The good news is that modern marketers are overrun with data-driven applications that help manage and measure program effectiveness. These tools provide insight into which programs worked and which ones didn't, enabling marketers to make informed decisions on where to invest for maximum pipeline growth.

This got us thinking about the sales operations and enablement professionals we serve at Qstream. How do they measure program effectiveness, and how will they justify their budget requests to address new business growth in 2016?

Perhaps the two most common metrics tracked are quota attainment and win rate. Because both of these are lagging indicators, they're not exactly harbingers of future performance, nor do they provide insight into the challenges of an individual rep or team relative to readiness or skill in driving buying decisions. So now what?

Here are a few recommendations to help:

1.  What are the critical goals for your company, and how will sales enablement contribute to those in 2016? For example, if one of your company’s objectives is to expand into new international markets, you might expect that expansion of the sales force -- either through new hires, partners or strategic acquisition -- will be necessary. Have you established a hiring profile and competency model for your reps? Does your new hire onboarding process reinforce those competencies and is it ready to scale to meet the hiring demand? How will you assess the field readiness of your team post-onboarding to ensure they are prepared to win with customers?

2.  Based on these goals, what are the critical KPIs for your program? This should include both leading and lagging indicators to give you a complete picture of your program’s effectiveness. Back to our onboarding example, some metrics you might consider include: total onboarding period (in weeks or months), level of participation/engagement in sales onboarding activities, or time to first deal. It’s also necessary to think about how you want those KPIs to move and change to hit your goals. If you have a longer onboarding period, say 9 months, what’s the potential impact of shortening that period to 6 months? How would you do it?

3.  What systems and processes are in place to measure progress against your goals and ensure you’re getting maximum value for your investment? Your CRM system will, no doubt, be a critical tool in tracking productivity and pipeline metrics like number of outbound calls made or number of new opportunities created. But when it comes to a program such as new hire onboarding, it’s all about the people and their ability to engage with and influence customers.

Does your measurement approach also allow for the assessment of critical selling skills? What about the level of knowledge these new reps possess about your products and services? Do they understand the competitive landscape and how to position against other offerings in your market? (Hint: Qstream can help with this.)

Once you’ve established your sales enablement goals, identified the critical KPIs, and put in place the measurement systems to track your efforts, it becomes a whole lot easier to make future investment decisions and ask for the budget dollars to support them. Good luck and feel free to share your own thoughts on budgeting success!