Develop an effective sales team

Sales activities are all daily tasks and steps that your sales team carry out as part of their jobs. These activities should ultimately lead to sales. The theory is that if enough sales activities are carried out, they will significantly improve the likelihood of sales.

What are sales activity targets? 

In addition to setting your salespeople targets for the number of sales you want them to make, you should also set specific targets for their sales activities. 

Activity targets might be:

• Completed phone calls - ask your sales staff to record the number of calls they completed with potential customers.
• Face-to-face meetings - get staff to record the number of appointments they make with customers where they attempt a sale.
• Leads generated - measure how effective your staff are at extracting new leads and generating potential new contacts.
• Leads followed up - see how successful and fast your sales staff are at following up on sales enquiries generated by your marketing activity.
• Qualified prospects - ask the sales staff to let you have the qualified prospects that they have identified. These are people who need your products or services and can buy them. Yet, they haven't approached you, or been approached.

Why are sales activity targets important?

Setting activity targets is an important part of the sales process. They offer metrics for evaluating sales performance. So, you may wish to monitor this area of your salespeople's work as closely as the actual sales figures. Your sales team's ongoing work to get new business leads may help keep sales steady or growing.

Tracking activities helps you see which actions lead to sales and which do not. Activity targets can show areas where salespeople may need additional training or support. For example, if a salesperson meets their call targets but needs help getting qualified leads, they may need a training to improve at lead generation.