Velocity is the speed of something in a given direction. At Upland Altify, nosotros think nearly velocity a lot. Then much so that we created the sales velocity equation to get sales teams moving in a given direction. That direction is revenue. How fast you get there depends on iv key levers:

  1. Number of opportunities
  2. $ deal value
  3. % win rate
  4. Length of the sale bicycle

sales velocity equation

But put, you desire to increase one, two, and iii and reduce four. If yous increment one, 2, and three by 10% and reduce four by 10%, yous increase your sales velocity by 47%.

Since the Sales Velocity equation uses merely four levers, yous tin quickly zero in on the strategies and activities that can significantly affect your sales effectiveness. One time y'all identify the lever where your performance lags or needs the most comeback, yous can redefine targets and goals that yield significant revenue increases. We know that dramatic improvements to sales velocity and overall revenue are possible with unproblematic changes. Allow'south break it down.

Lever number one: Increase the number of deals you can win

Notice we accept inverse the number of opportunities to increase the number of deals you lot tin win. For many salespeople, increasing the number of opportunities is the only lever that gets any real attention. The problem is that if yous focus virtually of your time on filling the pipeline, you've got less time to increment the risk of winning the deals yous already have in your funnel. How can you lot increase the number of deals you can win? Past beingness ruthless in the deal qualification phase. Organizations that seek to win four out of vii are far more than successful than those who chase every bargain and end upwardly winning iii out of ten. Rigorous qualification gives you a ticket to sales velocity town, population one.

Past helping sales teams connect with the people that affair and focusing on selling value, Autodesk achieved an increase of 144% in average bargain size, a 21% increase in win charge per unit, and an overall enhanced sales velocity.

Lever number ii: Increase the deal size

Companies are fighting harder than ever to win deals. That makes it essential to win as many contracts every bit possible and maximize each opportunity. Sellers demand to focus on higher-value opportunities past aggressively qualifying out lesser qualified opportunities to provide focus. Aligning each specific offer with your buyer's needs and present the right production at the right fourth dimension is an essential part of corking selling, helping you to uncover whitespace and encourage your salespeople to create the largest possible account footprint.

Lever number three: Increase the win rate

How practise I increase my win rate? Through a thoughtful, divers sales process. Methodology and process are different. Methodology is the analysis of where you lot are in a deal vs. the competition. It's a deductive framework your team consults whenever y'all learn something new and vital well-nigh your contract. Sales process is a defined gear up of steps aligned to how your customers want to buy and what you should do adjacent. This process must be linear, prescriptive, and standardized throughout your sales team. Combining both of these elements together will make sure you achieve the win rates y'all are later.

Lever number four: Shorten the sales wheel

A more than rigorous approach to the selling wheel will efficiently marshal your visitor's sales process with your prospect's buying procedure. A successful opportunity management methodology ensures your team works on deals; they are more than probable to win, so sellers don't waste time on opportunities that shouldn't be in your wheelhouse. Yous tin can underperform in one of the beginning three factors and still prosper. Just if the length of your average sales bike suffers, success becomes very difficult. That means closing practiced deals as soon equally possible and weeding out bad deals early in the process is crucial to sales effectiveness.

Sales management reinforces bad behaviors that bulldoze sales inefficiency past primarily measuring on 'sales action' by asking questions similar 'how many calls did y'all brand this calendar week? 'or 'how many opportunities did you add to your pipeline terminal calendar month?' These behaviors drive sales inefficiency. Removing them will improve sales velocity without adding a unmarried deal to the pipeline.

From the salesperson's perspective, in many ways calculation new opportunities to the sales funnel is the easiest affair to do, especially if you are being given low-quality leads from those dastardly marketing folks. All sellers take used these excuses from time to fourth dimension:

  • No one said they had to be qualified. Early qualification would only reduce the size of the pipeline.
  • No 1 said they had to be deals that you really have a hazard of winning?
  • You didn't need to challenge the prospect to uncover how y'all could really add value (removing price sensitivity and improving your average deal size).
  • There was no need to ask the tough questions to understand the client'due south buying process and so that you could align your selling activity or negotiate admission to the real decision-makers to increment your win rate.
  • And y'all didn't need to have command of the sale or agree on a joint selling/buying programme with the prospect, where you lot could, in fact, guide the progress and shorten the sales cycle.

Of class, I empathise the need to continually add new opportunities to your pipeline but indulge united states for a minute. What happens if yous don't add new opportunities? Does it mean your sales velocity grinds to a halt? Well, not necessarily. Think nigh this:

If we apply the Sales Velocity Equation and assume that the number of opportunities stays static but that you manage to increase the average deal size and win rate by 10% and reduce the sales cycle's length by 10%, your sales velocity would improve by 34%.

So, we would like to give you a challenge. Calculate your own sales velocity, then ask yourself what you tin practise with the deals y'all have in your pipeline to impact your bargain size, win rate, and sales cycle duration. You lot might be surprised at the results. Come dorsum and let u.s. know.

We love talking about sales velocity with our customers and prospects. Click here to book some time with an Upland Altify sales expert to find out how you tin increase your sales velocity this year.