditional Funnel Chart.
4. Top 10 Pipeline Customers and Prospects.
5. Long-term Pipeline Trend.
6. Open Opportunities by Created Date.
7. Pipeline Quality Metrics.
8. Opportunity Conversion Rates / Win Rates.
9. Average Size of Closed Won Deals.
10. Completed Activities per Salesperson.
11. Leaking Funnel Report.
12. Sales Performance and Pipeline Coverage versus Target.

Sales Dashboard by GSP

Superb Pipeline Visibility and Sales
Performance Metrics from this free Dashboard.

I will explain how to use each chart and report in a practical way to drive sales.

Not only that:

For every dashboard chart, I point you to a dedicated blog post I’ve written. Each of these articles gives additional in-depth information and a video demo.

And don’t forget, you can also download this blog post as an eBook to study offline.

It’s time to dive into the first chart.

 

1 – Closed Won Opportunities by Month

The goal of the sales team is to drive revenue. So we need to start with a report that tells us how successful we are.

That’s what the Closed Won Opportunities by Month dashboard chart shows. It displays the sales revenue achieved during the year.

Example of a Salesforce Dashboard chart showing Closed Won opportunities.

In this example, the dashboard chart and report both sum the data by each salesperson. You may want to create report variations that group the data by team, country, or territory.

The dashboard chart and report deliver essential insight into sales performance.

In our example, Dave Apthorp is consistently the top performer. Sarah has improved her performance after a poor start to the year. Peter, in particular, needs help to boost his performance.

Combine your knowledge of each team and person with the information from this chart and insight from other reports to identify specific coaching needs.

Watch this video for a demo of the Closed Won Opportunities Dashboard Chart in action.

Recommended blog post:
The 10 Illuminating Ways To Measure Closed Won Deals. This article shows examples of other ways to analyze historical sales performance.

Of course, the Closed Won Opportunities by Month dashboard chart doesn’t tell us anything about future revenue performance. That’s where the following pipeline chart I recommend comes into play.

Here it is:

 

2 – Pipeline Deals by Close Date and Opportunity Stage

If I could only have one Salesforce dashboard chart to manage the sales pipeline, it would be this one.

That’s how powerful it is.

The chart shows the value of opportunities that are due to close each month. Within each month, we can see the deals grouped by opportunity stage.

Opportunity Pipeline Salesforce Dashboard Chart (example).

Consequently, the Pipeline Opportunities By Close Date and Opportunity Stage dashboard chart delivers vital information to manage the sales funnel.

Sales managers and executives can use this chart to assess the pipeline’s size and begin forecasting revenue.

This dashboard chart also tells us whether the pipeline is sufficiently mature this month and next month to achieve revenue targets.

Consequently, managers and salespeople have an early warning that highlights when remedial action is necessary.

For example, let’s assume we are in January right now and that our typical sales cycle is three months.

There’s a substantial pipeline due to close this month that is still in Prospecting and Investigation.

Are we confident these deals will close in January if the sales cycle is three months? Are they at the right opportunity stage? Should these opportunities be updated to complete in a later month?

Also, what about the deals in April that are in the Negotiation Stage? Is it going to take four months to close these opportunities? Maybe.

Alternatively, are there steps we can take to bring these deals forward?

 

Pipeline By Owner

Here’s an insightful variant of this dashboard chart: Pipeline Opportunities by Close Date and Owner.

Salesforce Dashboard chart of pipeline by owner. Includes example funnel report by owner.

You can use this chart to zone in on the opportunity owners with most deals due to close this month.

You can also see whether salespeople have a pipeline shortfall in the medium and longer-term.

Recommended blog posts:
If You Only Create One Dashboard Chart, Make It This One. The article has excellent examples of how to use this essential chart and report.

Some readers will also need this post:
Don’t Let The Best Sales Dashboard Chart Look Like A Bedraggled Washing Line. It explains the steps to take when out-of-date pipeline opportunities make it impossible to get accurate funnel visibility.

Next, what do you think about the traditional funnel chart?

 

3 – Sales Funnel Chart

I believe the traditional sales funnel dashboard chart is relevant to look at – once a week. Therefore it should be on your dashboard.

Example of a funnel chart on a Salesforce Dashboard.

However, here’s the thing about this chart:

The shape never changes.

That makes it hard to interpret.

It doesn’t matter how big or how small your pipeline is. The outline funnel will always be the same size and shape on your Salesforce dashboard.

So why bother with it?

The answer is because of the value of the information the segments within the funnel give you.

Perfect Funnel Shape

If the sales funnel is in perfect shape, the value of the pipeline in each segment gets progressively smaller.

If the sales funnel is in perfect shape, the value of the pipeline in each segment gets progressively smaller.

After all, that’s why we refer to the pipeline as a funnel.

However, that’s not always the case.

Wrong Funnel Shape

Look at the example below. The $ value of deals in the Investigation stage is less than the $ Amount of opportunities in Proposal Made. The next opportunity stage has more funnel than the earlier stage.

It's essential to look at the funnel dashboard chart once a week.

Look also at the Prospecting Stage. Should it be bigger? Is the funnel lacking early-stage opportunities?

In other words, the chart is warning that our pipeline may be out of kilter.

Potentially we need to initiate marketing campaigns to boost the size of the early-stage funnel. We may also need to examine our qualification and investigation processes to move deals more effectively through the sales cycle.

Is the shape of the sales funnel chart in your business a cause for concern? If it is, there’s probably no quick-fix. You need to take steps that require thought, preparation, and planning.

That’s why it’s essential to look at the funnel dashboard chart once a week.

Recommended blog post:
Big is Beautiful: 4 Easy Charts To Measure Pipeline Size. I recommend you review these four charts that measure funnel size.

Next up: which customers and prospects should we prioritize?

 

4 – Top 10 Pipeline Accounts

Usually, salespeople can name their top few customers and prospects straightaway.

But what about the top 5? Or the top 10?

This Salesforce dashboard chart shows the customers and prospects ranked by total pipeline.

Salesforce dashboard table showing customers and prospects ranked by total pipeline.

Managers and salespeople can now prioritize their time and effort. It means resources are focused on areas where they are likely to have the most impact.

This list of the top accounts also helps the leadership team identify strategic customers and their performance. For example, if the CEO has time to visit a single customer, make it one from this list.

Showing the information on a dashboard table is an excellent way of focusing attention on the top Accounts. Limit the dashboard table results to the top 5, 10, or 15. Then on the report, list all Accounts with open deals.

In our example, High Hill Estates has the highest value of sales pipeline. There’s almost twice as much funnel as the following Account.

Are we on top of the relationship with this critical customer? For example, is there a robust key account plan in place? Do we understand their buying process? Have we got relationships at all levels in the business?

And if the CEO only has time to visit one prospect, let’s make it this one.

The report shows the opportunities for each Account. Where we have multiple opportunities, can a single, large-scale deal be done?

In summary, the Top 10 Pipeline Accounts dashboard table and report provide information that means we can prioritize sales, account management, and business development activities.

Top Accounts At Each Level

Don’t forget:

You can replicate the table for each territory, team, and individual salesperson.

That means this report is a practical tool for focussing attention on critical customers and prospects at all levels in the company.

Ultimate Parent

Sometimes you are dealing with large companies that have many business units. Often, you record these as separate Accounts in Salesforce.

There’s no easy, standard way to get a complete picture of all the opportunities at these connected Accounts. That’s why the GSP Account Planning app includes the ultimate parent concept. It means you can report on deals across the complete set of opportunities within the overall company group.

The GSP Account Planning app helps you report on opportunities across the overall group of companies.

Account Planning by GSP

Create Key Account Plans that drive business
development and sales.

To find out more about how the account plan app works, I recommend this blog post:

How To Build Key Account Plans In Salesforce. Step-by-step advice for creating key account plans in Salesforce.

Other recommended blog posts:

Stop Guessing, Start Measuring Key Accounts. Reports, and Salesforce dashboard charts that track account performance.

Now, let’s look at something different:

 

5 – Long-Term Pipeline Trend

The Salesforce Dashboard pipeline charts we’ve looked at so far describe the funnel as it stands right now.

But what about the trend in the size of the sales funnel over time? Is the pipeline getting bigger or smaller?

The Sales Pipeline As-At dashboard chart gives us the answer.

The Sales Pipeline As-At dashboard chart shows the trend over time.

It measures the size of the pipeline on the 1st of each month. As such, it shows the long-term trend in the size of the sales pipeline.

Grouping the information by the Historical Stage gives insight into the make-up of the sales pipeline each month. It allows us to understand the overall trend by opportunity stage.

In our example, the pipeline has been growing over recent months. This trend is mainly due to a significant increase in deals in the Prospecting stage.

The As-At Long-Term pipeline chart and report tell us whether our efforts to grow the pipeline are successful.

That’s good news.

However, do we understand why it has happened?

We should also investigate why the size of the pipeline in the Customer Evaluating and Negotiation stages has declined. Is the sales team having trouble moving deals through the sales process? Was the funnel created over the last few months of the right quality?

The As-At Long-Term pipeline chart and report give the big picture. They tell us whether our efforts to grow the pipeline, in the long run, are thriving.

Recommended blog post:
Measure The Trend In Your Sales Pipeline. This article gives further detail on how to use the As-At report to track the critical pipeline trends.

Of course, size isn’t everything. Quality matters too. That’s why the following dashboard chart is also essential.

 

6 – Open Opportunities by Created Date

Although this is a simple report, it gives valuable insight into pipeline quality. It all tells us, crucially, how successful we are at refreshing the funnel.

The pipeline by created date dashboard chart shows the existing funnel, summarized by Created Month and current Stage.

The chart shows the existing funnel, summarized by Created Month and current Stage. You may also want to build a similar report and dashboard chart that displays the Created Month and Opportunity Owner.

The chart tells us how much pipeline the sales team created each month. That’s important because all other things being equal, more pipeline means increased future revenue.

However, the dashboard chart is also a pipeline-quality reality check.

For example, let’s say it typically takes three months to close a deal in your business. If there are a significant number of opportunities open much longer than this, then are these genuine, viable deals?

In other words, the chart and report give helpful information to validate the pipeline and sales forecast.

In our example, let’s assume it is January 2022, and our sales cycle is typically three months.

Look at those deals that opened in February, March, and April 2021. They have been open for the best part of a year. Are we confident they are still legitimate opportunities?

Have the Close Dates frequently shifted on these opportunities? If not, what action can we take to bring these deals to fruition?

(You might be wondering: how do I track how many times a deal slips? We’re coming to that shortly).

Measuring New Funnel

Reviewing the pipeline by Created Date is an easy but effective way of identifying potentially dormant deals in your funnel.

At the same time, it also measures how successful we are at building the pipeline.

For example, look again at our chart.

Pipeline by Created Date Example dashboard chart.

It shows that the team created less pipeline over the last three months of the year. Should we be worried about this trend? Is it due to the sales team focussing on closing existing deals before the end of the year?

On the other hand, it may be an early warning that we do not have enough pipeline to meet our sales targets in Q1 2022.

Either way, we might need to initiate new marketing and business development activities straightaway to correct the trend.

Recommended blog post:
How To Tell If Your Sales Funnel Is Emitting Warning Signals. This article explains the Salesforce dashboard charts that alert you to too many aging or poor quality deals in your pipeline.

Now, I hinted at those vital pipeline quality metrics. Let’s dig into those next.

 

7 – Pipeline Quality Metrics Table

If you want to predict tomorrow’s weather, here is the most reliable way to do it.

Whatever the weather is like today, forecast that is how it will be tomorrow.

It’s the same with sales deals.

Deals that are stuck today will probably be stuck tomorrow. Opportunities that slipped last month are the ones most likely to move this month.

With that in mind, here are three pipeline quality metrics that act as a barometer for managers and salespeople.

1. Close Date Month extensions. Counts the number of times the Close Date on each opportunity has shifted from one month to another.

(We don’t track the change if the Close Date moves within the month. It’s when the Close Date moves to another month that we’re interested).

2. Days Since The Last Stage Change. Tracks days since the opportunity stage was last updated.

3. Days Open. Counts the days the opportunity has been in the pipeline. This metric stops when the deal is Won or Lost.

You can display these metrics in a dashboard table.

The three pipeline metrics that provide valuable insight into funnel quality. Displayed on a Salesforce dashboard.

In our example, we show the metrics for the top 10 deals due to close this month, ranked by the number of days they have been open.

Using The Pipeline Quality Metrics

There’s high-impact information in this table.

That’s because the dashboard table is a powerful way to rapidly identify deals due to close this month that need further scrutiny.

Example of a Salesforce dashboard chart showing pipeline quality metrics in a table.

Are we relying on deals that have already shifted several times to hit our sales quota this month? How confident are we that each opportunity will not slip to another month again?

Likewise, what about those deals where the opportunity stage was last updated a long time ago? Will the sales cycle be completed successfully before the end of the month? You may find that’s unlikely in many cases.

Use the dashboard table to improve the accuracy of sales forecasts. Remember, these three pipeline quality metrics do not declare that a deal will not close this month. However, they give you a strong hint towards opportunities you may not want to rely upon in your sales forecast.

Pro tip: You may be wondering how to create these pipeline quality metrics. The easiest way is to install our free GSP Sales Dashboard. They are all included in the package.

Recommended blog post:
3 Killer Pipeline Metrics That Highlight When To Be Skeptical. Take your use of these pipeline quality metrics to the next level.

Now, let’s talk win rates.

 

8 – Opportunity Conversion Ratios / Win Rates

Often, a moderate increase in your win rates has a disproportionately large impact on sales revenue.

That’s why measuring opportunity conversion ratios (or win rates) is critical.

The Opportunity Conversion Rate dashboard chart tracks the win rate by Amount and Count.

The Opportunity Conversion Rate chart tracks the win rate in two ways:
· Win Rate by Amount.
· Win Rate by Count.

Measuring the win rate both ways means we understand whether salespeople are more effective at successfully closing higher value or lower value deals.

In our example, the win rate by Amount is higher in most months. In other words, we won a higher proportion of large value deals compared to smaller opportunities.

In September and October, the situation was different. The sales team closed a higher proportion of lower-value deals.

The report tells us the questions to ask. Did the sales team lose focus on the higher value deals? Were discounts higher during these months? Did we have new joiners that had less experience with complex opportunities?

Opportunity Conversion Rate Report

The report shows the win rates for each salesperson. That’s crucial data for working out coaching, training, and support needs.

Example of an opportunity conversion rate report showing the win rates for each salesperson.

However, be careful.

Too much emphasis on win rates can have an adverse impact. You don’t want to encourage sandbagging. In other words, salespeople leave opportunities out of the pipeline until they are confident a deal is on the table.

On the other hand, you don’t want salespeople leaving opportunities in the funnel that no longer have legs. You want reliable pipeline visibility, not skewed by dormant deals that salespeople keep open to protect their win rate.

Recommended blog post:
How To Measure Opportunity Conversion Rates (Correctly) And Increase Sales. This article explains all you need to know about tracking and using win rates.

Next up, it’s time to talk deal size.

 

9 – The Average Size of Closed Won Deals

One of our customers found a 65% difference in average deal size between salespeople.

That’s a vast range.

Salesforce dashboard chart showing the variation in average deal size between salespeople.

These salespeople work in similar territories. And they’re selling the same products to similar customers.

There are many reasons why some salespeople work with more significant-sized deals. These reasons include differences in experience and confidence. Variations in process and methodology between salespeople can also be critical.

An example:

Increasing the average deal size for many salespeople was a priority for our client. We found that people with bigger deals spent more time in the Discovery stage with their customers. They dug further into their needs. And asked more questions over a more extended period.

As a result, these salespeople were better able to create a complete package for the customer. They also found more ways to sell add-ons and optional features.

Our client was able to implement a tightly focussed training and coaching program. This training increased revenue by 12%, without any increase in the number of deals in the pipeline.

Win rates remained the same, but the average deal size was higher compared to peers. Put simply that means more revenue.

And that’s why you need to track average deal size.

Recommended blog post:
Why You Need To Compare Average Closed Won Opportunity Size. Get more insight on measuring average deal size with this article. It includes some great examples of how our customers use this metric to boost sales.

Of course, deals of any size don’t close themselves. For that, you need salesperson activities.

 

10 – Activities per Salesperson

Tracking activities is more important in some businesses than others.

It’s essential in businesses with a straightforward sales process and a short cycle. Here, the volume of activities is often the critical driver of revenue.

However, even with complex sales processes and medium to long sales cycles, you still want to measure the number and type of activities.

How to measure the number and type of activities using Salesforce dashboards.

For example, I’ve seen how vital this is in professional services businesses. In these cases, the team selling is also often the team that delivers the projects. However, when the order book is complete, sales calls reduce because everyone focuses on delivery. Unfortunately, that stores up a revenue shortfall for the future.

In our example, there is an upward trend in the number of Activities by the sales team. That’s a positive sign. Indeed, Sarah’s increase in Activity volume may be a strong reason for the increase in sales that we saw on other charts.

However, we can also see variations in the number of Activities by each salesperson. Shaun and Peter have much lower levels of activity compared to Sarah and Dave.

You may also want to track activity by salespeople in several other ways. For example, you can compare activity with new customers versus existing customers. This approach helps you identify whether the teams’ actions are consistent with the overall sales strategy.

You can improve the value charts by making two small changes in Salesforce.

Due Date and Activity Type

First, I suggest you modify the Activity Type picklist. (You may also need to adjust the visibility of this field to include it on the page layout).

Using this field delivers extra insight into salesperson’s activities.

Second, I suggest you make the Due Date mandatory.

This change means future activities will always have a due date. If you don’t, you risk a task having no specific date and not appearing on reports.

Showing how to make the Due Date and Activity Type mandatory on Salesforce Tasks.

Recommended blog post:
How To Spot Neglected Accounts You Should Focus On. This article explains how to spot customers and prospects that need your attention.

Now, all funnels leak deals. That’s the nature of the game. But you might be wondering, what’s the best way to measure pipeline leakage?

 

11 – Leaking Funnel Report

The Leaking Funnel report helps sales managers answer two critical questions:

First, is the funnel leaking too much? And second, is it losing deals in the right place?

The Leaking Funnel report helps sales managers understand whether the pipeline is leaking too much, and if you are losing deals in the right place.

The report tells you both of these things. Here’s how it works.

This Salesforce dashboard chart describes the ‘From’ and ‘To’ opportunity stage movement.

In our example, it does this for deals set to Closed Lost in the last 120 days.

In other words, it shows how often opportunities have moved to Closed Lost from each prior opportunity stage.

For example, the dashboard chart shows that eight opportunities have moved from Prospecting directly to Closed Lost.

Example of a chart showing stage movement to Closed Lost on a Salesforce dashboard.

All other things being equal, it is good that the first stage has the highest number of opportunities that moved to Closed Lost.

It implies we are qualifying-out deals we are unlikely to win. As a result, salespeople are not wasting time, effort, and resources chasing deals where they are unlikely to succeed.

In other words, if you’re going to lose the deal, it’s best to lose it quickly.

However, look at the Negotiation Stage. Five opportunities went directly from Negotiation to Closed Lost.

Again – all other things being equal – that movement in the Opportunity Stage isn’t good news.

It means we invested time and effort in moving the deal through the sales cycle, only to lose the opportunity at the last moment.

Of course, we need to know more. What happened, exactly?

For example, is the shift from Negotiation to Closed Lost linked to new versus existing customers? How does the trend compare across salespeople? Does it apply only to opportunities with certain product groups?

Like all dashboard components, the Leaking Funnel charts and reports don’t tell you the answer. Instead, what they do is tell you what questions to ask.

And that’s the art of good sales management.

Recommended blog post:
3 Steps To Plug A Leaking Sales Funnel In The Right Place. This article provides examples of the leaking funnel report and explains best practices on the steps to take.

This report leads us nicely to the last of our 12 must-have Salesforce dashboard charts. It’s a topic that makes everyone attentive.

 

12 – Sales Performance versus Target

You might be wondering:

Where’s the Target tab in Salesforce?

There isn’t one. Of course, that’s surprising because sales versus quota is an activity every sales team needs to do.

So how do you measure sales against targets in Salesforce? Here are the four ways:
1. A dashboard gauge chart.
2. The Forecasts tab.
3. The Performance Chart.
4. Our GSP Target Tracker app.

Here’s an example of the first of those options.

The gauge runs from a report that measures Closed Won opportunities and shows sales versus target on a Salesforce Dashboard.

The dashboard gauge runs from a report that measures Closed Won opportunities. You need to manually set the red, amber, and green sectors within the chart.

The dashboard gauge is quick and easy to set up. One downside is that it provides no insight into pipeline coverage. In other words, whether there is enough funnel to meet the sales target next month or this quarter.

Also, you’ll need separate gauges for each salesperson and sales team per month.

In summary, it’s an easy but simplistic and high-maintenance option.

Secondly, the Forecasts Tab is a standard feature within Salesforce.

It includes the ability for managers to override their team members’ targets. Unfortunately, here’s the thing about the Forecasts tab:

It’s complicated, hard to use, and difficult to understand.

Training is needed for salespeople and managers to use it effectively. Even then, it’s a challenging piece of kit.

Thirdly, the Lightning Home page Performance Chart is another simple option.

The Lightning Home page Performance Chart is a simple option for measuring sales versus target.

Unfortunately, you can’t fine-tune the chart. And the insight it provides is minimal.

Dissatisfaction with the other options led us to build the GSP Target Tracker. We wanted to make measuring quotas intuitive, straightforward, and powerful for salespeople, managers, and executives.

It’s the fourth way to measure targets in Salesforce.

The Target Tracker contains easy-to-understand charts and metrics that measure two things. First, sales performance versus current and historical quotas. And second, pipeline coverage versus future targets.

The Target Tracker contains easy-to-understand charts and metrics that measure sales performance versus current and historical quotas, and pipeline coverage versus future targets.

Most importantly, it avoids the need for salespeople to create or update anything manually.

Target Tracker by GSP

Measure won and pipeline deals against
target and quota.

Recommended blog post:
The 4 Ways To Measure Sales Versus Target In Salesforce. This article explains the four options in detail.

GSP Target Tracker on the AppExchange. The listing includes a video, screenshots, and a free trial. And as you’re wondering, the app costs $350 per month, unlimited users.

What To Do Now

Here are four things I recommend you do next:

1. Install the GSP Sales Dashboard. It’s the best Salesforce dashboard, and it’s free. The package contains all the charts described in this blog post. Use it as a dashboard template and fine-tune each chart and report to suit your business.

2. Download the eBook. We have an eBook that explains each chart in the dashboard. Again, you can download it for free.

3. Look at the GSP Target Tracker. Measuring revenue and pipeline versus quota is critical. We make it super-easy and practical with the Target Tracker.

4. Get in touch. We’ll give you a free, thirty-minute web meeting to talk about opportunity stages in your business. In the session, we’ll talk through your scenario and discuss our recommendations. There’s no catch, just straightforward advice, and tips.

Here’s how you can Contact Us.

Finally, you’ve read the blog, now watch the movie:

Recorded Webinar | 12 Must-Have Salesforce Dashboard Charts

Join me, Gary Smith, and Dan Bailey as we demonstrate each of the 12 charts in action. We explain the visibility each chart provides and how it will help you manage the sales team more effectively.

Webinar | 12 Must-Have Salesforce Dashboard Charts

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How To Measure Sales Versus Target In Salesforce

How To Measure Sales Versus Target In Salesforce

If you want to track sales versus target in Salesforce, there’s a superb app that empowers you to do it.

It’s called the GSP Target Tracker.

Here’s a summary of the essential things the Target Tracker helps you do in Salesforce:

  • Compare rep, team, and company sales versus target.
  • Measure the pipeline coverage ratio. Expressly, understand whether you have enough funnel to meet your sales quota.
  • Conduct meaningful pipeline reviews and salesperson 1.1s.

Furthermore, the app delivers target performance metrics and pipeline visibility that you are unlikely to get elsewhere in Salesforce.

The Target Tracker app is straightforward to use for both salespeople and managers. You can customize the app within Salesforce to meet the specific needs of your company.

And here’s the best thing of all. The Target Tracker costs $250 per month per company, and there’s no user-based fee. We think that’s an excellent price.

Measure Sales Versus Target In Salesforce with the GSP Target Tracker

Measure Sales Versus Target In Salesforce with the GSP Target Tracker

Here’s what we cover in this article:

  • How the Target Tracker works in Salesforce.
  • The Salesforce Target Tracker dashboard.
  • Ways you can customize the Target Tracker.
  • How to trial and buy the Target Tracker app.
  • Best practice for conducting pipeline views using the Target Tracker.

Let’s start.

Section 1

How the Target Tracker works in Salesforce

Sales rep targets in Salesforce

Here’s an example of a target record for a sales rep in Salesforce.

Example of the sales quota for a rep using the Target Tracker in Salesforce.

It’s the quota record for Dave Apthorp, for March 2020.

Dave’s quota for the month is $50,000. So far, he’s won $30,000. Consequently, he’s achieved 60% of his target.

Example of the pipeline coverage ratio for a sales rep in Salesforce.

Now let’s look at this pipeline coverage. We can also see that Dave’s pipeline for the month is $48,000. However, the weighted value of his funnel is $14,200. (Weighted pipeline is the Probability of each Opportunity multiplied by the Amount).

Example of the expected revenue for a sales rep using the Target Tracker.

As a result, Dave’s Total Expected Revenue for the month is $44,200. That figure is the sum of Closed Won and Weighted Pipeline.

The result?

That means Dave’s pipeline coverage ratio is not high enough. Consequently, his Expected Variance against the target for the month is negative, to the tune of $5,800.

Showing calculated expected variance versus sales target in Salesforce.

On the right-hand side, those numbers are all shown as percentages of Dave’s sales goal for March.

For example, Dave has achieved 60% of his target; his total pipeline is 96% of the target, and his Weighted Pipeline is 28% of his sales goal.

The chart further to the right shows Dave’s target performance.

Chart in Salesforce shows an example of shortfall of sales versus quota.

Target Tracker by GSP

Measure won and pipeline deals against
target and quota.

As we can see, Dave has a shortfall against his quota.

Beneath this graph, the doughnut chart analyses Dave’s funnel for March.

Doughnut chart analysing sales funnel for the month.

As Dave’s manager, I should be concerned. That’s because more than half of Dave’s funnel for the month is still in the Qualification opportunity stage. A further quarter is still in Needs Analysis.

We need to ask:

Is it realistic these deals will close this month?

If not, then Dave’s sales performance versus target for the month is potentially worse.

 

Opportunity Conversion Rate Metrics

The Target Tracker provides valuable opportunity conversion rate metrics in Salesforce.

Conversion rates calculate by comparing the ratio of deals won to opportunities lost in the period. Here’s an example:

Conversion rates calculate by comparing the ratio of deals won to opportunities lost in the period

In this case, we can see that Dave has won three opportunities in March and lost seven.

That means his opportunity conversion rate in Salesforce is 25% by record count.

However, we also calculate the opportunity conversion rate by the value of opportunities.

For example, we can see that Dave has won $30,000. He’s lost $120,000. As a result, Dave’s opportunity conversion rate by value is 25%.

The conclusion?

Dave is successfully winning a higher proportion of large-value deals. We know this because his win rate by value is higher than his win rate by record count.

 

How Opportunities Link To Quota In Salesforce

Further down the page, we can see the Salesforce opportunities linked to Dave’s March Target.

Opportunities link automatically to the target. Consequently, everything is straightforward for the sales rep, with no additional work necessary.

These opportunities link automatically to the target. Consequently, everything is straightforward for the sales rep, with no additional work necessary.

If the Close Date moves, the opportunity automatically re-links to the relevant sales target. Again, no additional work for the salesperson.

Also, the Target Tracker makes it easy to see the essential, large deals that Dave must focus on to achieve his sales goal for the month.

The Target Tracker makes it easy to see the essential, large deals that the sales rep must focus on to achieve his sales goal for the month.

In Section Three, we explain some of the customizations you can make to the Target Tracker. For example, you can use quarterly or annual targets. You can also use fields other than the Amount to compare opportunity revenue with quotas.

However, before that, let’s look at the Salesforce target dashboard included in the app.

Section 2

Sales Target Dashboard in Salesforce

The Target Tracker comes with a pre-built Salesforce dashboard containing twelve charts and reports.

You can modify any of these charts and reports to suit the structure of your own sales team.

Let’s look at several examples from the target dashboard.

 

Sales Rep Versus Target

You’ll recognize the first. It’s similar to the chart for Dave, showing his sales versus target for this month.

The dashboard chart compares the sales of all reps versus the target for the month.

In other words, the chart combines the quota, pipeline, and variance for all reps.

It’s straightforward to modify the report and create dashboard graphs based on territory, region, or another grouping.

In this example, we see a positive variance for two reps; and a shortfall in target performance for the two others.

 

This Month, Pipeline Analysis

This chart shows the pipeline due to close this month for all salespeople. As with the example for Dave, we can start to gauge whether the funnel is robust, and if our sales forecast is reliable.

Chart shows sales versus target for all reps this month.

Drilling down to the detail, we can identify opportunities that might let our sales forecast down.

Now, we can start to question these deals and potentially move them to a later month.

 

Sales versus Target This Year

This dashboard chart shows the month-on-month performance for the whole year.

Dashboard chart showing the month-on-month sales versus target performance for the whole year.

It’s an effective way to know whether there is enough pipeline coverage for the upcoming months. The chart also shows clearly how your team has performed against its month-on-month sales goals.

Like all the charts and reports, you can easily fine-tune it to show information based on the individual sales rep, team, or territory.

For more information on exceeding Year-End targets, here’s an article we produced specifically on Q4 Sales Strategies

 

Sales Rep Conversion Rates

The Target Tracker captures the opportunity conversion rate for each salesperson.

The Target Tracker captures the opportunity conversion rate for each salesperson.

The conversion rate dashboard chart shows the win-rate by value and number of opportunities. These metrics are highly-valuable for identifying training and development opportunities.

Sales Dashboard by GSP

Superb Pipeline Visibility and Sales
Performance Metrics from this free Dashboard.

Section 3

Tailor the Target Tracker to your business

Here are some of the ways to can adapt the GSP Target Tracker to the specific needs of your business.

  • Monthly, quarterly, or annual sales targets.
  • Use a custom field instead of the Amount.
  • Exclude certain types of opportunities from the target roll-up.
  • Modify the reports and dashboards based on your sales structure.

We explain each one below.

Incidentally, if you have a business need that we haven’t listed here, then what you should do is very simple: get in touch to talk to us about it.

 

Monthly, Quarterly or Annual Sales Targets

By default, the Target Tracker uses monthly sales quotas. Remember, reports and dashboard charts can summarize monthly targets for each quarter and year.

However, you can instead set the Target Tracker to use quarterly, or even annual quotas, if that’s how sales performance measures work in your business.

It’s a simple process to make this change. We explain the steps very clearly in our setup guide.

 

Use A Custom Field Rather than Amount

Not all companies use the Amount field on the opportunity to measure the size of a deal.

For example, Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), and Margin are all examples of fields that represent the value of a deal.

In these cases, it’s the value in the custom field that must be compared with the sales target.

The Target Tracker can do this.

We need to adjust some settings within the app and modify the reports and dashboards. We offer a free service to make these changes for you. Simply get in touch, and we’ll identify what you need.

 

Exclude Certain Types of Opportunity

Sometimes, not all opportunities should count against the sales target.

For example, perhaps renewal opportunities are not included in measuring sales versus target.

You can do this quickly in the Target Tracker. All you need to be able to do is set up a workflow rule in Salesforce. Again, we explain step-by-step how to do this in the setup guide.

 

Modify the Salesforce Target Dashboard

Many sales teams organize by territory, region, or another segment.

However, the pre-built reports and dashboard charts measure sales versus target for all salespeople. In other words, the charts are at the company level.

That’s because we can’t predict or foresee how each sales team is setup.

Fortunately, that’s no problem. You can easily modify the standard reports and dashboards to reflect your sales team structure. Simply create a copy of the report (using the Save As function) and adjust it based on the sales team organization in your business.

Section 4

How to buy the GSP Target Tracker for Salesforce

Here’s how to take a free 14-day trial of the Target Tracker. You can try it for yourself to see the sales management benefits your business.

All you need to do is visit the AppExchange Listing for the Target Tracker.

The Target Tracker captures the opportunity conversion rate for each salesperson.
The Target Tracker captures the opportunity conversion rate for each salesperson.

Click the Get It Now Button and follow the instructions. 

From the Listing you can also:

  • See what other people think about the app.
  • What a video showing how the app works. 
  • Set more screenshots showing the Target Tracker in action.
  • Read the setup guide.

Don’t delay, take a trial today!

 Any other questions about the GSP Target Tracker?

Get In Touch Below

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10 Powerful Sales Performance Reports in Salesforce

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It is surprising how little effort often goes into measuring closed won deals.

I guess that after all, what’s happened has happened.

In most businesses, much more focus, energy and effort is directed towards the sales pipeline compared to won deals.

But wait a moment.

We can learn from the past.

In other words, we can get insights from historic sales performance that helps turn more deals in the current pipeline into closed won opportunities.

It’s just a question of looking in the right places for those insights. That’s what this blog post is about.

So, here are 10 dashboard charts and reports that analyse closed won opportunities. They give you information on past sales performance that you can apply today to increase revenue.

  1. Closed Won by Month and Territory (or salesperson).
  2. Closed Won Opportunities by Customer Type.
  3. Closed Won Deals by Account.
  4. Won Deals by Product (or Product Family).
  5. Average Size of Closed Won Opportunities.
  6. Opportunity Conversion Rates.
  7. Closed Won Deals by Campaign.
  8. Sales Stage Metrics on Won Deals.
  9. Stage Movement Report for Won Opportunities.
  10. Sales Stage Velocity on Won Opportunities.

In this blog post I’ll show you exactly what I mean by each of these 10 won opportunity reports and how to use the information to drive sales performance.

Before we start:

What exactly do we mean by a closed won opportunity?

A closed won opportunity is a sales deal that has reached the final Stage in your sales cycle. There is a firm commitment to purchase by the customer and the opportunity has reached a probability of 100%. Some sales organisations use terms other than closed won (e.g. booked); either way, no further sales effort needs to take place on this opportunity or deal.

Let’s examine the reports that measure these closed won deals.

1. Closed Won by Month and Territory / Salesperson

This is the place to begin for analyzing closed won opportunities and deals. It’s Chart #1 on our list of 12 Must-Have Salesforce Dashboard Charts.

In this first example, we show closed won opportunities for the current financial year. The chart and underlying report give immediate feedback on sales achieved for each territory.

Dashboard chart shows closed won opportunities for the current financial year by territory.

All other things being equal, the chart tells us that we need to identify ways to increase revenue in the West Territory.

Those with large sales teams should have a dashboard for each territory that then summarizes the information at an individual level. A good way to do this to use a dashboard filter.

Businesses with smaller sales teams – and territory managers – will want to display the information by individual salesperson on the dashboard chart.

Salesforce dashboard chart shows closed won opportunities by salesperson.

We can use the chart to identify potential areas for improvement.

For example, in the individual salesperson chart, Dave Apthorp is the top performer.

Can Dave’s experience and know-how be shared across the team? Can he help Shaun increase his sales performance? Are there other coaching, training and support activities that will boost Shaun’s figures?

Before starting that process however, there are other dashboard charts and sales metrics we can use to analyse closed won opportunities.

This additional information will help us be more specific and targeted in delivering coaching and other sales enablement activities that will increase revenue.

2. Closed Won Report by Customer Type

Generally, it’s quicker and cheaper to sell to existing customers.

However, in order to grow, every business needs to sell to a combination of both existing and new customers.

So, we need to understand whether we have the right mix in our business. That’s based on our companies’ growth strategy, of course.

The Closed Won by Customer Type dashboard chart tells us the mix of sales revenue between new and existing customers.

Dashboard chart shows Closed Won Opportunity Report by Customer Type

The chart shows that we have a strong weighting towards existing customers.

Is this a good thing?

Only the growth strategy relating to our business can tell us that. However, having this information about closed won deals means that we can make judgements that will inform our future sales and marketing approach.

Pro Tip: Create a workflow rule in salesforce that updates the Account from Prospect to Customer the first time an opportunity is won.

3. Closed Won by Account

In many businesses there is one customer that contributes a disproportionate amount of revenue. In other companies, sales revenue spreads more evenly.

In either case, knowing your largest 10 customers by closed won deals is essential to implementing your key account management strategy in salesforce.

This dashboard table provides that information.

Report in dashboard table shows Closed Won Opportunities by Account

The same table can be used to show the top 10 customers for each Territory or salesperson. This is a great input in defining the key account strategy at a local level.

In our example the University of Arizona contributes nearly twice as much revenue as the next customer. Probably everyone already knows that is the number one customer.

But it’s likely that there will be less consensus on the other top customers. The closed won by Account dashboard table gives us the hard facts. Use this information to drive account management at the company, territory and salesperson levels.

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4. Closed Won Report by Product

This dashboard chart shows how our closed won revenue splits by product family or product category.

Pro Tip: Most business that use Salesforce should use Products on Opportunities. This blog post gives you more detail on why that is: Bring Your Opportunities To Life With Products.

Closed Won Report by Product

The chart shows that Generators dominate closed won revenue in our business.

Can revenue be increased for other product categories? It’s likely we want to drill down to the underlying report and see the closed won product information by salesperson, territory and customer.

Then we can initiate specific, targeted management interventions to boost revenue for other products.

We might also want to get further insight by looking at the average deal size. Let’s look at that next.

5. Average Closed Won Deal Size

Analyzing closed won sales by average deal size gives insight for identifying salesperson development needs.

This is especially the case if we add additional information to the dashboard chart that digs below the initial surface.

For example, let’s say that the number of supplementary or add-on products sold alongside the main products influences average deal size.

Report shows Average Closed Won Deal Size

In this case we have grouped all products into two categories: Core and Optional.

Doing this means we can easily see that the three salespeople have similar average deal sizes in when it comes to core products.

But Dave is selling significantly more Optional products.

This means his overall average deal size is nearly 50% bigger than the next person. This is likely to have a big positive impact on Dave’s total sales for the year.

For full advice on the average deal size metric and how to apply it to increase revenue, read Why You Need To Measure Average Deal Size.

6. Opportunity Conversion / Win Rate Report

Opportunity conversion rates (or win rates) compare the ratio of closed won to closed lost deals for a given time period.

Tracking win rates by company, salesperson, customer type and marketing campaign gives great insights that can help drive revenue.

I recommend tracking opportunity win rates in two ways: by Count and by Value.

That’s what the example chart below shows. It’s the company level win rate by the number and value of opportunities.

Opportunity Conversion / Win Rate Report in Salesforce

In the first two months, the win rate by Amount was higher than the win rate by Count. This means we successfully closed a higher proportion of larger opportunities.

In September the position reverses. The win rate by Count is higher. This means we closed a higher proportion of lower value opportunities.

Are the September figures due to a short-term change in pricing strategy? Did we experiment with changes in remuneration and commission structures? Is the trend attributable to marketplace dynamics?

Of course, drilling down to customer type, territory and salesperson level will give us further insight.

The key thing is that now we are aware of this trend through the dashboard chart. This means we can investigate further and take action to influence the future sales approach and strategy.

For complete guidance on using Conversion / Win Rates in salesforce review How To Use Opportunity Conversion Rates For Superior Results.

12 Must-Have Dashboard Charts

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7. Closed Won by Campaign

A key purpose of many marketing campaigns is to produce sales-ready opportunities.

Those opportunities need to convert successfully into closed won revenue. So, we naturally want to know the effectiveness of each Campaign in generating new business.

The Closed Won by Campaign chart tells us this. It shows the revenue arising from each marketing Campaign.

Closed Won opportunity report by Campaign

The Spring Trade Show and User Conferences were the two marketing campaigns that yielded the most closed won revenue.

This means the chart is an important tool for gathering the information that will influence future marketing and business development strategy. It gives great insight into the campaigns that we should continue, expand or stop.

Remember that the lead management and conversion process is critical here. If Leads convert without creating an Opportunity, then potentially the data for this valuable metric is lost.

Review this blog post for advice on lead management and conversion steps including downloadable process diagrams.

8. Key Sales Metrics for Closed Won Deals

Here are two powerful metrics that we can use to compare won opportunities with deals still in the funnel.

They give us insight on the quality of the pipeline and help identify deals that have a high risk of slipping from one month to the next.

The two metrics are:

  • Number of Close Date month extensions.
  • Age of the opportunity.

An example:

Let’s say that on average, won deals had slipped from one month to another 1.5 times whilst they were still in the pipeline.

And let’s also say our metrics show that the average sales cycle on won deals is 90 days.

Here’s an example of this information in a chart.

Report on key Sales Metrics for Closed Won Deals

For example, it shows that the average sales life cycle for closed won deals is 90 to 100 days (left axis). The average number of times a closed won deal moved from one month to the next is around 1.5 (the line on the chart).

However, knowing these metrics on won deals means we can apply more scrutiny to the sales pipeline.

For example, let’s say we have a pipeline deal that has been open 150 days and the close date has moved from one month to another 3 times.

This means it’s way above the average on these two metrics.

Are we confident it is still a viable deal?

We only know that by having a closer look at the opportunity. However, using these metrics means we can more easily and quickly identify deal in the funnel that may be unreliable.

For much more on using these key metrics (including instructions on exactly how to get them into your own Salesforce environment, use this blog post:

3 Killer Pipeline Metrics That Highlight When To Be Sceptical

9. Stage Movement for Closed Won deals

The opportunity stage movement report and dashboard chart give valuable information on how our deals arrive at the Closed Won opportunity Stage.

The chart shows the ‘From’ and ‘To’ opportunity Stage movement. In this case, the ‘To’ is filtered to include only the Closed Won stage.

Stage Movement report for Closed Won deals

This is real-life data taken from a customer example.

The chart shows that 5 opportunities moved directly from Prospecting to Closed Won. 11 deals moved from Negotiation to Closed Won.

The first value, the one with no ‘From’ Stage, means that 3 deals entered Salesforce directly at the Closed Won Stage.

What can we infer from these numbers?

A disproportionate number of deals jumping from early Stages to Closed Won may mean that salespeople are not maintaining the accuracy of their pipeline opportunities.

It may also mean that deals are deliberately held back until the salesperson is confident of a successful outcome. Sandbagging, in other words.

This means sales managers are missing out on valuable pipeline visibility.

We might also want to know why some deals avoided all pipeline stages. There entered the system immediately as won opportunities. Was the deal done in a single phone call? If not, we again had no sight of the deals whilst they were in the pipeline.

Either way, the dashboard chart is giving us useful insight into the transition of opportunities into Closed Won revenue. Further analysis, at the territory or salesperson level may identify specific trends that will help to boost sales revenue and pipeline visibility in the future.

Incidentally, you can also get great insight into Closed Lost opportunities using a version of this report. In other words, the report shows where deals are leaking from the sales funnel. More information on that report here:

How To Plug A Leaking Funnel In The Right Place

10. Sales Stage Velocity on Won Opportunities

All the reports we’ve looked at can be created as standard in Salesforce. Many are already included in our free GSP Sales Dashboard.

However, here we’re talking about something different: Sales Stage Velocity.

In other words, information about how long both won and lost deals spend in each Opportunity Stage before closing out.

Here’s an example from a customer:

Sales Stage Velocity report on Won Opportunities

Let’s be clear:

This information is only gathered by using a coded solution. Get in touch to talk to use about this.

What is the chart showing?

The sales cycle for Closed Lost deals is longer than for Closed Won. In part, that’s probably because won deals have more urgency. Plus, of course, we all hang onto lost deals longer than we should in the hope that something might happen soon.

It’s only in the Negotiating Stage that the sales cycle is shorter. That’s probably because we get kicked out of the deal quickly when it gets to that stage!

Now let’s take an example of two salespeople. Peter and Jenny.

Peter has a win rate of 23%. Jenny’s opportunity win rate is 37%.

Look at their sales stage velocity:

Sales Stage Velocity detailed report on Won Opportunities

Peter is rattling through the early stages of the sales cycle. His boss may be pleased to see that he gets his proposals out quickly. But Jenny takes her time.

That pays off in a superior win rate and more speed in the later stages.

As I say, get in touch if you’d like this type of analysis in your own business.

Over To You

The past is the past.

But students of history know there’s much that can be learned from the past.

Begin using these 10 closed won opportunity reports to examine your successful deals today for insights that will increase sales tomorrow.

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10 Best Practice Tips For High Impact Salesforce Dashboards

10 Best Practice Tips For High Impact Salesforce Dashboards

Your Salesforce dashboards should provide the complete visibility needed to drive sales performance.

However, you can boost your benefits with the straightforward best practices steps I outline in this article.

I’ve drawn these tips from the hundreds, probably thousands, of Salesforce reports and dashboard charts I’ve built over twenty years.

Based on that experience, here are my ten best practice tips and tricks for creating the best Salesforce Lightning dashboards:

  1. Use metrics with Charts to flash up totals.
  2. Add relevant Details fields to each report.
  3. Highlight critical dashboard charts with background shading.
  4. Use dashboards filters to hone in on vital areas.
  5. Pre-define colors for picklist fields.
  6. Use dashboard tables for a quick view of multiple records.
  7. Double-check dashboard titles and sub-titles.
  8. Use stacked summaries on reports (most of the time).
  9. Apply conditional formatting to highlight critical numbers.
  10. Choose the correct dashboard chart for the job.

With that, here’s an example of my first best practice tip.

1 – Use Metrics With Charts

A dashboard chart provides you with critical information on a specific metric. That might be revenue won by month for this financial year, for example.

You can hover over each month to see the sub-total. Or Show Values on charts that are not stacked

Of course, you can hover over each month to see the sub-total. Or Show Values on charts that are not stacked.

Nevertheless, in our example, there’s a vital piece of information missing:

The total for the year. That’s likely something we want to know.

Drilling down from the chart to the report is one way to get that information. But it’s an unnecessary click.

Instead, my first best practice tip is to place metrics alongside the chart to summarize the data.

Here’s my first tip. Place metrics alongside the chart to give the summary

For example, straight away, we know the total revenue for the year is $1.1M. We can also see won deals for this quarter total $181K.

The dashboard chart to the right reveals the month-by-month breakdown for these figures over time.

In other words, using metrics alongside charts is a critical way to increase the value of that dashboard row.

2 – Add Relevant Detail Fields

Using metrics like those in our first example means we can avoid drilling down from the chart to the report.

However, often you need more details. For example, perhaps you want to know more about the deals making up the figures for each month.

To do this, you click down to the report. Then, select a number in the report to see what makes up that figure.

Click a number in the Salesforce Lightning report to see the underlying detail.

This ability is an excellent feature of Lightning reports compared to Classic.

Nevertheless, here’s a common mistake I see:

Many unnecessary fields are displayed, which makes it confusing for people. And the reverse is often true; vital information is not visible.

Many unnecessary fields are often displayed in Lightning reports, making it confusing for the user

This poor design happens because, by default, Salesforce adds many fields to the Detail section. Often, many of these are not that important to you.

On the other hand, critical details such as Stage, Owner, Type, and Amount are often pushed far to the right and not visible on your screen.

It’s dead simple to avoid this problem. Here’s my second best practices tip.

I recommend you carefully review the Detail section of the report. Remove any fields that don’t matter to you. Make sure the most valuable details are close to the top.

Salesforce dashboard and report tip # 2. Remove any irrelevant field, and make sure the most important fields are close to the top.

It only takes a few moments and the result is a more user-friendly report.

3 – Highlight Critical Dashboard Charts

Often, there’s one standout chart on the dashboard. The importance of this chart outweighs all the others.

In other words, if the user only looks at one chart, it should be this one.

Tip #3. Use background highlighting to draw the eye to this chart

My third best practice tip is to use highlighting to draw the eye to the most important chart.

You achieve this effect by editing the dashboard chart and adjusting the background color

You achieve this by editing the dashboard chart and adjusting the background color.

Simple but effective. I suggest you only do this on one chart or row on the dashboard.

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4 – Use Dashboard Filters

Usually, you want to see sales performance and pipeline trends for the company, team, and individual.

However, you don’t want to create separate dashboards. That’s too much clicking for the user and a lot of work to maintain.

Instead, use dashboard filters. That’s my fourth best practice.

Tip # 4. Use dashboard filters
Opportunity probability highlighted directly on the opportunity page layout

Selecting a filter value such as a salesperson means the dashboard runs for that opportunity owner—even the reports filter by that value when you drill down.

You can have up to three filters on each dashboard and 50 values on each filter. That’s enough for most sales organizations.

Here’s where you can find out more about dashboard filters.

5 – Define Colors For Picklist Fields 

By default, Salesforce assigns colors dynamically to dashboard charts.

By default, Salesforce assigns colors dynamically to dashboard charts

What does this mean?

It means the color for any picklist value is assigned ‘in the moment’ when you run the dashboard. In other words, there’s no advanced color setting for each picklist value.

Unfortunately, this means you can end up with, for example, Won showing in yellow on one dashboard chart and green on another.

Opportunity probability highlighted directly on the opportunity page layout

That’s confusing for users.

Fortunately, you can solve this problem by assigning fixed colors to picklist values.

Tip # 5. Assign fixed colors to all picklist values

That means when you use the field in any dashboard chart, the color for each picklist value is always the same.

That means whenever the field is used in a dashboard chart, the color for each picklist is consistent

That makes it much easier to compare information between charts or across dashboards.

6 – Use Dashboard Tables

Sometimes it’s valuable to see more detail directly on the dashboard.

For example, you might want a list of opportunities due to close this month.

You can achieve this by using a Table.

Tip # 6. Use Table components

In our example, you can see the essential standard fields, plus the pipeline quality metrics and KPIs.

Of course, you might be wondering:

How can I get these pipeline quality metrics into my own Salesforce system?

3 Pipeline Quality Metrics That Highlight When To Be Sceptical explains the metrics fully and how to get them for free.

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7 – Double (Triple) Check Chart Titles

Here are two BIG mistakes people often make with dashboards:

First, the title and sub-title either don’t tally with the information in the chart.

title and sub-title either don’t tally with the information in the chart

And second, the titles don’t give the person enough insight into the precise parameters of the data.

Tip # 7. Carefully write each title and sub-title

You can solve this problem by carefully writing each title and sub-title.

titles don’t give the person enough insight into what she’s looking at

Remember, the Lightning interface inserts the Report Title into the dashboard chart. However, that may not be sufficiently informative for users.

Instead, craft the title yourself.

If the chart has a complex set of filters, you can also add a footer to make this easy for people to understand.

Now it’s easy for users to immediately grasp what they are looking at.

8 – Use Stacked Summaries (Most Of The Time)

Stacked summaries change the way reports group data. It’s often a subtle difference but a powerful one.

Here’s the same report with Stacked Summaries switched on. The report is more compact with the feature on. (It’s quite hard to see the difference in the limited space of our screenshot. Try it for yourself on a report).

Toggle between the two using the control at the bottom of the report.

Tip # 8. Use stacked summaries.

You’ll likely immediately know which version you prefer report by report.

9 – Use Conditional Formatting

Sometimes a report can have a lot of zeros or low numbers. This makes it hard for users to see vital information.

To solve this, use Conditional Highlighting in the report. However, be careful as this can result in a sea of colors that makes it hard for users to absorb the information.

Therefore, I recommend that you apply a little trick. Give non-essential values a null color.

This way, only the critical values are highlighted.

Opportunity probability highlighted directly on the opportunity page layout

This way, you draw the eye to the vital numbers and make the report much easier to read.

10 – Use The Right Report For The Job

People sometimes make poor chart choices to display their information.

For example, the funnel chart is a popular choice:

As you’ll see in this blog post, it’s not my favorite type of pipeline chart.

Measure Pipeline Size With These Four Vital Dashboard Charts.

Instead, I recommend using a stacked bar chart to show the information in a more valuable way.

The stacked bar chart gives us additional information about when business is due to land. That means it’s a critical chart for pipeline review purposes. Combine this chart with metrics (see tip #1) to give the user a summary.

Salesforce Dashboard Tips and Tricks Summary

Salesforce dashboards and reports deliver the management information and metrics you need to drive revenue in your business.

Unfortunately, the powerful impact of dashboards is sometimes watered down. This happens when the design of the reports and charts makes it hard for people to get the insight they need quickly.

As we’ve seen, you can quickly change this. Use our best practice tips to boost the power of your Lightning Dashboards and reports today.

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Measure Average Deal Size | How and Why To Use This Critical Metric

Measure Average Deal Size | How and Why To Use This Critical Metric

The average deal size with one of our customers varies by 65% for closed won opportunities.

That’s a whopper of a variation.

All salespeople work in comparable territories. They are selling the same products to similar customers.

That means the difference in average opportunity size represents a potential weakness in the sales process of some salespeople.

Our customer, Sales VP Colin Parish, thought: “that’s an opportunity to grow revenue.”

He’s right.

 

What is the average deal size?

The average deal size metric is a comparison of the size of sales opportunities between salespeople, customers, markets, or other variables. Increasing the average deal size is a powerful way to grow overall sales revenue.

To measure the average deal size in Salesforce in a useful way, you need several reports and dashboard charts.

Keep reading if you want to know EXACTLY how to do this and the steps that Colin took.

 

Average Deal Size Report

The first step is to create an Average Opportunity Size report in Salesforce.

You might be wondering:

What’s the easiest way to create this report?

The answer is to install our free GSP Sales Dashboard from the AppExchange.

The average deal size report is one of the twelve charts we recommend for effective pipeline management.

Alternatively, you can create this report yourself.

Here’s how the average deal size Salesforce dashboard chart looks:

Example of the average deal size Salesforce dashboard chart.

Furthermore, here’s the underlying report.

Example of the average deal size report in Salesforce.

The report shows that Dave’s average closed-won deal size is $14,300. This value compares to $8,650 for John. That’s a 65% difference.

However, as yet, we still don’t know what action to take.

For that, we need to dig further.

 

Average Deal Size Compared to Total Sales

Let’s start putting some context into the numbers.

For example, a sizeable average deal size is no use if total sales are low.

Look at this chart:

Salesforce dashboard chart showing total sales by salesperson.

Now we can see that Dave not only has the largest average deal size for won opportunities.

He’s also the top salesperson in terms of overall sales.

John is the lowest-performing salesperson. He also has the smallest average won opportunity size.

The overall sales performance of Sarah and Shaun is roughly in line with the average deal size.

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Average Number of Products per Opportunity

VP of Sales, Colin Parish, speculated that the average opportunity size correlates closely with the number of products sold on each opportunity.

Specifically, Colin believed that high performers sell many more optional products.

Let’s see if he’s right.

This chart splits the average opportunity size by Core and Optional products.

Dashboard chart that splits the average deal size into core and optional products.

To create the chart and the report, we tagged each product as Core or Optional using a custom field.

We can see that Optional products contribute 35% of Dave’s average deal size.

In other words, Dave is killing it when it comes to adding ancillary products and services to his opportunities.

The result is a much larger average deal size compared to other salespeople.

Sarah ranks third in terms of average won opportunity size. She’s second in overall sales.

However, we can see the small contribution – less than 5% – that optional products make to her deals. If Sarah can increase the number of optional products that she sells, she’ll be at Dave’s level of performance.

Therefore, as a manager, you can now identify the coaching and training interventions that will help Sarah achieve this.

Compared to Dave and Sarah, the chart is less conclusive for John and Shaun.

They have some way to go to achieve the same ratio as Dave. But perhaps there are other factors also at play? Let’s come back to that in a moment.

Many salespeople find it difficult to use the standard user interface in Salesforce to link products to opportunities.

It’s a problem many people experience. To resolve it, use the GSP Product Selection Wizard.

The Wizard makes it super-easy to find products and add them to opportunities. It also supports product bundles and packages.

 

The Impact of Price Discounts on Average Opportunity Size

John sure is the leader on this dashboard chart. It’s the chart that shows he gives away a higher proportion of revenue in discounts than anyone else!

Salesforce dashboard chart showing discounts given away by each salesperson.

Dave and Sarah give away the least amount of discount in percentage terms.

Shaun and John can improve in terms of both optional products and discount giveaways. In our customer, Sales VP Colin Parish is spending time with both to provide coaching and support that will improve their overall sales performance.

Incidentally, we interviewed pricing expert Tony Hodgson at Pricing Solutions. We wanted his experience in helping companies avoid giving away precious margins through discounts.

“Most companies can increase profit by between 2 and 4 percent by doing nothing other than getting a grip on price discounts,” says Tony.

Here are the Ten Tips To Avoid Price Discounts that Tony gave us.

Colin is well on the way to implementing all of Tony’s recommendations.

 

Colin’s Experience with Average Deal Size

Here are the crucial lessons Colin has applied from looking at average opportunity size.

How many can apply to your business?

1. The average opportunity size is an essential sales metric that gives powerful insight.

2. Don’t use the average deal size metric in isolation. Other reports add meaning to the figures and help you decide what action to take.

3. Tagging products Core and Optional is an excellent way of understanding how effective salespeople are at up-selling.

4. It’s essential to measure price discount giveaways. The ten pricing tips that Tony recommends are great for controlling discounts.

5. Have a range of sales metrics about closed-won opportunity size to give managers the essential information they need. This range of measures and reports means that highly tailored, rep-specific coaching, training, and support interventions are possible.

There are only three ways to increase sales revenue. Increase the size of the pipeline, improve opportunity conversion rates, and increase the average deal size.

Go out and boost your team’s performance and sales revenue 😊.

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How to Outperform Your Sales Targets Using Commission Tracking

How to Outperform Your Sales Targets Using Commission Tracking

Motivate your sales people to exceed targets by using commission tracking in salesforce.

Commission tracking drives sales people to close deals.

It motivates them to create new pipeline. It propels them to go the extra mile to win a piece of business.

But it’s not just about the money.

Sales people are highly motivated. Commission tracking is a way of keeping the score. It’s a way of comparing sales performance with the previous month or quarter. It’s how sales people measure this quarter with their personal best. It’s how they know they are winning.

So the greater the visibility of commission earnings, both actual and potential, the greater the motivation for sales people to increase revenue.

So commission tracking is important to you (sales manager) to drive business performance – but it is paramount to the sales person.

But unfortunately there’s no out-of-the-box module for commission tracking in salesforce.

So at GSP we created one.

Here’s how it works.

 

Commission levels

Managers set up records in salesforce that define how much commission each person should receive for each level of sales revenue.

Set percentages for each commission level in salesforce.

For example, the screen shot above shows the commission levels for Dave Apthorp for February 2016.

Dave will earn 2% commission on £1 to 50,000 and 4% on all sales between £50,0001 and £75,000.

If he has a particularly good month, Dave will earn 6% on all revenue over £75,000 with no upper limit.

Defining the parameters at this granular level (i.e. by person, month and sales level) gives major flexibility. It means that a commission structure that will best motivate the sales team can be created.

It also means there’s the opportunity to introduce kickers for individual months by increasing the percentages for that month. In this case, for example, we might raise the commission percentages for March to make sure we end the quarter with a bang and outperform the sales target.

There’s also the option to create commission levels related to product families. This means percentages can be varied based on margin or the gross profit associated with each type of product.

 

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Commission tracking in salesforce

The screenshot below shows Dave’s commission tracking record in salesforce for February.

Commission tracking in salesforce.

The highlighted box shows his:

  • Commission Earned. This is based on the opportunities he has closed this month.
  • Pipeline Commission. The total amount Dave would earn if he closed all the deals in his February pipeline.
  • Total Potential Commission. The sum of Earned and Pipeline Commission.

Dave’s opportunities that are due to close for this month are automatically linked to this commission record. We can see these at the foot of the screenshot.

This linkage between the opportunity and the commission record is done by a trigger that runs every time an opportunity is updated. If Dave edits an opportunity, for example by moving the Close Date on a pipeline opportunity to the following month, then the relevant commission records will be updated.

The in-line chart on the left of the page shows how much Dave has earned for the month on won deals (blue bar). It also shows his potential commission (green bar) and his total potential earnings (orange bar).

The chart on the right provides more analysis of Dave’s pipeline deals. He can immediately see which of his open opportunities will yield the most commission.

For most sales people, this commission tracking in salesforce is a proven way of focussing attention. Align the commission structure with your corporate sales objectives and you’ve a built-in way of driving sales performance.

 

Commission reporting in salesforce

This approach means commission tracking reports can be created in salesforce for managers.

Sales managers in many of our customers use these reports to motivate and encourage individual sales reps. The automated commission tracking visibility also saves (probably you) countless hours updating and sharing spreadsheets across the team!

Commission tracking isn’t just about the money. It’s a way to keep the score. And now you can keep that score in salesforce.

If you have a question, or you’d like our help in implementing a commission tracking solution in salesforce in your business, simply get in touch.

 

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Getting Started With The GSP Sales Dashboard

Step 1: Enable Historical Trending

The step applies only if you are installing the Enterprise Edition of the GSP Sales Dashboard.

The Historical Trending feature must be enabled to install the dashboard successfully. If you get this error message when installing the GSP Sales Dashboard then Historical Trending is not enabled in your salesforce environment.

This error message when installing the GSP Sales Dashboard means historical trending is not enabled.

Fortunately its simple to enable Historical Trending.

1. Go to Setup.

2. In the Setup search box, type Historical.

3. Click on Historical Trending.

Search for historical trending in setup.

 

4. Select Opportunity. Check the box marked Enable Historical Trending and Click Save.Check the box to enable historical trending in salesforce.

You are now good to install the Enterprise version of the GSP Sales Dashboard.

For more instructions on the dashboard installation process, including enabling Historical Trending, play this video.

Getting Started With The GSP Sales Dashboard For Salesforce

Step 3: Set the Close Date Change Counters

One of the most powerful features of the GSP Dashboard is the table that tracks the number of Close Date month extensions.

The table shows deals that are due to close this month.

salesforce dashboard chart that shows pipeline quality metrics such as the number of close date extensions.

The table presents the Opportunity Name along with three pipeline quality metrics:

  • Number of Close Date month extensions (the number of times the Close Date has moved from one month to another)
  • Number of days since the last Stage change, and
  • The Age of the opportunity.

3 Killer Pipeline Quality Metrics That Highlight When To Be Sceptical gives great advice on how to use this information to get more accurate sales forecasts.

After you have installed the dashboard, the table will track these metrics for all new opportunities created from this point forward.

However, with a few simple steps you can also get the metrics to track existing opportunities.

This short video shows exactly what you need to do.

GSP Sales Dashboard Pipeline Quality Metrics

Additional Resources

12 Must-Have Charts Blog Post

The 12 Must-Have Charts Blog Post is a comprehensive resource that explains how to use each of the dashboard charts to boost pipeline visibility.

The also contains links to additional videos and articles that provide even more details

12 Must-Have Charts eBook

Download our eBook to read about our commentary on each of the charts. Contains examples of how to use each chart for sales performance visibility.

GSP Salesforce Apps

We have a range of apps that extend salesforce functionality in key areas.

These include:

Salesforce Implementation Services

We have a range of implementation services that can help you maximize your benefits from salesforce.

Simply get in touch to find out how we can help you.

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How To Stop ‘Closed Lost’ Screwing Up Salesforce Dashboards

How To Stop ‘Closed Lost’ Screwing Up Salesforce Dashboards

No-one likes a loser.

Or to be thought of as a loser.

So the term ‘Closed Lost’ is not going to be a favorite for your average salesperson.

Yet Closed Lost is the standard Opportunity Stage picklist value for removing a deal from the pipeline. And it’s a picklist value that salespeople hate to use.

Impact of not setting deals to Closed Lost

But here’s the problem.

Failing to set dead wood opportunities to Closed Lost has a number of adverse consequences:

  • Over-inflation of the sales funnel. Managers and salespeople do not have a robust view of the strength (or weakness) of the sales pipeline.
  • Incorrect sales performance reports. Effective management of the sales team depends upon having accurate information e.g. opportunity conversion rates. These reports, in turn, require unsuccessful deals to be closed out.
  • Salesforce clutter. It gets increasingly hard to see the wood from the trees in salesforce. This makes it more difficult to focus on the opportunities that have true value.
  • Lack of funnel leakage information. It becomes impossible to understand at what stage opportunities are leaking from the sales pipeline.
  • Reduced competitor information. It becomes more difficult to identify how many deals and of what type of deals that are lost to competitors.

How to use the Closed Lost Opportunity Stage

No self-respecting salesperson likes to set an Opportunity to Closed Lost. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t got a place on the Opportunity Stage picklist.

Closed Lost is appropriate in the right circumstances. It’s appropriate when a deal has been lost to a competitor during a pitch, tender or other competitive situation.

So let’s not beat about the bush. If another business has won an opportunity at our expense then the salesperson should set the deal to Closed Lost.

But many of our clients that have high quality pipeline visibility and sales forecasting accuracy, also use two additional Opportunity Stage picklist values.

Additional Opportunity Stage picklist values

In addition to losing to a competitor, there are two other reasons why deals should be removed from the pipeline.

  1. The customer doesn’t make a purchase. No deal takes place – for anyone. Yet salespeople often have an anathema to using Closed Lost to describe the outcome of these opportunities.So instead of Closed Lost, many companies use an Opportunity Stage picklist value such as No Purchase to remove these deals from the sales pipeline.
  2. The opportunity is qualified-out. In fact this is a legitimate reason for ‘losing’ a deal. As Bud Suse says, coming a close second is a cardinal sin in sales. Don’t waste time, effort and resources on opportunities you are unlikely to win.So instead of Closed Lost, many companies use an Opportunity Stage picklist value such as Qualified Out to remove these deals from the sales pipeline.

Gather additional information on Closed Lost deals

Adding two more Opportunity Stage picklist values in addition to Closed Lost is not necessarily the end of the matter however.

Businesses, quite rightly, often want to gather more information. They want to understand the underlying reasons why a deal was removed from the pipeline.

One way to do this is to create a Reasons Lost picklist field. A validation rule forces salespeople to make a selection from this list.

The problem with this approach is that sales people invariably select a value relating to Price. Which might indeed be the case. But it’s rarely the only reason. (Failure to communicate value might be the true reason!).

There is no killer solution to this problem. However many of our customers gather information on Closed Lost deals in a qualitative format. They have a text field called Lessons Learned in which salespeople identify what could have been done better in the sales process.

It’s not perfect. But experience shows it does provide more information in a useful format than simply selecting from a Reasons Lost picklist. Use this information to analyse sales processes, up-skill and develop salespeople, modify the pricing and discount strategy, develop new product features and create a culture of learning and sharing.

What to do next

The first step is to create additional Opportunity Stage picklist values to Closed Lost. Then educate salespeople and other users on the circumstances when each value is appropriate.

Now that you have done this, here are five ways you can benefit from the removal of dead opportunities from the sales pipeline.

  • Pipeline visibility. Get a robust view of the sales pipeline. Use this blog post to learn how to do this, If You Only Create One Dashboard Chart Then Make It This One.
  • Win Rates / Opportunity Conversion Rates. Analyze variance in win rates between teams, individuals and territories. Use this blog post, Measure And Compare Opportunity Win Rates Across Sales Teams.
  • Stage Movement Analysis. Understand at what stage in the sales process your team is removing deals from the sales pipeline. Determine whether it is early or late in the sales cycle. It’s chart #5 on our list of 12 Charts That Should Be On Your Sales Dashboard.
  • Competitor Analysis. Understand the ratio between deals lost to competitors versus Qualified-out and No Purchase. Apply this information to evolve sales strategy and tactics. Present the data in an informative way using our 5 Tip Guide To Effective Salesforce Reports.
  • Improve sales morale. No-one likes a loser – so don’t force your salespeople to feel like one. Acknowledge to the team that not every deal can be won; not every customer will make a purchase; and that some deals aren’t worth pursuing in the first place.

Closed Lost isn’t the always the only problem with the Opportunity Stage however! Read more about our sales process and opportunity stage recommendations.

And one final step. If you haven’t done so already, sign up to our email list to be the first to receive more advice and tips on maximizing your salesforce benefits.

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Increasing your opportunity win rate is the single most powerful way to increase revenue.

Building more pipeline increases sales. So does shortening your sales cycle. And increasing your average deal size definitely helps.

But nothing has such a dramatic impact as increasing your opportunity win rates. (Here’s where you can do the math for your business).

Effective sales managers compare win rates across sales teams, territories and products.

All other things being equal, if your opportunity win rate is improving then your sales are increasing. We’ll show you how to build an opportunity win rate report in this blog and the accompanying video.

So measuring win rate is a critical sales metrics. But here’s what else you can do with an opportunity conversion rate report. You can:

  • Identify individual rep training requirements.
  • Measure the impact of business development initiatives.
  • Gauge the effectiveness of your sales strategy by comparing win rates across customer segments.
  • Compare partners with direct sales teams to optimise the sales mix.

But be careful. Opportunity win rate reports can be misinterpreted. And the very fact of measurement can drive unwanted behaviour. Read on to learn how to measure opportunity win rates and avoid these pitfalls.

Opportunity win rate metrics

Like most things, there’s more than one way to measure opportunity win rates.

Some people argue that the total open pipeline should be factored in. This means that the value of closed won opportunities is calculated as a proportion of the total open pipeline.

In our view this distorts the win rate percentage.

Let’s say your sales cycle is three months. If your team is successful this month in creating new pipeline (e.g. because of a marketing initiative) then those deals will not close for another 2 to 3 months. But if the team also did a great job of closing deals that month the win rate is distorted. It’s artificially low. New opportunities that have been created will pull down the win rate.

So keep it simple. The correct way to measure opportunity win rates is to compare the number and value of deals won in a month with the number and value of deals lost in the same month.

It’s unambiguous. There’s no debate about whether certain elements of the pipeline should be included – or not. And it avoids the risk of double counting open opportunities from one month to the next.

Opportunity Win Rate Report Example

Here’s an example of an opportunity win rate dashboard chart in salesforce.

Use a dashboard chart to compare opportunity win rates.

The chart shows two essential metrics.

  • Win Rate by Count Percentage. This is the blue column. It shows the percentage of deals that have been won in the month in terms of the number of opportunities. In other words, of the total number of deals that closed in December, 20% were won.
  • Win Rate by Value Percentage. This is the green column. It shows the percentage of deals that have been won in the month in terms of the value of opportunities.

Depending on the nature of your business, both metrics may be important.

We can see in the chart, for example, that in December the Won Amount % is higher than the Won Count %. This is good news. It means the sales team successfully closed the higher value opportunities.

February tells a different story. The Won Count is higher. Overall it was the lower value opportunities that closed successfully. Now that we have this information, we can start to investigate the reasons.

Here’s the underlying report that accompanies the dashboard chart.

salesforce report that compares opportunity win rates across individual sales reps.

This gives us significantly more detail on the opportunity win rates by sales rep and month.

Take a look at the figures for Dave Apthorp for March 2016 (highlighted). We can see that Dave has:

  • Closed £273,000 of opportunities. This combines both closed won and closed lost.
  • Won £123,000 of opportunities. This is amount of the £273K that Dave has won.
  • This means his Won Amount % is 45%.
  • The report also shows Dave’s Won Count % is 33% (calculated from the underlying opportunities that make up the report).

The report can be modified to compare opportunity win rates across sales territories, customer segments or other dimensions.

Watch the video at the end of the blog post for step by step instructions on creating this opportunity win rate report.

How to use the Opportunity Win Rate report

The dashboard chart and report gives powerful visibility of win rates across sales reps and teams.

But use the metric on conjunction with other reports to avoid driving unwanted behaviour such as ‘sandbagging’. In other words, an over-emphasis on win rates can result in sales people keeping opportunities out of salesforce until they’re confident that a deal is there to be done. This means you lose visibility of the early stages of the pipeline.

Use these reports to investigate further why win rates vary across reps, teams or competitors. Here are examples of questions managers can ask when reviewing win rate reports.

  • Does everyone have the same understanding of when it is appropriate to create an opportunity?
  • Is one team focussing more heavily on new versus existing customers?
  • Is a sales person cherry picking the best deals and ignoring others?
  • Is it tougher to win deals in a new territory compared to mature markets?
  • Are deals that are effectively lost being closed in salesforce?

This last point is critical. Open deals often live on in the eternal hope that one day they will close successful. Here’s how to identify these lame duck deals that are artificially increasing your opportunity win rates.

As The True Story of Dave Apthorp: The Best and the Worst Sales Person reveals, it’s important not to use the win rate metric in isolation.

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How to report on opportunity win rates

The video shows how to create the win rate dashboard chart and report shown in this article. Scroll down for details of the Opportunity formula field referred to the video and the report formulas.

Opportunity Win Rates Report

Opportunity formula field

The formula used in the Opportunity custom Amount Won field is:

IF(
IsWon = TRUE,
Amount,
0
)

No need to add the field the page layout but make sure it is visible to all relevant profiles.

% Won (Amount) report formula

Here’s the report formula that calculates the Amount Won % using the opportunity field above.

Formula in salesforce report that calculates win rate by opportunity amount.

% Won (Count) report formula

Here’s the report formula that calculates the percentage number of opportunities that have been won in the month.

This report formula calculates win rate by the number of opportunities.

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