How a leading AE tweaks his Workflow for stronger KPIs

In this sales climate, AEs are having a harder time than ever hitting their goals. Using Outreach's Pipeline Generation Report, we can hone in on the exact data points they need to hit their targets.

Outreach VP Angela Garinger teams up with Chance Fakih to break down his unique goals and how to conquer them utilizing the Strike Zone philosophy and the Pipeline Generation Report.

Okay, so we've got Chance here with us. Chance is actually at the top of my leaderboard. Chance is killing it this quarter (this first half), so really excited to see your numbers, Chance. You're clearly doing something right on the closed-won side. Now, we want to make sure that you've got enough pipeline in there to sustain that win rate that you've got that's going so well. 

“Absolutely, hit those accelerators,” adds Chance.

Well, everybody loves accelerators. 

Pipeline Generation Report

Okay, so bring me to your pipeline generation report. So, now I want to look at last month. You had a great month last month, so I think it's also a good indication of what we can expect for the next 2 months of the quarter. And then I'm going to have you filter for just you. So, like you said, you've already hit your goal, your revenue goal. Wow! First month of the quarter. No big deal. Right?

“Thank you,” responds Chance. 

What was your revenue goal for the quarter?

“About 140K for the quarter,” says Chance. 

Okay, and what are you trying to get at? Now that you know you've got 2 months to keep going, what do you feel is a reasonable goal for the entire quarter?

“I think 250K I would be happy to land at.” 

I would be happy for you to land at that too, Chance. Okay, so 250K. And your win rate, I imagine, is close to 20%? Any higher?

“I think it's a little bit higher than that. Let's do 25%,” Chase responds. 

Okay, well, you're gonna make math way harder for us then, but we're going to do 25% because we should be rewarding that 25% win rate. If you know that you have a win rate of 25%, how much pipeline coverage do you need to make it to 250K?

“So if I'm at 150K right now, I need about 100K more. We need 500K — 400K.”

No, but that's okay! So, you want to get to 250K, right? And, you’re going to need about a 4X pipeline coverage.”

“Ah, okay. I was thinking about the difference,” says Chance. 

I hear you. Let's just go with the 200K. So, let's say if you need 4X, then you're going to need about 800K.

Okay, let's let's go with that. We're going to go over here and we're going to edit these goals so we can see what kind of activities you need to do to get to that 800K. Okay, edit this for me. So your pipeline quota we're going to put at 800K. 

SQL Value and Conversion Rate

And what is your average SQL value right now?

“Around 20K.”

I think that that's smart. Between small and big ones, it’s averaging out to 20K. 

And what is your SQL conversion rate — is it 80%?

“That's a great question. I could probably look into that,” laughs Chance. 

You know where you could look to get that? The Sales Execution Report. 

But let's say, for example's sake, that it's 70%. That's the minimum we expect, and I can imagine with your win rate and the way that you've been performing, it's probably close to 70% — maybe even higher. But, if we're going to be conservative, let's say 70%.

So go ahead and make that 70% for me. Fantastic. In order to get 5 meetings booked over the course of a week, you've got to put 165 prospects into a sequence and make 655 phone calls.

“Wow. That’s a lot,” says Chance. 

Feels like a lot. But, the good news is that we can see from this pipeline generation report some of the levers that we can pull to make sure that this is a much more sustainable amount of activity for you to do — but without compromising where you need to land. So let's take a look. 

Meeting Book and Hold Rate

Oh my goodness! A meetings booked rate of 50% — that's fantastic. That means that out of every 2 people you talk to, 1 of them has booked a meeting with you. Alright, whatever you're saying on the phone is working. And I think it's really important that we're inventorying the good as well as inventorying the bad. So my recommendation with this in your coaching plan would be to take a look at Kaia. See what you're actually saying, see if you can say it on both of those calls and then get closer to 100%. But, genuinely, I think sometimes we're doing good things, but we don't actually know what those good things are. And so let's figure out what they are because especially for me at the leadership level, if I can figure out what that is I can scale that across the rest of the team. And some of your colleagues do need help with this meeting conversion rate, and maybe you've got the secret sauce. 

Your meetings held rate, 80% — that's also really good. So, you're driving the urgency when you're getting the meeting booked. You're, I think, using the confirmation sequences, all of those things are indicators that this is why this is probably your lagging indicator of success. 

Correct Connect Rate

So those aren't places where I feel like we need to pull, but their correct connect rate is very, very low.

“Yeah, that's pretty bad,” remarks Chance.

What do we want to see your correct connect rate at? Closer to 10%. The good news is because you have a meeting conversion rate at 50%, you can afford to have a lower than 10% correct connect rate. Those two offset each other, or are inversely correlated. But we still have to get it higher than 1%.

“Yeah. That's a scary number,” says Chance. 

Yeah, if you think about when you're calling people, what does that look like over the course of the week for you, or even over the course of the day?

“Yeah, it's when I have a little bit of free time and I'm trying to fire through my call tasks.”

Key Takeaways

So, for your coaching plan then. you're not far off from a sustainable number of KPI's each day. I think if we just change a few things, you could do really well. 

1. Identify the best times and days to call. So the first thing I would suggest doing is identifying the times and days with which you'll be calling and keep them consistent. I would use the heat map to see if you're doing it sporadically right now, the heat map is going to give you some indication of where you need to make those concrete times at least as a starting point to create a baseline, and see if that helps. 

The other thing I would look at is, are you calling the right numbers? Are you doing a lot of mobile numbers? Are you doing a lot of answer tree numbers? I think any leader would tell you, if you're just calling willy-nilly and getting on to fire these off, take a beat. Start thinking: who am I going to call, what was the last thing I said, how am I going to personalize this, is this the right message? Really thinking strategically before you just dive in.

2. Check Kaia recordings and report. Second thing I would do, figure out what you're saying on your meeting conversion rate. Check out your Kaia recordings and then tell me. 
3. Continue to push on meetings held. You've got an opportunity here. 80% meeting held rate is really good, but I think because you're succeeding in so many other areas, this is also a place that you can continue to push. So if we could get that closer to 90%, that also will make a big difference in how many calls you need to be making per day, per week, etcetera. Let's figure out if they're not showing up, why they're not showing up, if you’re able to re-engage. Is there something there that we can do to make that higher too? 

So those are the 3 things I would lean on. Sound like a plan?

“Yeah, that's super useful, actually,” says Chance. 

That's what they pay me for. Good, thanks, Chance.