How to Make Your Sales Results Suck Less (Hint: Better OKRs)

Improving sales results is easy if you focus on the right things.

Focus breeds results. Sales teams fail when they have a commoditized pitch, don’t trust the daily process, get distracted by non-sales activities, and have inferior goals.

Let’s improve your sales goals right now:

Establish better sales OKRs

An OKR (Objective and Key Result) was created to consistently focus on the right things and improve results every quarter.

The objective is your goal, clearly expressed as a bigger picture item. Your key results are three to five results that track the progress of the objective.

In sales, you only need two OKRs to be successful: opportunity creation and opportunity capture.

Here’s example OKRs from Anthony Iannarino on what makes a great sales OKR:

Objective 1. Create new opportunities among our target and existing clients that exceed our potential gross profit/revenue goals by x%.

Key Result 1: # Second meetings with target client

Key Result 2: # Second meetings with existing clients to explore new initiatives

Key Result 3: # New opportunities created with target clients (first meeting completed)

Key Result 4: # New opportunities created among existing clients (first meeting completed)

Key Result 5: $ The total potential gross profit/revenue from all new opportunities

Anthony’s reasoning for the second meeting is its evidence that the “salesperson has created enough value to be able to continue the conversation.”

Objective 2: Win new opportunities that exceed our gross profit/revenue goals by x%.

Key Result 1: # Consensus meetings (those with more than two stakeholders, including one or more leaders)

Key Result 2: # Exchange of contracts, agreements, vendor approval forms, or credit application forms (whatever determines a commitment for your company).

Key Result 3: $ Signed contract or Purchase Orders

Spend your time creating and winning new deals while ruthlessly eliminating everything that pulls you away from your core objectives.

As you focus on the right goals, continue to invest time and energy in improving your sales team’s effectiveness.

That’s a winning sales strategy.

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