Sales Force Benchmarking

In these hyper-competitive markets, making the sales organizations efficient

and effective is a challenge faced by CEOs and Chief Sales Managers across
the world to retain the competitive edge and achieve the goals and objectives of
the organization. Corporate boards are demanding for managers who can count,
calculate and show returns on everything invested in sales and marketing. Be it
performance metrics or ROI, at the end of the day the stakeholders need to
know how effective the organization’s sales force is.

Benchmarking is probably the most effective tool used on a continuous basis

by world class sales organizations to improve their effectiveness and gain
competitive advantage. By benchmarking your sales force against them and
adopting the best practices, the sales processes can be made more efficient to
produce higher returns on sales.

A benchmarked assessment also permits the organizations to review their

strategic options before embarking on major product launches and sales force
training programs.

Why Benchmark the Sales Performance?

The biggest challenge of any sales manager is to improve the effectiveness of

the organization’s sales force. The oft-repeated bell-shaped curve reminds us
that in any organization 60-80% of the sales staff deliver average performance,
10-20% deliver below average performance while an equal 10-20% of staff
produce top-notch performance. However, these are the figures of an ‘average’
or ‘normal’ company, not a high performance organization. The performance
curve of an efficient organization is not bell-shaped but humped with a large
percentage of high performing sales staff.
 Without benchmarking, it would be difficult to have a clear understanding of
the sales performance. Lack of such understanding increases the optimism bias
in sales and marketing managers. Apart from achieving the revenue goals, it is
also very important to gauge the effectiveness of the sales staff and calculate
the returns on investment in the sales staff training. Benchmarking, either
internal or external or industry best practices, considerably increases the
productivity and opens many opportunities that otherwise an organization
might have missed.

Many Fortune 500 organizations and other large corporate firms routinely use
benchmarking to achieve their objectives. By continuously identifying,
analysing and adapting the best practices that produce top-notch performance
and training the sales force to increase the productivity is a systematic
methodology followed by all world-class companies.

A research study in 19951 by the International Benchmarking Clearinghouse of

the American Productivity and Quality Centre (APQC) best explains the
benefits of the benchmarking. Greater than 30 companies have benefited an
average of US$76 million in the first year itself by successfully adopting
benchmarking strategy. The profit is even higher (US$ 189 million) in the case
of the organizations that have been using benchmarking on a continuous basis.

http://www.apqc.org/portal/apqc/ksn?paf_gear_id=contentgearhome&paf_dm=full&pageselect=inc
lude&docid=112421
 Benchmarking offers many benefits. It lets you avoid repeating mistakes
committed by your competitors and provides rich learning experience. By
adapting the methods that have already been proven effective, you can avoid
reinventing the wheel and save a lot on costs.

Unbiased Goals. A benchmarked assessment of the effectiveness of your sales

force gives you a more realistic picture and helps you devise unbiased goals.
The objective study of the present capability of the sales force throws important
insights into what has to be done to improve the sales force mechanism to
achieve the revenue goals of the organization.

New Perspectives. Benchmarking provides new perspectives in identifying the

critical success factors in the sales management and how your organization
fares in comparison to the competitors. Be it adopting a more robust lead
management strategies or a complete sales force transformation, benchmarking
is an essential tool to identify the best practices and implement them.

Data-Driven Decisions. Sales management forms a large proportion of a

company’s expenses and the management needs to have a clear idea of what
the return on investment is and how effective its sales force is in utilizing the
allocated funds. Benchmarking helps the management to analyse every step in
the sales process mechanism and take data-driven decisions.

Risk Reduction. By benchmarking sales processes the management will know

where to invest additional resources to improve the sales force effectiveness
and as an extension, the company revenues. This has a tremendous effect on
how the company plans to achieve its strategic goals. Knowing what practices
to adapt and where to invest the resources, an organization can greatly mitigate
its risks.

Identifying Opportunities. Knowing what the world-class companies are

doing helps you identify the opportunities you might have overlooked.
Developing the competence in every area of the company’s operations,
especially sales management, enables the company to seize opportunities and
grow.

How to Benchmark Your Sales Force?

Any benchmarking methodology adopted should duly consider the following

aspects:

1. The benchmarking strategy should be perfectly aligned with the overall

marketing strategy of the organization. That way, the synergy produced will
maximize the benefits of the benchmarking.
2. Benchmarking should focus on those areas that provide maximum benefits
in realizing the opportunities present in the market. So identifying the
market opportunities beforehand and crafting the benchmark strategy later
on is usually more effective.
3. High performance sales organizations follow a predictive and mature sales
process model. The benchmarks implemented should enable your sales
force in learning, fine-tuning and excelling at such mature and efficient
sales processes across all divisions in the sales department.
4. Special attention should be paid to identifying the critical sales success
factors in your market and improving those skills in your sales force by
benchmarking them against the internal as well as the best-in-industry
benchmarks.
5. Benchmarking is not just for selling; it is a productivity-enhancement
methodology that can be employed in all aspects of the sales management
such as sales budgeting, hiring practices, lead management, account
management, back-office support, and sales process improvement, etc.

So a successful strategic sales force benchmarking involves three phases. In the

Phase 1 a robust benchmarking framework is defined, understood and created.
In the second phase the elements are quantized and benchmarks are selected.
Any gaps found in the effectiveness of the organization’s sales force and those
of the competition are identified. The last phase involves devising and
implementing individual plans, sharing them across the sales force and
continuously monitoring the progress.

Developing Benchmarks

There are many approaches to benchmarking, the most popular being internal
benchmarking, competitive benchmarking and strategic benchmarking.
Whatever be your approach to benchmarking, there are three important things
to focus while developing benchmarks.
 ƒ Identify the gap between internal sales process practices and the external
sales process practices
ƒ Analyse the industry’s best practices and identify what you need to
change in your organization
ƒ Continuously monitor and improvise upon what has been learned in
order to better the sales process maturity even further.

There are five steps in designing and implementing operational sales process
benchmarks - Identifying the metrics, collecting the necessary data, comparing
the organization’s performance against the world-class organizations in various
areas, a focussed action and developing a sustained model to continuously
improve the sales force performance.

Identifying the Metrics

Identify metrics that clearly indicate the performance of your sales force. When
there is an improvement in these metrics it should clearly show in the improved
performance of the sales force. Vague and intangible metrics do not help much.
Another pitfall while selecting metrics is many organizations identify clearly
measurable metrics while ignoring less-obvious ones that need more data but
have a strong influence on the sales force performance.
The metrics an organization chooses should encompass all the levels of the
marketing, sales and support staff with an objective to increase customer
satisfaction. The metrics should cover sales process activities, transactions,
conversion rates, time spent, financial resources invested and effectiveness of
the sales people. There are literally hundreds of metrics that can be used in the
benchmarking but it is prudent to choose only those that are highly relevant to
the organization’s activities.

Activities here refer to every aspect of the sales process that affects the
outcome of a sale. Be it an e-mail or a face-to-face sales call, if it is important
then it ought to be measured and benchmarked.

Apart from identifying metrics that measure productivity, the organizations

also need to benchmark their sales expenses. A reduction in sales expenses
produces an increase in revenue and as an extension, the bottom-line.

All the metrics should be relevant to the performance of the overall sales force
and help them improve the effectiveness of both the individual performance as
well as the sales process model employed by the organization. Availability of
key data is also very important. Eliminate metrics that do not clearly indicate
the sales performance.

Collecting the Data

Data collection for benchmarking needs to have both internal data as well as
external data. A lack of either one results in poor definition of the metrics,
vague benchmarks and unclear outcomes. The internal data collection heavily
depends on the systems and processes employed in the organization. While
some data may be obvious others need a bit of research.

The HR management systems, CRM systems, finance & accounting systems,

expenses reporting and other productivity-enhancing software programs are the
most common sources of internal data collection.

External data collection requires identifying the relevant peer competitors in

the market. The information sources regarding your competition need to be
reliable and the size of the sample selected should be statistically valid and
represent the whole population, i.e., all sources of information the company is
interested in. The sample should be non-biased and accurate with a high degree
of precision to draw right conclusions.

Sometimes the sample may also contain companies from a different industry
such as parallel competitors who may offer substitute products, firms which
may integrate either backward or forward into your market, and out-of-industry
firms which perform similar functions (Ex: logistics of FedEx and Wal-Mart).

There are many ways to collect the required external data but if most of the
organizations chosen in the sample are unlisted and privately held then it might
be difficult to find the relevant data. Still the internet, market research firms,
business publications, case studies, trade associations and benchmarking
research firms provide enormous data to choose and benchmark from.

Comparing and Contrasting the Internal and External Data

Measuring the performance of the company’s sales force with the sample on a
metric-to-metric basis will throw light on its current effectiveness and the areas
that need improvement. Sometimes the raw data may need to be processed into
actionable information before comparing and contrasting it with the external
data.

In most cases, data comparison requires statistical expertise and strong

analytical bent to produce insightful observations. The organization may also
seriously consider seeking services of a professional benchmarking consulting
firm for better results. Benchmarking experts are adept at conducting statistical
interpretations, developing relevant metrics, identify the information sources
for devising new metrics, identify trends from Y-o-Y data and spot the gaps
between the organization and the best in class companies.

Once you have the information on how your sales force fares against the
competition, identify the gaps in various metrics. If the performance of the
sales force is to increase to the levels of the benchmark what would be the
benefits in terms of increased revenue and decreased costs? What are the
expenses involved in training the sales force to improve their effectiveness to
the benchmarked levels? If the benefits outweigh the costs involved then the
organization has an opportunity. Identify all such opportunities by carefully
studying the best practices employed in your market and how your sales force
can tap the unrealized potential.

Developing and Executing Action Plans

To enhance the sales force effectiveness the ‘gaps’ in the performances need to
be reduced or eliminated and this requires a focussed and sustained action on
the part of management. The problem areas need to be identified and the
factors that are holding back the sales force to post their optimum performance
need to be countered.
 While some benchmark metrics need a tweak here and there in the sales
process or organizational environment, many need in-depth training programs
and other solutions to increase the performance. Solving such business
problems require a robust model of devising solutions. One such model is
presented here.

•Define the Problem •Gather Data •Identify Best 

Practices

•Execute Action Plans •Develop Action Plans •Create Solutions 

1. Define the problem. Identify, define and if possible quantify the problem.
Attack it from different perspectives to have a better understanding of it.
2. Gather Data. Collect the relevant data and other information regarding the
causes and factors that influence the problem. Ask for the opinions of
important players in the organization.
3. Identify Best Practices. See how the competitors and the world-class sales
organizations are approaching the same problem. If the problem is related to
organizational culture then check how the best-in-class firms have created a
culture that eliminates or reduces the problem.
4. Create Solutions. After a thorough analysis create more than one solution
to eliminate the problem and improve the performance. See how the best-in-
industry practices can be adopted or adapted to the specific situation the
organization is facing.
5. Develop Action Plans. Once the appropriate solution is found then a viable
action plan needs to be formulated and its objectives have to be
communicated to all the stakeholders involved. An effective plan should
give clear details about the tasks to be performed, investment needed,
resources to be committed, milestones, metrics and the expected returns on
investment.
6. Execute Action Plaans. The plaans and the training prrograms neeed to addresss
the conceerns of all parties
p invoolved and immprove the critical salees skills. Thhe
plans alsso need to be flexiblle enough to accomm modate any y mid-coursse
correctioons becausee the best practices
p inn the industtry keep chhanging witth
the mark ket condition
ns. And thee ultimate end
e of all acction plans should havve
a positivve effect in producing a predictivve and matuured sales managemen
m nt
mechanissm in the orrganization.

S
Sustained Im
mprovemeent

Benchmarking is not a one-time qquick-fix soolution to iimprove thee sales forcce

B
efffectivenesss. Rather it is a usefull tool that produces
p lonng-lasting benefits
b onlly
w
when used on
o a continnuing basiss with sustaained effortt. For optim mum resultts,
benchmarkinng needs too be embeddded into th he core opeerating proccesses of thhe
organizationn.

A 2004 stud dy by Bainn & Co. reeveals thatt benchmarrking is thee third most
popular strattegy used by world-claass organizaations to inccrease theirr competitivve
addvantage. Benchmark
B king is nexxt only to strategic
s pllanning andd CRM annd
raanks above other tools such as TQ
QM, outsouurcing and ccore compettencies.

By making benchmarki
B b ing a Standdard Operatting Proceddure, firms can improvve
th
he sales force effectivveness and gain comppetitive advvantage. Thhe sustaineed
im
mprovemennt plan shou uld providee continuouus feedbackk about thee progress in
i
 implementing the devised solutions and also take consideration of the changing
market conditions and industry practices.

A dedicated sales benchmarking manager would help in overseeing how the

benchmarking plans have been going on in the organization. Periodical reviews
of the sales force performance, review of metrics selected with the infusion of
fresh data, updating the benchmarked best-in-industry practices and monitoring
the sales force training progress and the returns on the investment must be
made part of the continuous development plan.

Using Benchmarking to Improve Sales Force Effectiveness

A study of 10 world class sales organizations by the HR firm Chally identifies

a strong customer-driven sales process culture as the most important factor in
what makes a sales force world-class.2 As the competition gets fiercer and the
technology gap between the market players decreases, the sales and customer
relationship management provide the strongest competitive advantage to the
organizations. So it is imperative that, to stay in the market and be a world-
class organization, the sales processes must be transformed from ‘product-
centric’ approach to ‘customer-centric’ approach.

Weakest Weak Risky Normal Good Best

Stock  Product  Technology  Market  Selling  Customer 

driven  driven  driven  driven  driven  driven 
sales  sales  sales  sales  sales  sales 
processes processes processes processes processes processes

With so much competition in the markets, it is not enough to be ‘good’. One

has to be excellent to retain the old customers and capture newer ones. An
example which might illustrate this point comes from a Harvard Business

2 http://www.chally.com/benchnet.htm
 Review study.3 Nearly 80 percent of all companies which deserted their
vendors actually described them as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. The same study
reveals that the organizations which were rated ‘very good’ to ‘excellent’ are
42% more likely to retain their clients.

Only a robust customer-centric sales process culture can ensure high customer
retention and profitable customer acquisition. To transform your sales force
from ‘stock-driven’ or ‘product-driven’ culture to ‘customer-driven’ culture,
the very sales processes being employed across the organization needs to be
analysed, benchmarked and improved.

Benchmarking can be used to find solutions to the most important challenges

every sales manager faces –

1. Finding, hiring and retaining the best sales people

2. Measuring the sales performance and compensating it in the best possible
way
3. Maximizing sales revenues and customer satisfaction levels through mature
sales processes
4. Improvising the sales and channel structures to world class standards
5. Designing appropriate training programs to substantially improve the sales
performance
6. Using the best-possible sales management processes and models

Identifying and Improving the Critical Sales Skills in your Sales Force

To improve the effectiveness of the sales force, the critical sales skills that play
a vital role in the organization’s line of business need to be identified. These
should be the skills that, when improved even by a small margin produce
significant positive impact on the organization’s sales efficiency. Be it inside
calls or lead management, customer account management or product delivery
mechanism the necessary sales skills that separate the organization from the
best firms in its category need to be identified.

Below are the seven most critical sales skills identified in a study of world-
class sales forces, by the order of their importance, that deliver high customer
satisfaction.4

ƒ Ability to understand the customer’s needs deeply

ƒ Managing the customer’s satisfaction levels in person

3 HBR Nov/Dec 2005

4 http://www.chally.com/wcs/sales-growth/sales-force-gap.html
 ƒ Recommending products, services and applications that best fit the
customer’s needs
ƒ Providing the necessary technical and after-sales support
ƒ Providing best possible advise to the customers
ƒ Solving logistical problems and delivering the products or services on
time
ƒ Delivering innovative solutions to fill the needs of the customers

With these findings in the mind, the sales management team needs to identify
the relevant areas that need to be benchmarked. The best practices that are
being followed by the world-class sales organizations have to be adapted to suit
the existing organizational culture for the best possible results. The possible
returns from adopting a certain best practice need to be estimated.

The relevant statistical process controls have to be devised which monitor the
conformance to the benchmarks chosen and any possible variation from the
defined metrics.

Below is an example of goals set for different domains in the sales process
management, the metrics employed, various best practice tools chosen and the
expected improvement in the sales performance.
Critical Benchmark Process Areas

Here seven most critical sales process areas that have to be benchmarked to
increase the overall sales force performance and foster a mature sales
organization have been presented.

Developing a Customer-Driven Sales Processes

How many calls does it take to get a lead? What is the number of hours taken
to generate a proposal? How does you company fare in sales lead generation
sources against the best in the industry? What is the organization’s customer
churn rate, new customer gain, customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime
value, customer satisfaction levels, number of customer complaints and repeat
business? How much time does each rep spend with the customer?

Metrics such as these help you know how your sales force is engaging the
customer. Benchmark those areas where the customer interacts directly with
the any member of the company. Make the customer the focal point of all sales
processes being practiced by the organization. Developing robust systems,
processes and standard sales processes to acquire, manage and sustain
customers is important to gain competitive advantage.

Market Segmentation

Understanding the needs of the customers, solving their problems, managing

their satisfaction levels, and providing useful advice all come from a deep
understanding of the products and services being offered by the organization as
well as the customer’s business. As you might have noticed these are the very
skills that were identified by the study in the world-class sales organizations.

Market segmentation lets you improve the expertise of your salespeople in the
chosen market domains and builds up their expertise in that segment. This in
turn helps them offer better service to the customers by understanding their
needs and offering appropriate products or services.

Study how your competitors categorise their sales force and build skill-specific
or domain-specific expertise. See how your sales force compare against them in
each of those skill-sets.

Hiring the Right Salespeople

The effectiveness of a sales person is cited higher than the price of the product,
quality of the product and the total solution package as the most important
 factor considered in choosing a product in a business-to-business survey.5
Improving customer retention rates just by 5% improves sales by at least a
minimum of 25%. The sales improvement is even more glaring in some sectors
– 35% in software, 45% in industrial distribution, 75% in credit cards and 95%
in advertising.6

This illustrates the importance of the effectiveness of salespeople in achieving

the strategic goals of an organization. Every sales manager probably
understands the costs of hiring wrong person. Benchmark your hiring and
recruitment processes to the world-class organizations to find the best talent.

Training & Development

Even though many organizations employ various competency models in

identifying and hiring best sales talent, changing conditions in the market, fresh
competition and high attrition rates can disrupt their human resource
management plans. Hiring the best talent and training the remaining talent
should go hand-in-hand.

All world-class sales organizations employ continuous training and coaching

programs. They do not view training as a sporadic learning binge but as a way
to continually improvise the sales force. That way even if their best sales talent
leaves the organization, the processes remain undisturbed.

However, before benchmarking your training and coaching programs against

those of your competitors it immensely helps to integrate your customer
insights into the programs. Also there are no one-size-fits-all programs to
improve the sales force effectiveness. How adept your salespeople are at using
value-enhancing sales activities is an important factor to be integrated into
training programs. A study indicates that activity focus is an important
differentiator between high sales performance and average performance.7

A 2004 poll by HR firm Maritz revealed that sales representatives who

received three hours per month of coaching overshot their sales goals,
increased revenue by 25 percent and increased the total size of the deal by 70
percent.8 It is also found that calls per sales rep increased by 76 % among the
top performers and a whopping 261 % in the core sales representatives.

5 http://www.business-int.com/categories/skills-in-selling-and-customer-service/benchmarking-

sales-excellence.asp
6 HBR Oct ‘90
7 Maximizing sales force productivity, sales executive council, 2006, Maritz
8 http://www.maritz.com/~/media/Files/MaritzDotCom/White%20Papers/Driving-Sales-Force-

Effectiveness.ashx
 Another study of 540 companies by the American Society for Training and
Development concludes that high performance companies invest more in sales
training and coaching than their low performance counterparts and enjoy better
returns on their sales investment.9 They enjoy 57% higher net sales per
employee, 37% higher gross profits per employee, and a 20% higher ratio in
market-to-book value. The same study reveals that high performance
companies invest nearly 6% of their payroll in workplace training and they
train nearly 86% of their workforce. The total return on investment in sales
training came out to be an enormous $20 per every $1.

Incentives & Compensation

Sales staff is an integral part of a business organization and make important

contribution to its overall success. So it is important that they be motivated
strongly and an environment that fosters their growth be cultivated. Training
programs that focus on incremental improvement in performance,
benchmarked tools and methodologies to measure the effectiveness of each
salesperson, constructive feedback mechanism and motivating top performer
reward and recognition programs help the sales force in a great way to stay in
high spirits and deliver high performance.

Such programs should concentrate on every member of the sales force rather
than few top performers. Each individual in the sales staff needs to be
benchmarked against either a top internal performance or a corresponding
industry performance metric.

Concentrating on the entire sales force improves the organizational culture and
reduces dependence on few key sales staff. Further a study reveals that a 5%
increase in the performance of core sales staff produces 70 percent more

9 Page 59, Branded Customer Service – The New Competitive Edge by Janelle Barlow, Paul Stewart -

2004 - Business & Economics

 reevenue inccrease thann a similarr increase in the perrformance of top linne
saalespeople.10

World classs sales orgaanizations ((WSOs) differentiate themselvess from otheer

W
organizationns by adopting better hhiring assesssment proccesses, prov
viding betteer
cooaching prrograms annd leveraginng top performance eexpertise in n their salees
11
sttaff. Theyy also take talent maxximization, sales staff training annd companyy-
w supporrt for sales processes
wide p veery seriouslly.

Successful im
S mplementattion of all these
t measuures would give the orgganization in
i
in
ncreasing the effectivveness of thhe sales sttaff and a much better ability tot
m
manage theirr sales forces.

S
Sales Servicce and Support System
ms

This is a criitical sales skill

T s area as
a the customer or the client direcctly interacts
w the orgganization during
with d this pphase. Sales service annd support systems alsso
foorm an impportant part in deliverinng a more satisfying
s customer serrvice. An inn-
depth audit of marketiing, sales, aafter-sales and other support sysstems woulld
reeveal the gaps that need to bbe bridged and the areas a that need to beb
benchmarked.

10 http://w
www.maritz.ccom/~/media a/Files/MaritzzDotCom/Wh hite%20Paperrs/Driving-Sa
ales-Force-
Effectivenness.ashx
11 Secrets of High Perfo
ormance Saless Organizations, White Pap
per by Miller Heiman -
http://stoore.millerheim
man.com/kc/a abstract.aspx
x?itemid=0000000000000035E
 Having a healthy support staff ratio, adoption of automation practices in the
support functions and decreased response times are few things that need to be
compared against your competitors.

Customer Satisfaction Measurement Metrics

Asking customers how they felt about the organization’s service is an

important thing to identify factors that come in way of high customer
satisfaction rates. The successful sales organizations invariably fare better than
other organizations in producing high customer satisfaction rates.

How do you measure customer satisfaction in your domain of operations?

What is your customer retention rate? How does your organization compare
against the industry bests in customer service, customer satisfaction and repeat
customers?

Metrics such as these would give a better idea on where to invest to improve
the effectiveness of the sales force so as to improve customer satisfaction levels
and get more customers. Note that customer satisfaction depends on other
parameters beyond the control of sales staff, for example, the performance of
the products or services sold. So it helps to integrate the customer feedback into
all organizational processes that influence customer satisfaction levels.

Making the Most of Benchmarking

Getting the best out of benchmarking involves making it a part of a wider

organizational culture program. When it is made a part of learning culture and
used as a tool to continually improve the performance of the sales force,
benchmarking produces best results and returns on the investment.
Benchmarking is also widely flexible and can be used a part of other tools and
initiatives to improve the sales force effectiveness.

5 Pitfalls to Avoid

Not all organizations which use benchmarking have been successful. There are
many pitfalls to avoid and misconceptions to clear.

1. Organizational inertia may prevent or make it difficult to realize the

objectives set under benchmarking. Even the best benchmarking plans are
useless unless they are effectively implemented.
2. Benchmarking is both a noun and verb. Benchmarks refer to certain
standards set to be achieved that are quantifiable in the form of metrics.
Benchmarking refers to processes that are put into practice to achieve the
benchmarks. Good benchmarks but poor benchmarking produces are likely
 to produce less than expected results. It
would be a mistake to dismiss benchmarking Organizational 
strategy on the basis of such results. Inertia
3. Poor definition of metrics and the best
practices is another reason for poor results in
the benchmarking programs. What is the best
practice? How do you define it? What data Poor Benchmarking 
supports such assumption? Is what is best for
Processes
the competitor best for the organization too?
Questions like these put metric selection,
data collection and best practice
implementation into perspective. When the
Poor Metric 
benchmarking processes are well-designed
and supported by clear identification of
Definition
metrics and comprehensive understanding of
the best practices the organizations can
produce some of the most transforming
changes. Unrealistic 
4. Unrealistic expectations and setting the bar Expectations
too high is another pitfall any benchmarking
strategy should avoid. World class
organizations are the result of incremental
improvements and sustained learning. Poor Sales Training
Setting a benchmark based on such world
class sales organizations is one thing and
implementing benchmarking processes to achieve that metric is another
thing. Often, improvement in area results in a betterment in another aspect
of the performance. So an overall effort to increase the effectiveness of the
entire spectrum of the sales processes is what is needed to make an
organization a truly world class sales force. Trying to match metric to
metric without taking the other aspects of the organizational culture that
impact the chosen metric into consideration can prove to be disappointing.
5. Poor sales force training is probably the most frequently cited reason for
underperforming benchmarking programs. Best-in-the-industry sales
organizations need to hire the best-in-the-industry salespeople and train the
rest to become the best. Setting benchmarks without empowering the
salespeople with effective sales strategies will not work. The organization
needs to provide necessary financial resources to sales training and
coaching programs and their progress needs to be constantly monitored.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Benchmarking Program

The success of a benchmarking program depends on selecting the right metrics,

gathering the relevant data, setting the right benchmarks that enhance the
effectiveness of the sales force in a measurable way when reached, improving
the critical sales skills to the standards of benchmarked organizations through
continuous training and making benchmarking a continuous learning process
with effective feedback loops.

As any chief sales manager can see - the hardest part is training the sales force
to enhance their effectiveness and improve sales volume per rep. This needs
efficient training and coaching programs and effective sales processes. Without
robust sale straining programs the effectiveness of the sales force cannot be
increased and the revenue targets become difficult to meet.

Every CEO faces the challenge of identifying how much training is necessary
to obtain the desired results. If the effectiveness of sales training programs
cannot be measured then the management would find it difficult to justify any
decision of channelling enormous financial resources into training and
coaching programs, thus directly affecting the outcomes of benchmarking
programs.

Measuring Training Effectiveness

The sales training programs devised as part of benchmarking strategy

themselves need to be benchmarked against similar training programs to
measure their effectiveness and to make any necessary mid-course corrections.

Such measurements need to consider three important aspects of the training

programs – effectiveness, efficiency and standards compliance, and proper
metrics and benchmarks have to be designed.

Various metrics that cover all the dimensions of a coaching or training program
need to be defined and tracked. Another important thing is to put your money
where it is likely to produce the best possible returns.
 Effectiveneess E
Efficiency Compliance

• Traaining budgeet per  • Enrollmment rates peer  • Skill acquisiition per 

coaching program program m coaching prrogram
• Traaining budgeet per  • Compleetion rates p per  • Percentage of reps 
repp program m certified byy coaching 
• Co
ost of trainingg per  • Improvvement in sales programs in n each sales 
repp • Return on investmeent  force unit
• Traaining budgeet as a  in train
ning per rep • Compliance e to the 
percentage of revenue • Improvvement in leaads  standard saales 
• Revenue per trraining  or saless presentatioons  processes m model 
proogram or closeed sales or  followed byy the firm
• Percentage of training  inside ssales • Complaince e to the 
budget spent o on  • Reducttion in sales  benchmarkked 
improving critiical sales  expensses strategies, pprocesses 
skiills and method ds

Be it criticaal sales skillls of your sales forcee or develooping the sales

B s suppoort
processes orr faster clearing of cuustomer com mplaints, innvesting inn bottleneckks
th
hat restrict the organnization annd critical process arreas that are a likely to t
dramaticallyy improve the t perform mance will produce im mmediate results.
r Higgh
performing organizatioons routinelly direct 75 5% to 80%% of their sales traininng
12
budgets to develop the critical salees skills.

Spending a fortune onn the latest fad in salees training that does not producce
S
m
measurable performannce enhancement or one that iis not releevant to thhe
organizationn’s operatioons will nott be very prroductive. Hiring
H the services
s of a

http://w
12 www.astd.org
g/NR/rdonlyrres/7EA68B02-ED44-4DA
AE-B5B4-
041A40566C349/128977/76070828.p
pdf
 professional and competent benchmarking consultancy will provide a fresh
view to identify the critical development areas.

Excelling through Benchmarking

There are few things cannot be measured and hence benchmarked against. The
vibrancy of an organizational culture, the enthusiasm of a salesperson, inspiring
leadership of a chief sales manager or CEO, motivation levels of the sales force
and positive behavioural patterns promoted in the workspace are few things.

A wise sales manager understands how to balance such intangibles with the
tangible metrics. In the rush to implement a process the sales management
should not lose sight of the ends. It should also be flexible enough to change,
modify and adapt various benchmarking processes to suit the organization,
business domain, and the ever-changing market conditions.

The level of maturity an organization displays with regard to benchmarking

practices shows the maturity of the organization itself. World class sales
organizations are outstanding largely because of their passion to excel through
benchmarking as well as their benchmarking excellence. The following table13
clearly shows the maturity levels of organizations in adopting benchmarking
practices.

13 Adopted from Benchmarking Maturity Grid developed by UK Benchmarking Institute

Summary

Benchmarking is a proven and time-tested tool that can be used to gain

competitive advantage by adopting best practices of the world-class
organizations to improve efficiency. Benchmarking the sales force
effectiveness to world’s best sales organizations can provide insights into the
factors hindering the sales force from realizing their full potential and what
needs to be done to improve the sales process effectiveness.

Through best-practice benchmarking, organizations can avoid reinventing the

wheel and invest resources precisely in areas that are likely to produce
measurable and reliable improvements in performance.

Selecting the right kind of metrics, devising suitable benchmarks and more
importantly, implementing the best sales practices across the sales processes in
the organization will enhance the sales force effectiveness and produce best
returns on the sales investment.
Further Reading

1. http://www.prosci.com/benchmarking.htm
2. http://www.reportcenter.com/
3. http://www.apqc.org/portal/apqc/ksn?paf_gear_id=contentgearhome&paf_d
m=full&pageselect=include&docid=112421
4. http://www.apqc.org/portal/apqc/ksn?paf_gear_id=contentgearhome&paf_d
m=full&pageselect=include&docid=112559
5. http://www.apqc.org/portal/apqc/ksn/Benchmarking%20Contacts.pdf?paf_g
ear_id=contentgearhome&paf_dm=full&pageselect=contentitem&docid=10
6802
6. http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c000625.asp
7. http://www.aurorawdc.com/benchmarking.htm
8. http://www.apqc.org/
9. http://www.benchnet.com/
10. http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/bmwg-charter.html
11. http://www.maritz.com/White-Papers/Driving-Sales-Force-
Effectiveness.aspx
12. http://www.bpir.com/
13. Lapide, L, (2005/06). Benchmarking best practices. The Journal of Business
Forecasting. Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 29.
14. Zairi, M and Al-Mashri, M. (2005), The role of benchmarking in best
practice management and knowledge sharing. The Journal of Computer
Information Systems. Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 14.
15. Adebanjo, D. (2001), Benchmarking, Dillon, M. (ed.). Auditing in the Food
Industry: Safety, Quality and Competitiveness. Woodhead Publishing,
Cambridge.
16. Mann R.S. (2007) – TRADE Model available at – www.coer.org.nz.
17. Camp, R. (1989). The search for industry best practices that lead to superior
performance. Productivity Press.
18. Codling, S. (1998). Benchmarking. Gower Publishing.
19. http://salesbenchmarkingindex.com/
20. Lizy Kurian John & Lieven Eeckhout,
21. . Taylor & Francis Publishing, Boca Raton