5 Tips to Improve

Sales Performance
Modern Best Practice Guide
Joe Fuster, Global Head of Customer Experience, Oracle
Adaptable Sales Strategies
and Effective Execution

Are you setting unattainable targets?
It seems counterintuitive, but 95% of
Chief Sales Officers (CSOs) reported
higher revenue targets1 and 86% are not
very confident they can reach them.2
But the targets aren’t the only moving
objects. With only 20% of sales people
generating most of the revenue and long
ramp-up times to get new ones up to
speed1, effective sales performance
management is more critical than
ever before.
Those who can’t quickly adapt strategies
and successfully implement them, risk
both the company and personal revenue
loss – in other words, their jobs.
With over 25 years in sales – 15 of those
in sales management and 3 years in
executive leadership, I’ve seen my share
of sales failures and successes.
In that time, I’ve learned that if you
want to be a sales leader who can
easily adjust plans and withstand a
barrage of obstacles, you’ll need the
support of a knowledgeable sales
team, modern best practice processes,
and technology.
With this holistic approach, you can
design the optimal plans and
effectively implement them to
drive performance.
This brief will act as your roadmap
with tips about how best to utilize
people, processes, and technology to
improve your company’s sales
performance.
5 Tips to Improve Sales Performance
Align Strategies
Simplify Activities and Processes
Collaborate with the Sales Team
Analyze Performance
Gamify Performance Dashboard

Sales Performance Management (SPM) is defined as a comprehensive solution

that helps organizations drive sales alignment from strategy through to execution,
while improving efficiency, accuracy and timeliness of the associated
administrative processes.3

Sources:
1 CSO Insights, “Sales Management and Optimization Study: 2015 Key Trends Analysis” 2015.
2 Accenture, “Powering Profitable Sales Growth” 2014.
2
3 Brian Hartlen Sales Performance Management Blog, “What is Sales Performance Management?”
 1

Align Strategies

Acquire Talent, Revenue,

Leads, and Content

The people who contribute to sales Align Strategies to Acquire Talent,

success or failure often come from Revenue, Leads, and Content
outside the sales team.
HR: Find and keep sales talent
Whether you’re trying to acquire Company and Finance: Ensure sales
and retain sales talent, develop success = company success
incentive plans that promote
company objectives, or get good Marketing: Get good, timely, qualified
leads and relevant content, leads and relevant content
alignment with stakeholders in other
departments can help you succeed.
For example, 96% of leading firms
have sales compensation policies
aligned with their business
objectives.5
By maintaining a regular dialog with
stakeholders, you can have more
confidence that your team will
consistently perform well.

Sources:
4 CSO Insights, “Sales Performance Optimization Study: 2015 Sales Management Analysis” 2015.
5 MHI Research Institute, Decoding the Decision Dynamic, Executive Summary, 2015.
3
6 IBID
 2

Simplify Activities and

Processes
Drive Productivity and
Shorten Deal Time

Pervasive complexity is the enemy of Simplify to Drive Productivity and

clarity and productivity. Shorten Deal Time
For example, overuse of manual Reduce number of priorities/objectives
processes waste a sales person’s
precious selling time while amassing Standardize on modern best practice
avoidable errors and inaccuracies. Unify and cleanse data
Also, disconnected systems hinder a Apply rules-based automation
sales representative from getting a
Employ a mobile-first strategy
complete customer view.
As a result, sales productivity has
taken a big hit. Sales people spend
2/3 of their time on non-selling
(mostly administrative) tasks.7
In contrast, 80% Best-in-Class firms
minimize the number of people,
departments, and steps to develop
and deliver a sales quote or
proposal.8
Simplifying your activities and
processes can help you provide clear
direction, maximize productivity,
reduce errors, and control costs.

Source:
7 Accenture, “Powering Profitable Sales Growth” 2014.
8 Aberdeen “CRM + Sales Workflow: Removing the Friction from Your Pipeline,” February 2015
4
 3

Analyze Performance

Hone Sales Strategies and

Drive Effectiveness

Gone are the days of gut-driven Analyze Data to Make Informed Decisions
decisions in business. Right? Not
even close. Only 30% of companies Model / hone strategy
use analytics and less than half of
those do so to identify additional Detect & pre-empt underperforming
sales opportunities.9 behaviors

The desire to be “data-driven” is Identify revenue-generating behaviors

expressed often –particularly as Discover opportunities
targets grow out of reach and
market dynamics evolve. Yet, many Design more effective compensation
teams lack the culture, measures, plans
technology, and analytic know-how Identify outliers and manage exceptions
to infuse analyses into important
decision-making.
The proof of analytics’ effectiveness
is easy to find. For example, teams
that employ sales analytics grow
team quota attainment at four times
the rate of non-adopters.10
Every phase of the sales/sales
performance management
processes can benefit from the
use of analytics… from sales
strategy to sales coaching to
incentive compensation.

Sources:
9 Accenture, “Powering Profitable Sales Growth,” 2014.
10 Aberdeen, “Sales effectiveness 2015: How in the World Are We Going to Hit Our Number?” June 2015.
5
 4

Collaborate with the

Sales Team
Improve Performance and
Further Opportunities

Why is it that the majority of

companies surveyed report that
they don’t effectively share best
practices across sales teams? 11 In fact, the companies who share best
practices exceedingly well realized 91% of
One reason could be that nearly overall plan attainment.13
three quarters of those surveyed do
not consider their CRM system very Use Social Collaboration to
effective enabling collaboration.12 Advance Opportunities
Fortunately, social tools have Share best practices
become commonplace in the office.
Social tools do not refer to Facebook Roll out new strategies
and Twitter. Enterprise social
collaboration utilizes social Communicate with Key Account team
technologies to foster inter- members and stakeholders
company collaborations.
Whether you are strategizing with
the key account team, rolling out
new territories or coaching new
sales executives, social collaboration
can be an effective means of
optimizing sales performance.

“In my experience, the most effective sales organizations

use social collaboration to share best practices. This
furthers opportunities and drives performance.”

Joe Fuster, Author, Global Head of Customer Experience, Oracle

Sources:
11 CSO Insights, “Sales Performance Optimization Study: 2015 Sales Management Analysis” 2015.
12 MHI Research Institute, “Decoding the Decision Dynamic, Executive Summary” 2015 .
6
13 CSO Insights, “Sales Performance Optimization Study: 2015 Sales Management Analysis” 2015 .
 5

Gamify Performance
Dashboard
Motivate Sales Behaviors and
Drive Quota Attainment

Cash incentives may be king, but Gamify to Motivate Sales Behaviors and
gamification rules! For the top Drive Quota Attainment
performing sales organizations in
the past year, there has been a Provide non-cash incentives
twelve-fold increase in the number Motivate and foster accountability
of sales execs omitting monetary
incentives from their list of top Track individual performance
three motivators.14 Promote best practice behaviors
Visually stimulating and rewarding,
the use of game mechanics in the
form of contests, games,
leaderboards, etc. drive team and
individual quota attainment. In fact, Gamification is defined as the use of game
game-mechanics users realized 71% mechanics to motivate, modify, or reward
greater quota attainment15 and grew distinct behaviors17
their average deal size at twice the
pace as compared to non-adopters.16
Why does it work? With
gamification, competitive sales
executives can track their
performance as compared to their
peers and secure their spot on the
top of the leader board.

Also, sales leaders use gamification

to execute their sales strategies in a
fun and “sticky” way, promote best
practice behaviors, further motivate,
and reward their sales teams.

Sources:
14 Aberdeen “Incenting Success: Best-in-Class Sales Management,” April 2014
15 Aberdeen, “Non-Cash-Sales Incentives” April 2015.
7
16 Aberdeen, “Gamification in B2B Sales: Is It Time? (Part II)” May 2014.
17 IBID
Putting it All Together

Amidst market changes and business “5 Tips” in Action:

priorities, how do the most successful
sales leaders adapt and execute strategies
to boost performance?
They rely on the people to hire the right
talent, promote the right culture,
standardize on the right processes, and
implement the right technology.
The “right” sales performance processes
are ones that leverage today’s technology
to drive performance, productivity,
accountability, and collaboration. These
processes must be optimized for
simplicity, repeatability, and automation.
Utilizing today’s technology, Oracle
Modern Best Practice for Sales
Performance Management details
three best practice processes
supported by customer success videos,
webcasts, white papers, and more to
help you bridge the gap between sales
plans and performance.
Sales Strategy to Execution
Develop Strategies that Drive
Performance

Coaching Plan to Performance

Increase Sales Effectiveness

Incentive Plan to Payment

Effective & Streamlined Incentive
Compensation

These processes are inspired by Oracle Sales Performance Management - a

complete solution with advanced modeling capabilities to optimize territories,
quotas, and incentive compensation plans as well as sales productivity and
coaching tools to improve sales executive effectiveness.

8
Technologies that Drive
Modern Best Practices

Technology is only one piece of the

puzzle, but it is an important one. Once
employed, the right technology can help
you generate the competitive advantage
your business has been lacking. Here are
some of today’s technology that you can
utilize to improve sales performance.
CLOUD: Making the Best Applications
Business-Accessible
The cloud enables you to purchase
software & IT resources as a service. Sales
/ CRM / SPM Cloud applications help
sales people sell productively and
effectively throughout the entire sales
process.
SOCIAL & BIG DATA: Providing Insight,
and Fostering Collaboration
Customers use social media to get peer
opinions, lodge complaints, and even
make purchases. Digital behavior
(captured as big data) helps us learn
about customers. Sales people
collaborate and share best practices
using internal social tools.

ANALYTICS: Driving Sound Decisions The fact is, you can put the best tools in
Analytics provide the insights you need to place, but doing so won’t ensure their
make the best decisions and create more adoption. To be effective, stakeholders
effective, granular, and measurable plans. must embrace and employ technology.
Look at dashboards showing your KPIs & In a true best practice, people, process
metrics in real time to see how your sales and technology work in concert with
team is performing. one another.
MOBILE & LOCATION-AWARE: Enabling
Wherever, Whenever Access
A mobile-first strategy enables you to
securely access sales / CRM applications
to make updates to plans, forecasts, etc.
from your mobile device or tablet and
plan customer visits / sales activities
while on the road.

Source:
18 Accenture, “Powering Profitable Sales Growth” 2014.
9
 Take the Next Step Today
Explore: Do your own discovery
Empower: Work with Oracle or one of its
expert partners to guide your path
Engage: Share Oracle Modern Best Practice
Adopt: Drive your business transformation
and measure results

Get Started
www.oracle.com/modernbestpractice
/sales-performance-management

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5 Tips for Improving Sales Performance

Oracle Sales Cloud October 2015
Authors: Joe Fuster, Becca Goren

Oracle Sales Performance

Management

Oracle Modern Best Practice for

Sales Performance Management