Core KPIs for Teams to Supercharge Performance

This is the third installment of a five-part blog series overviewing how to approach digital transformation within your organization. 

Did you know that companies that regularly realign their key performance indicators (KPIs) to overarching corporate goals see a 20% increase in revenue growth? In today’s fast-paced environment, teams must stay agile, continually assessing and adjusting their KPIs to stay ahead.  

This blog explores how keeping your teams’ goals aligned to your organization’s key strategies can drive significant business growth and offers actionable strategies to help your team achieve optimal performance.

Understanding Sales Cycles

Closing a sale is a team effort. Clearly defined focuses and responsibilities set the trajectory for success for growth teams, ensuring each team member understands their role and contributes effectively to the overall goals. 

Marketing teams lead the charge by educating the market about existing problems, highlighting pain points that customers might not recognize. This initial step creates awareness and sets the stage for engagement.  

Sales teams then align prospects with the identified problems, demonstrating how their offerings provide tailored solutions, focusing on how features resolve specific challenges.  

Lastly, Customer Success teams ensure the marketed and sold value proposition continues to deliver results, fostering ongoing satisfaction, retention, and brand loyalty. 

Understanding each team’s roles in the buyer’s journey is critical for defining KPIs that align with overarching business growth, ensuring every action taken drives the company forward towards its strategic objectives.

Strategies for Designing Strategic KPI Frameworks

KPIs are more than just numbers; they guide your team towards achieving strategic goals. By focusing on the right KPIs, teams can better align their activities with business objectives, ensuring every effort contributes to overall growth. 

Many teams struggle with outdated KPIs that no longer reflect current market conditions or business goals. This misalignment can lead to wasted resources, missed opportunities, and stagnating growth. Common challenges also include: 

• Lack of Real-Time Data: Difficulty in accessing up-to-date performance data.
• Inflexible KPIs: KPIs that are too rigid and do not adapt to changing market conditions.

Now, which metrics matter most? Let’s explore them.

Metrics serve as an organization's heartbeat, providing vital signs of performance and health. At the company level, the primary metrics to consistently monitor include sales metrics (bookings and revenue), which directly reflect market traction and financial stability. By understanding and tracking these metrics daily, companies can make informed decisions, forecast future performance, and adjust strategies accordingly. Without a clear view of these fundamental metrics, organizations risk misaligning their efforts and missing growth opportunities. 

Now, let’s examine the levers that influence these key numbers and how we can support them.

Marketing Metrics 

• Interested Persons: How many new people have shown interest in your company and its products?
• Pipeline Influence: How much pipeline has been influenced by marketing activities?
• Qualified Opportunities: How many qualified opportunities have been created through marketing efforts?

Sales Metrics 

• Total Deals Created: How many total deals have been created by all teams?
• Pipeline Changes: How has the pipeline changed over time?
• Bookings: How many sales (bookings) have been made this month or quarter?
• Conversion Rate: What is the conversion rate from deal creation to close (in numbers, not dollars)?
• Average Deal Size: What is the average deal size?
• Sales Cycle Length: How long does it take to close a deal?

Customer Success Metrics 

• Total Customers: How many customers do I have? (Exact number, not range)
• Customer Revenue: How much revenue comes from those customers? 
• Support Tickets: How many support tickets are created each day/week?
• Revenue Up for Renewal: How much revenue is up for renewal this year? (Exact number, not a range)
• NPS (Net Promoter Score): Are my customers happy?

Realigning your KPIs is not a one-time task but an ongoing process that requires regular attention and adjustment. By staying agile and continuously refining your KPIs, your go-to-market team can drive significant business growth and achieve long-term success. 

It’s not that many metrics, though it can be overwhelming. Do you have these accessible in an automated dashboard? If not, you may need to gather various data points, clean out the "bad data," and then re-present the refined data. 

There are countless other metrics you can track, and we’re ready to discuss analytics with anyone, any day. However, if we can’t capture these foundational metrics in a clean, automated way, the accuracy of all other metrics will be compromised. 

Do you have these metrics readily available? Contact accelant today to learn how our expertise in HubSpot and KPI management can help your business achieve this level of readiness, as we have been doing with our clients thus far.