Sales Math To Improve Your Sales Results

I’ve worked with companies in more than a dozen industries. 

There are three metrics I’ve seen that consistently elevate sales results – Average Deal Size, Win Rate, and Active Pipeline Size.

If you can help your sales team improve one or more of those metrics, better results soon follow.

Two metrics that can increase faster than others is Win Rate and Average Deal Size – here’s how: If you look at average B2B Win Rates, you’ll see that active clients have the highest win rates, followed by former clients, and lost prospects.

Average Win Rate by Client Type

B2B Salespeople and sales leaders often ignore one of the richest troves of potential new opportunities  – Prospects with lost deals.
 
Revisiting lost deals provides a potential source of new revenue that typically has a 2x higher win rate than new prospects. If you segment and prioritize those lost prospects, you can increase your average deal size too!

Here what drives the sales math. If a salesperson proposed a deal a year or so ago, the chances are that the prospect’s needs have changed. They may be in a growth mode, acquired a competitor, or outgrown the competitive solution they selected over your firm in the past.

If your firm made a good impression when you lost the deal, your chances of winning this time at least doubles, if you prioritize which lost prospects you approach, your average deal size can increase substantially.

Here’s how to drive improvement in Win Rate and Average Deal Size:

1. Hopefully, you have a CRM that has been in place for at least a few years.Start by running a report  from the CRM of lost deals the past X number of years or months, depending on your sales cycle and contract length.

2. Segment by product or solution if appropriate.

3. Prioritize by deal size – those that will probably be 20% of the deals that comprise 80% of the lost deal dollar volume.

4. Review the prioritized list with your sales team and have them weed out companies that are not a current fit due to credit, relationship, competitive position, etc.

5. Assign the lost deals to individual salespeople and hold them accountable for making meaningful and relevant contact within a period you define.

6. Get marketing to help by asking them to develop marketing initiatives directly to these prospects.

7. Reap the rewards

8. Press repeat

Revisiting lost deals is low-hanging fruit that can drive fast increases in Win Rates and Average Deal Size. Make it a regular part of your sales team motions.