Let's talk about new year's resolutions. Resolutions are things you want to change or do better. Especially this year, right? With so much out of our control right now, new year's resolutions seem to take on added importance in 2021. They're something we can control.
But new year's resolutions can also be kind of annoying. I saw someone tweet that they’re thinking about their personal new year’s resolutions as OKRs this year. My first reaction was to roll my eyes so hard it almost hurt. What better way to tell everyone you work in tech than to the OKRify your personal new year's resolutions?
But then, I got to thinking about how useful this framework is if you actually want to make a real change. For years, we've used OKRs at work to make progress toward shared company goals. Why not think about personal resolutions as objectives and key results? (It's okay if you still want to roll your eyes at this, but stick with me.)
Take the common “get in better shape” resolution. Most of us start the year thinking something like this. Maybe it’s “get more exercise” or “drink less” or something similar, but the idea is “This is my year! I’m going to take better care of myself!” And then by January 15, we're back to happy hours and bags of chips and yoga pants that never see the inside of a yoga studio.
The problem with most new year's resolutions is that they’re vague. Sure, they’re ambitious and aspirational, but they’re also impossible. You could take two more walks in 2021 than you did in 2020 and consider that “in better shape.” Or you could run 20 miles a week, lose 10 pounds, and still not consider that good enough.
Objectives work best when they’re structured with specific benchmarks you can measure against. In the OKR model, every objective has a set of key results we can track. Let's try it more like this:
Objective: Get in better shape with more exercise
Key result: Run at least 5 times per week starting 1/1/21
Key result: Close exercise ring on smart watch every day in Q1
Key result: Improve running pace by 30 seconds per mile (from 10:00 to 9:30) by EOQ
Key result: Improve resting heart rate by 5 points (from 70 to 65) by EOQ
This is specific, focused, measurable. The objective is aspirational, the key results are concrete. They help you focus on what you need to do to actually achieve your objective. You're looking for ways to measure the following:
- Frequency: Are you holding yourself accountable for the repeated actions you need to meet your objective?
- Effort: How hard are you trying?
- Progress: Are you getting closer over time to meeting your objective?
So what does all this have to do with work? Well, if you've spent even one minute on LinkedIn this week, you've probably seen lots of professional and company new year's resolutions. You've probably also seen trends and predictions for the new year. We've even done it at Gradient Works - we recently published a list of trends we anticipate revenue organizations will adopt this year.
Let's reframe some of these trends as 2021 revenue resolutions that all high-velocity B2B sales teams should be thinking about this year.
- Eliminate geographic sales territories
- Fully adopt an inside sales model
- Put customers first
- Adopt a revenue systems mindset
Turning revenue resolutions into OKRs
What do these revenue resolutions look like if we put them into an OKR model? When we make them more concrete, more specific, and more measurable... We have to articulate the key results we need to achieve to make the objectives possible.
And a quick note: these are just examples of how you could envision these as OKRs. The key results you need to achieve (and their timing) will vary depending on where your team is now, and where you're trying to be at the end of the quarter or year.
Objective 1: Eliminate geographic sales territories for new business- KR: Ensure 100% of reps pass updated product sales training
- KR: Develop framework to quantify prospect potential value
- KR: Move from fixed territory model to dynamic books based on potential value
- KR: Implement updated activity tracking and reporting to measure rep performance
Objective 2: Fully adopt an inside sales model
- KR: Ensure 100% of customer-facing employees are set up on virtual meeting software
- KR: Ensure 100% of reps pass virtual sales best practices training
- KR: Roll out virtual communication and remote work guidelines
- KR: Revamp team meeting calendar, including 1:1 schedules
- KR: Retain 80% of former field sales employees at EOY
Objective 3: Put customers first
- KR: Develop detailed map of full customer lifecycle
- KR: Instrument product usage tracking and metrics
- KR: Survey 50% of active customers to understand needs and challenges
- KR: Conduct 25 customer interviews
- KR: Increase NPS score by 20 points
- KR: Increase customer retention by 1%
- KR: Incorporate dedicated customer marketing function
- KR: Conduct a thorough customer experience audit
- KR: Reduce the number of competing CTAs on your website by 25%
Objective 4: Adopt a revenue systems mindset
- KR: Implement improved cross-functional communication process
- KR: Ensure 100% of customer-facing employees are trained on current CRM process
- KR: Build connected dashboard, intelligence and reporting across revenue organization
- KR: Create RevOps function to oversee operations across customer teams
These are still big, ambitious goals. But breaking them up into concrete benchmarks makes them more realistically attainable. What are your company's revenue resolutions for 2021?
