10 Minute Sales Audit: A 91 Point Checklist to Score Your Sales Team

1.     10 Minute Sales Audit  A 91 Point Checklist to Score Your Sales Team               

2.   Instructions    Go through each question on the Repstack 91-point checklist and put a tick in the box  for the corresponding answer.    There are 7 sections on the Audit: Hiring, Training, Data, Process, Culture, CRM &  Management.    Make sure you answer as truthfully as you can. Once you have finished check the  scoring section at the end to evaluate your audit score.    The process should only take you 10 minutes and give you a pretty good insight into  where you should be focusing your energies to improve your sales team.           

3.     HIRING Yes Mostly Not Really Unsure # Question 1 Do you have a documented hiring process? Do you have a clearly defined set of Sales Competencies defined that you are looking for in your hiring process? 2 Do you incorporate different interview approaches into your hiring process? E.g. Competency Based Questions, Situational Questions, Fact Finding, Role Play etc. 3 4 Does your hiring process include employees outside of the Sales Team? 5 Does your interview process involve multiple rounds but avoids overlaps in questions from previous rounds? 6 Do your hiring questions roll up to your company Mission and Values? 7 Does your hiring process allow for unbiased feedback from all interviewers without succumbing to 'groupthink’? 8 Do you accept feedback from a variety of seniority levels within the hiring process? 9 Does the sales team actively try to hire internally before hiring externally? 10 Do you keep a documented record of your hiring feedback? 11 Do you check the hiring notes of successful hires in order to refine your hiring process? Does your interview process accommodate different styles of interviewing and are you interviewers aware of their style? 12 13 Do you try and sell them on the company vision and goals? 14 Do you balance note taking with engaging in the conversation?

4.   15 Does your interview process shorter than 3 weeks from start-to-finish? 16 Do all applicants get a good follow up response from an interviewee? 17 Does one person have ultimate accountability for the efficiency of the hiring pipeline? 18 Are you using an HR SaaS software? 19 Do you feel you are getting value for money from your hiring channels? Are you thinking about diversity in your hiring process, and do you have any guidelines in place to ensure diverse viewpoints are embedded in the hiring process? 20 21 You have a process for maximising info from your references? TOTAL    

5.     TRAINING Yes Mostly Not Really Unsure # Question 1 Do you have a formal training agenda for a new hires first two weeks on the job? 2 Do you have a set timeframe for when a new hire should be at 100% capacity? 3 Do you have a clearly defined sales process guide for the most important calls in your sales process? 4 Do you have a rapport building strategy, or training programme? 5 Are sales reps leading the conversation and aware of the stages of a sales call that they need to pass through? 6 Do sales reps understand how the set the context of the call so that they buy time to conduct their elevator pitch? 7 Do sales reps understand how to build social proof on a call? 8 Can your Sales Reps recite a perfect 30 second elevator pitch about your company / product on demand? 9 Do all of your sales reps know the key qualification questions they should be asking? 10 Are you tracking qualification question responses within your CRM? 11 Do you maintain a black-book of all customer objections and how they should be answered? 12 Do your Sales Reps have automatic responses to all of those objections? 13 Do you maintain a matrix of your competitors and how their products compare to yours? Does the Sales Team have a 'continuous training programme' to monitor the ongoing effectiveness of sales interactions? 14

6.   15 Do Sales Managers and Sales Reps go through call recordings of live calls together at least once per month? Is there a clear competency framework for each level of seniority, based on company values and team competencies? 16 17 Do new joiners have a buddy? 18 Do you have a clear set of house rules for new joiners? TOTAL    

7.     DATA Yes Mostly Not Really Unsure # Question 1 Is there alignment from CEO to Intern on what the most relevant KPIs are? 2 Does the whole business have easy access to the key KPIs? 3 Are Sales Reps KPis able to self serve their KPIs? Do your KPIs take into account the full 360 of the sales cycle? e.g. Input (outbound calls, call times), Effectiveness (conversion, sales cycle length), Output (Deals closed) 4 Do your KPIs allow Sales Reps to compare their own historic performance on a week over week, month over month & quarter over quarter basis? 5 If you were to ask your sales reps, would they be able to tell if the team is ahead or behind on their quarterly target? 6 7 Do Sales Managers regularly monitor sales activities e.g. Dials, Call Time, Opportunities Created etc? 8 Is Data produced on both a Cohort and Nominal basis to provide a range of conversion statistics? 9 Do you have end of month / quarter forecasting based on current deal values in the sales funnel? Are Closed Lost deals bucketed into the reasons for the deal being lost? e.g. Lost to competitor, No Budget, Bad Timing 10 11 Do sales managers review their KPIs with reps regularly? TOTAL    

8.     PROCESS Yes Mostly Not Really Unsure # Question 1 Is there a centralised place where all Sales Reps can access Best Practice Guides? 2 Are Best Practice Guides regularly updated? Is there a process in place to ensure that Sales Reps can challenge a Best Practice Guide and update it with improved process? 3 4 Are the majority of emails being sent via standardised templates? 5 Are you regularly A/B testing email templates? 6 Is your Sales Team split into role specialties e.g. Sourcing, SDRs and AEs? 7 Do Sales Reps have a basic outline of how to structure their day? 8 Does your Sales Team have guidelines for managing their email Inbox? 9 Are you monitoring response time to new leads? 10 Are new leads being assigned in an orderly fashion e.g. Round Robin, or by Geography etc? Is there a process in place for any members of the sales team from intern to VP of Sales to post recommendations on process improvements? 11 Is there a prioritisation process with Product teams to implement tech solutions to increase efficiency savings for the sales team? 12 Does the Product Team and Commercial team have a good dialogue and understanding of each teams constraints (e.g. technical, resource, time)? 13 TOTAL

9.     CULTURE Yes Mostly Not Really Unsure # Question 1 Do your Sales Reps actually enjoy coming to work? 2 Have you fostered a culture of ‘friendly competition’? 3 Do Sales Reps understand what they must do to progress to the next level of seniority? Do you have a progression plan for Sales Reps who want to continue to be individual contributors as well as those who wish to progress into management? 4 5 Do you have regular and reliable insight into the relationship between junior managers and their reports? 6 Do you have management training programmes for first time managers? 7 Do you host regular meetings for kicking off and closing the sales week? 8 Do you find that your team groups always eat lunch with the same people? 9 Do you host monthly / quarterly Team bonding? 10 Do you sales team integrate with wider company? 11 Does the group believe in Noble Purpose of the company vision? 12 Does your sales team call each other out if they moan about the wider company? 13 Do Sales Reps have targets beyond quantitative, e.g. personal development goals? TOTAL

10.     CRM Yes Mostly Not Really Unsure # Question Do you have a CRM hygiene score to ensure that reps are updating the CRM with all relevant pertinent information? 1 2 Are you tracking email open rates? 3 Does your CRM provide an easy overview of a sales reps entire pipeline? Are you confident that your CRM object model is scalable through to your next important milestone? (e.g. Capital Raise) 4 5 Are CRM inputs set up as discrete inputs wherever possible as opposed to free form? (e.g. text fields) 6 Would sales reps agree that the CRM overall reduces their administrative burden? TOTAL    

11.     MANAGEMENT Yes Mostly Not Really Unsure # Question 1 Do sales managers have regularly scheduled 1-2-1s with sales reps? (once per month at least) 2 Are all sales teams smaller than 6 people per manager? 3 Are you Sales Reps given their KPIs ahead of time with their Sales Managers? 4 Do you Sales Managers keep a regular log of meetings (minutes etc)? 5 Do you have Sales Managers incorporate the Weekly Meeting logs into their formal appraisal reviews? 6 Are managers adopting a coaching approach and practicing ‘guided discovery’ with their team? 7 Are managers aware of their style of leadership and manage from a position of respect not just authority? 8 Does the sales team have a competency framework of skills that is applied fairly across all levels of seniority? TOTAL    

12.   Audit Evaluation    Count up the ticks you have in each column and write down the number in the total row  at the end of each section. For each tick you have you have in the ‘Yes’ column score  yourself 3 points, for each ‘Mostly’ give yourself 1 point. ‘Not Really’ and ‘Unsure’ get  you no points.    0-50 points  There is quite a lot of quite basic infrastructure that you need to put in place. Consider  immediately seeking the consultation or advice of an experienced sales professional to  help you put the foundations of a good sales team in place.    50-90 points  Depending on the size and age of your team this score may vary. If your team is less  than 18 months old and you are growing quickly then it may be that you have neglected  certain things while you scramble for growth. If your team is relatively established and 

13.   has capacity in the management team then perhaps a few things have been overlooked.  Drill down into the specific topic-areas that scored poorly. Consider finding a few hours  where you can get the whole sales team together away from the desk to hear some  direct and honest feedback about what is going well and what is frustrating the team.     90-120 points  As above it depends on how big your team is and what resources you have at your  disposal, but getting this score certainly doesn’t happen by accident. You’ve  implemented a decent amount of infrastructure beyond just the fundamentals of  finding deals and closing them. There’s clearly some systematic approach from  management about how to build and scales sales infrastructure, but some areas are  perhaps paid more attention than others. For the areas that have scored lower than  others, can you find a sales rep who is willing to own those areas and champion new  ideas to bring them up to the required level.     

14.   120-150 points  This score shows a real foresight from management to cover many of the key aspects of  building and scaling a successful team. Not only does this show good management but  likely a strong culture where more than one or two people contribute to the overall  success of the sales team. You guys are clearly well on the way to building an  unstoppable sales engine. Don’t stop on your mission to build a fantastic sales culture  with a well rounded approach to all aspects of the sales team. From here ensure that  you future proof your sales infrastructure by making sure each topic-area has its own  champion within the sales team. Replicating your success and ensuring your standards  don’t drop is essential. That will free up the management to take on even larger projects!    150+ points   You are killing it. Clearly you’re thinking in 4 dimensions and covering all the key aspects  of building a humming sales engine. I’m not sure what advice we can give you apart  from: keep doing what you’re doing!   

15.   About Us  Repstack is a ​sales outsourcing​ platform that uses the latest advances in natural  language processing and machine learning to provide high quality sales outsourcing  services.     We help companies generate new leads, convert inbound leads or upsell existing leads.  Our reps are savvy enough to sell complex products and best of all we don’t insist on  any long-term contracts. Get started from as little as 20 hours of calling time. Check us  out at ​www.repstack.ai​ or drop us an email at ​hello@repstack.ai​.