Whether you just wrapped up the first quarter or you still have a few weeks to go, there's a good chance you're missing your targets for the quarter and Q2 outlook isn't looking much better. It's not just you - B2B sales pipeline generation is down 47% (Ebsta & Pavilion) and win rates have decreased to 17-20% (Winning by Design).
And a lot of the assumptions you had last year as you were planning out this year's territories may not hold true anymore. You may have a smaller team than you did a couple quarters ago. Your customers may have frozen or smaller budgets. It's probably taking longer to close deals, which makes forecasting hard.
So if your 2023 sales plan isn't exactly going to plan, here are some ways to get back on track.
If your reps are working set territories - based on geography or vertical or segment, for example - they may not have much flexibility in working accounts that aren't in their territory plan. But, they do have flexibility in which accounts they work (and when) within their book. Here are some ways to get reps focused on the best accounts within their existing sales territory plan.
1. Surface the best accounts in each rep's book
Help reps figure out where to focus. Use account scoring to highlight the highest-potential accounts in a rep's territory so they know where to spend their time. This is particularly useful when reps have large books or territories, and have more accounts than time.
If you don't already use intent data or other ways of knowing when an account is in-market, now would be a good time to implement something like that. Here are some tips if you're not ready to go all-in with an intent provider like 6sense.
2. Coach reps on specific actions to work their book better
Even the best reps may not have all the information they need to improve their outreach. Use reporting and data in your CRM and sales tech tools to find information sales managers can use to coach each rep individually on the best actions and tactics to improve their productivity. Review each rep's account activity to ensure they're meeting standards for breadth (number of contacts) and depth (number of activities per account) of engagement. Spot check messaging on several accounts.
Some reps may need to multi-thread with more contacts per account, while others may need to extend their outreach cadences and make more touches. Get specific and make individualized recommendations to each rep. This is not the time for generic, one-size-fits-all coaching.
3. Analyze market-level account coverage
Low sales pipeline generation could suggest poor coverage of priority account segments, especially with a static territory plan. Focusing reps on a few accounts from an otherwise large territory often results in limited compliance. Check team-wide coverage across all your priority account segments. Use data in your CRM or BI tool (or take a look at Gradient Works to help with this).
Drill down to coverage levels on those priority accounts for each rep, checking messaging as needed. If coverage is inadequate, evaluate whether certain reps own too many accounts in the target segment. This happens in geo models because firmographics are rarely distributed evenly geographically (e.g. finance clusters in the Northeast).
If overall coverage is high, you may have a segmentation or messaging problem. If a few reps who are not otherwise overloaded have coverage issues, coach them to focus their efforts differently. If overall coverage is low, consider revising the sales plan after trying coaching and enablement.
4. Incorporate some flexibility in rep books
Allow reps to return accounts that are unworkable. For example, if an account is not currently in the market for your solution or under contract with a competitor, make note of a get-back-to-me date and take the account out of the rep's name for now. That will allow the rep to focus on other, higher-priority accounts right now. Or, if the account has bad contact data or inaccurate firmographics, let the rep return the account to a pool of accounts that need an update from ops.
5. Redistribute accounts from un-owned territories
If you had a RIF or haven't been able to backfill empty positions, you probably have some territories going unworked. Use this as an opportunity to dynamically reassign the high-potential accounts in those territories to reps with available capacity. Don't just reassign the territories in whole cloth to new reps, but instead, rotate accounts in those territories to reps who need more good accounts. This is a great way to try out components of dynamic books in a limited way, without transitioning everything.
