OKRs
7
min read
If you are running a sales team or trying to accelerate your organizational revenue and profits, you already know that hitting sales goals although crucial is not easy. Especially for fast growing organizations, identifying and executing the right sales strategy is critical for success.
Using sales OKRs or Objectives and Key Results form a goal setting framework that not only help managers and leaders set sales goals, but facilitate tracking and measuring them, creating alignment and ensuring seamless execution.
By using the right sales OKRs, managers are positioned to ensure that sales teams are clear on what they seek to achieve and how to measure their level of accomplishment when it comes to meeting the targets.
However, writing effective OKRs for the sales team can be challenging, mainly because having ambiguous OKRs can lead to more problems than solutions. Working with fast growing organizations, who seek to exponentially accelerate their sales targets, we have identified a few steps that you can leverage.
Furthermore, we have captured some of the top examples of OKRs for sales teams, based on different phases of the sales cycle to give you a comprehensive picture.
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How to write OKRs for sales team
1. Understand the sales gap
When you write OKRs for your sales team, you need to be cognizant of the gap you are trying to fill. Ensuring a high flow of sales is not only about converting a sale, it also involves several other aspects.
You might have the best closer in the industry on your sales team, but without an inflow of quality leads, you will find it difficult to reach your sales target. Therefore, you must undertake a comprehensive analysis to identify what are the key gaps and set sales OKRs which can bridge them.
2. Align with business objectives
Second, your sales objectives must be aligned with your business objectives. Is the larger goal for your organization directed towards increasing revenue or increasing recurring business or something else? You must answer these questions.
Therefore, when writing sales OKRs, you must confer with your organizational leadership to avoid any disconnect. Simultaneously, you must also involve your sales representatives and others in the sales team to ensure that your objectives are ambitious enough that stretches each member’s potential and the key results are clear to all.
SUPER-TIP — Download our easy to use customizable templates for OKR setting and OKR implementation and directly use them in your team today!
3. Make them quantifiable
Using ambiguous sales OKRs as examples will only lead to missing the key goal or objective. For instance, simply saying that your objective is to generate more leads will not be enough. You need to be specific with a number or a percentage in mind which you seek to reach. It could be something on the lines of increasing sales by 15%.
Furthermore, your objectives and key results must be accompanied by a time frame when you seek to achieve it and preferably a comparison point like last year or last quarter. This will help your sales team get a comprehensive and clear picture, leaving no room for misinterpretation and poor performance.
4. Create OKRs for different steps of the sales cycle
You must understand that there are different steps in a sales cycle, right from lead generation to repeat sales. It is important to have specific OKRs for the sales team during each phase. Here, the OKRs should focus on that particular phase.
For instance, if you talk about lead generation, your objective could be to increase the number of qualified leads by 50% by the end of the first quarter. You might want to review your OKRs for each phase, once between the timeline decided and once at the end by tracking performance on the key results. Here, OKR grading will be useful.
SUPER-TIP — Download our templates for OKR grading and OKR tracking today and help your sales team by setting the right sales OKRs.
5. Define metrics
When you write OKRs for your sales team for each phase of the sales cycle, you need to be clear on the different metrics that each phase includes. For instance, in the sales conversion phase, there can be multiple metrics like number of deals, size of deals, deal close rate, etc.
It is important to not only set these metrics to add efficacy to your sales OKRs, but also equally critical to explain to your team members what they mean and the importance of each.
SUPER-TIP — Use a free OKR email course to clear any confusion around OKRs and be empowered to set and achieve your sales goals this year.
6. Have a fair balance of different types of OKRs
Finally, when you write sales team OKRs, you need to understand that while most of them will correspond to the different metrics in each phase, there might be a few others that don’t fall in any one. These OKRs are related to the entire process or the people in your sales team.
For instance, an objective on recruiting the best sales team in the industry or shortening the entire sales process are very important but do not fit the understanding of a particular phase. Therefore, you need to ensure that you go beyond the steps of your sales cycle and incorporate all important parameters.
OKRs for sales team: Top sales OKR examples
Now that you have a fair understanding of how to write OKRs for sales teams, here is a quick read for you to explore different sales OKR examples for different steps of the sales cycle.
Lead generation
In the first step of the sales cycle, your focus will be on generating and capturing leads that you can connect with as prospects for your sales. Here, generally, the focus is on the number of new leads generated, percentage of qualified leads, etc.
Objective A: Create a robust lead generation plan
Key result 1: Create a database of 200 new prospects
Key result 2: Reach out to 1000+ potential customers via campaigns
Key result 3: Generate a pipeline of INR 50,000 through sales
Lead nurturing
Once you have a robust pipeline through your lead generation efforts, you will focus on nurturing those leads to convert them into sales. This generally involves email and calls to connect with the leads and give them a deeper understanding about your offerings to attract them further.
Objective A: Increase the qualified prospect pipeline created through emails by 50%
Key result 1: Increase the number of emails sent everyday to 35 from 20
Key result 2: Increase the number of responses received by 20%
Key result 3: Reduce the average response time to 24 hours
Sales closure
This is the most rewarding phase of the sales cycle. It generally has sub phases and multiple metrics within it. For instance, some could revolve around the revenue from sales, some could focus on deals exclusively. However, the major focus remains the same — adding more revenue to the organizational bottom line.
Objective A: Increase revenue for the new products
Key Result 1: Sign up 10 new clients for the new product
Key Result 2: Close in on INR 2,00,000 as revenue for the first quarter
Key Result 3: Increase the number of deals for each month by 20%
Objective B: Increase the profit margins by 20%
Key Result 1: Reduce the sales time to 20 days from 25 days
Key Result 2: Increase the average value of every sale by 20%
Key Result 3: Increase the deal close rate by 30%
Post sales
In the final phase of the sales cycle, you need to focus on establishing customer stickiness and foster repeat or recurring sales. The objective is to provide an exemplary post sales experience to encourage your customers to build loyalty.
Objective A: Ensure recurring sales
Key Result 1: Increase repeat customers to 30% from current 20%
Key Result 2: Increase customer retention to 90%
Other sales OKR examples
In addition to the OKR examples which are specific to the sales cycle, there are a few others that you must consider and leverage for a robust sales strategy.
Sales OKR example #1
Objective A: Grow sales and revenue through third party platforms
Key Result 1: Generate 20% of total revenue from cross selling
Key Result 2: Get the products to be listed on at least 10 new platforms
Key Result 3: Partner with 15 organizations to explore cross selling opportunities
Sales OKR example #2
Objective B: Build a world class sales team
Key Result 1: Recruit 10 new sales representatives in 3 months
Key Result 2: Conduct 3 sales training workshops
Key Result 3: Get regular reviews and feedback on performance of sales team
Sales OKR example #3
Objective C: Increase sales globally
Key Result 1: Generate 20% revenue from overseas
Key Result 2: Establish visibility in the international markets with partners
Key Result 3: Build a pipeline of 500 international prospects
Getting started with OKRs for sales team
This guide must have given you a clear and comprehensive picture on how to write OKRs for your sales team. However, as a part of a fast growing organization, you might not have the bandwidth or the expertise to create truly effective and remarkable sales OKRs.
Fortunately, you have the option of banking on external partners like SuperBeings to help you out. With SuperBeings, you can:
- Set transparent and collaborative OKRs which are visible to all
- Get real-time insights into day-to-day sales OKR progress and resolve performance issues preemptively
- Leverage OKR progress reports, check-ins and AI recommendations
- Set, implement, and track sales OKRs easily by integrating OKRs with the collaboration tools
- Train your line managers to write and implement the right OKRs with expert-led OKR coaching and onboarding support
Book a free demo with SuperBeings today to get started on an amazing sales journey.
