Page Highlights
- Important introduction notes
- Sales processes and KPIs that help with OKR planning
- Sales OKR examples to inspire you
Sales teams are used to having goals, but writing OKRs are quite different. Yes, Sales have Salesforce, Hubspot, Pipedrive etc. and dashboards telling them their targets – but what’s usually missing is the transparency, alignment prioritisation, collaboration that Sales OKRs provide. For example, even Marketing teams often don’t have access to your sales stack. They are never really sure where Sales are, or more importantly, where they might need help.
Relevant Roles
- Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)
- VP Sales
- Sales Director
- Sales Manager
- Sales Development Representative (SDR)
- Business Development Representative (BDR)
Sales Processes & OKRs
Sales team OKRs are usually either directly improving metrics / KPIs that are sales funnel related or related important sales management processes that change these KPIs include:
- Sales team hiring and on-boarding
- Collateral and training material management e.g objection handling
- Activity tracking and management
- Lead qualification and scoring
- Sales automation creation e.g. sequences for SDR lead generation
- Goal and commit / quota setting
- Compensation plan creation and management
- Marketing and Customer Team Alignment
- Product Management briefing
- Leadership reporting
Sales OKRs might also be different depending on the part of the sales funnel you are involved in. For example SDR OKRs and going to be different to BDR OKRs. But regardless of the role, your OKRs should be priorities for improvements, create alignment, shared purpose, and lead to better cross functional teamwork. Which means often helping other teams to help you!
Here you will find some examples of typical Sales team OKR goals. Remember that OKRs were NOT created for ‘Business As Usual’ Goals, projects you are going to undertake, or really long-term goals.
Easy To Understand Sales OKR Examples
Before you look at these Sales team OKR examples – ask yourself if OKR is right for you and answer these questions.
- Name your top priorities right now as these will make great Objectives to improve a KPI or a sales process that improves something perhaps?
- If you were then forced to prioritise them with the top of the list being the priorities that would have a material impact on the business right now, what would the sequence look like?
- How would you then measure the success? Which metrics would be improved by working on these Sales OKR examples? The answers will help you create Key Results.
- What would be a stretch target with great OKR difficulty that would force you to really focus and think hard about how to achieve the objectives?
- Would your priorities support your company priorities?
Sales Team OKR Examples
Priority Problem / Opportunity
We need to start signing up larger accounts on longer contracts and still hit our new revenue target. Contract lengths makes us more resilient to things like COVID.
OBJECTIVE – Ambitious sales growth, no problem
KEY RESULT 1 – Increase Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA) to $20K this Quarter
KEY RESULT 2 – Increase New Contract Average Months Up Front Payments to 2 year this Quarter
KEY RESULT 3 – Achieve $250k New Monthly Recurring Revenue this Quarter
Priority Problem / Opportunity
Marketing are working hard to generate leads and we’re not following them up well enough and hard earned opportunities are falling through the cracks.
OBJECTIVE – Make the most of all the MQLs Marketing create
KEY RESULT 1 – Increase MQL Discovery Calls Completed % from 20% to 80.0%
Priority Problem / Opportunity
We’re struggling to convert SQLs at the levels we were last year and out sales cycle also needs shortening. This is a priority.
OBJECTIVE – Turn SQLs to Revenue, faster
KEY RESULT 1 – Grow the Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) to Closed Won % from 20% to 30%
KEY RESULT 2 – Reducing the Sales Cycle to from 40 Days to 30 Days
Priority Problem / Opportunity
We are having a few too many meetings with average prospects. Something is going wrong in lead qualification / scoring and we’re going to need to improve it.
OBJECTIVE – Qualified leads want quotes most of the time
KEY RESULT 1 – Increase Qualified Lead to Quote conversion from 34% to 60%
KEY RESULT 2 – Quote to Closed Won is over 40%
In this example the increase in quotes is balanced by a quality Key Result. Ensuring volume is not being chased at the expense of quality.
The Initiatives you do to help achieve this measurable outcome will include improving the SDR and Lead Scoring Process.
You could of course manage rep quotas and personal development planning using OKRs as well
Want to see a full OKR cascade, from Strategy to Departments and team OKRs?
OKR Sales Examples Conclusion
If you’re going to lead a high performing sales team it goes without say that when writing OKRs you’re going to be results oriented.
Part of the magic of OKRs is they require conversations with your team and other teams to set them. They are more than your quota in an OKR format. These conversations are going to unlock opportunities that might normally pass you by and not get brought up in your usual sales meetings.
What you will also notice is that OKRs allow you to also introduce better cross functional collaboration and related learning opportunities. Especially with marketing, product, customer focused teams.
ZOKRI has worked alongside industry experts to create intuitive OKR software that provides Sales teams with the tools and features to make OKR embedding and adoption easy in your company.
With ZOKRI teams can measure, share and work on what matters, & improve performance quickly.
A ZOKRI account ensures everyone knows and feels that they really matter.
See what best-in-class OKRs really look like. Download our comprehensive guide featuring a detailed OKR example that’s changing how organizations think about strategy execution.
"This isn't your typical OKR template - it's a masterclass in strategic thinking"
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