How to increase win rate
Every leader keeps an eye on many different metrics to ensure revenue is flowing and the company keeps growing. Win rate should be one on the top of that list.
If you’re really struggling with revenue coming in the door, focusing on win rate is a great place to start. Why? Top of the funnel conversion can be expensive, especially right now in this economy and competitive market. Focusing on the bottom of the funnel puts more control in your hands and can lead to quicker, impactful results with the right strategies.
Once you achieve a solid and consistent win rate, you'll be able to maximize the value of incoming opportunities. You’ll be able to forecast more accurately, knowing exactly how much pipeline is needed to meet your goals.Before we jump into the strategies, let's quickly go over how to calculate your win rate and figure out what your target win rate should be.
How do you calculate win rate?
Win rate is calculated by dividing the number of deals you won by the total number of opportunities and multiplying that by 100 to get the percentage. The formula is simple:
For example, if your sales team worked 100 opportunities last month and closed 35 of them, your win rate would be 35%.
Everyone defines an “opportunity” differently. Not every lead or contact in your CRM is considered an opportunity. A good rule of thumb is to consider anyone showing intent to buy. This includes individuals who have filled out a high-intent form, booked a meeting with your sales team, or engaged in a conversation with your sales representatives. The most important thing is to define what an opportunity is to your team and stick with it.
You should calculate the overall win rate of your sales team, as well as the win rate for individual reps every month to see how you’re improving over time. You can even break it down further and look at win rates by the source to see which campaigns are converting to revenue more effectively than others.
This metric gives you a clear picture of how successful your team is at converting leads into customers. Tracking this rate over time helps identify trends, strengths, and areas for improvement in your sales process.
What is considered a good win rate for your sales team?
Win rates greatly vary based on your industry and the competitive landscape. It also hinges on the type of GTM motion you're examining—outbound typically yields a lower win rate (around 15-20%) compared to inbound leads (roughly 30-50%), while referrals often boast the highest win rate at 75%+.
I can share from my experience in the SaaS industry that across the board, aiming for an overall win rate of 40-50% is ideal. This range demonstrates a compelling product advantage and effective messaging to your audience. Top performing sales teams are hitting 50%+, a good goal for you to have.
Ultimately, the goal is to consistently surpass your OWN win rate and continuously work towards increasing it. Once you establish consistency, it becomes much easier to plan your outbound efforts and anticipate the inbound leads needed to crush your goals!
How do you increase your win rate?
Let's break it down step by step to assess where you stand and pinpoint areas for improvement. Unfortunately there is no magic formula to increase your win rate, you’ll need to dissect your GTM strategy and pinpoint areas for improvement.
Here are the steps we'll take to boost your win rate, which we'll explore in this blog:
- Understand what's working in your current GTM motion
- Prioritize your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) for messaging and product functionality
- Set up a coaching program to enhance reps' performance
To enhance your win rate, let's start by understanding your current GTM (Go-To-Market) strategy. We'll delve into what's working well and what needs improvement. Once we've got a clear picture of your current strategy, we'll focus on refining your product messaging and offerings.
We'll also discuss how to align your product roadmap with your priorities. Lastly, we'll dive into the critical area of coaching, which plays a key role in sales success. You’ll learn how each of these areas step by step can help you elevate your win rate.
Avoma’s CEO Aditya Kothadiya just spoke about this in the session “How to double your Deal Velocity with AI-guided Pipeline Review and Forecasting Insights.” Check it out.
What's working in your current GTM motion?
The first step is to measure your win rates across all GTM motions. What do we mean by GTM motion? Measure your channels - organic inbound, paid inbound, outbound, etc. Do you see any trends? Try to understand what use cases yield the highest win rates.
Double down on the GTM motions that are giving you higher win rates so you can quickly improve your overall performance. This can be a quick fix to increase your overall win rate while you try to increase win rates for other channels.
Identify the reasons behind your wins—is it a specific customer persona that resonates with your product, or perhaps certain features that make a strong impact? By understanding the key factors driving your success in specific situations, you can apply these insights to areas where you're not winning.
Apply these insights to improve underperforming channels systematically, scaling them up one by one.
Prioritize your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) for messaging and product functionality
Once you understand the reasons for your wins, it's time to build your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Does your team have a clear picture of who your ideal customer is? Take the time to document what your ICP is, then break it down into individual personas.
Your ICP will likely include firmographic details such as company size, annual revenue, number of employees, regions, and industry. Dive deeper into these personas to understand their behavior, motivations, pain points, and priorities.
Use your ICP and buyer persona matrix to enhance your messaging across your website, any campaign you build, even with your outbound efforts to attract the right audience. Ensure clarity with your sales team, so they understand the key triggers to focus on when engaging with different personas.
Once you have that consistency across your messaging and team, you will start to win more deals.
Now, let's talk about product prioritization. To stay ahead of the game, your team needs to keep innovating.
Our tip? Pick a '10X WOW' feature every quarter that sets you apart from the competition. This feature should offer high impact and value that your competitors are missing out on. It might just be something your audience didn't know they needed, but when they see it, they'll be floored.
Remember, you don't have to match every feature your competitors have. Focus on the 20% of their features that deliver 80% of the value. Figure out your unique selling points and why you're the better choice. Take the time to listen to your sales calls. This will give you valuable insights into which features you're missing that are causing you to lose the most deals.
Now, tie this back to your messaging and keep the cycle going. Make sure your team is singing the same tune, so they know exactly how to respond when a competitor or objection comes up.
Set up a coaching program to enhance reps' performance
Now that you've laid down the foundations—fine-tuned GTM channels, clear messaging, well-thought-out ICP, and perfected our product—it's time to focus on improving your team's performance. Are they consistently delivering the right narrative? Are they engaging with the right personas? Are they handling objections or certain situations correctly?
Research shows that having an effective sales coaching program can boost win rates by 28%, resulting in improved sales skills, better engagement, and increase team retention.
You need to create a continuous coaching culture. Listen to calls, provide consistent feedback, and meet with your team regularly to set clear expectations and track progress towards goals.
Coaching shouldn't be limited to just the onboarding phase—it should be ongoing. Whenever there's a new product functionality or during team reviews, make sure to provide one-on-one coaching for new reps.
By listening to calls, you'll spot patterns where reps might need improvement. Instead of giving blanket feedback, focus on specific themes.
Start with areas that need improvement like discovery for the first few weeks, then move on to competitor differentiation, product expertise, and so on. This thematic approach ensures alignment and improvement across the team.
To measure performance, leverage tools such as conversation intelligence and AI scoring. These tools automate aspects of coaching and provide valuable insights into your team's progress quicker than what you can do on your own. If you're struggling with finding time, this can be a huge help. Remember, coaching is no longer optional.
How to boost revenue and increase your close rate with Avoma
Avoma offers a comprehensive suite of tools to empower your sales team, leading to increased revenue and higher close rates. With Avoma, your team will see higher productivity through AI-generated meeting notes and automatic CRM updates, freeing up valuable time to focus on conversations with prospects and customers.
Our AI Coaching Assistant automates the process of call scoring and provides performance insights. With AI auto scoring and scorecards, it ensures consistent and unbiased evaluation of every conversation, helping you focus on areas that need attention for improved team performance.
Gain a deeper understanding of customer interactions with Conversation and Revenue Intelligence, which helps you quickly learn what is working and not working, how you compare with your competitors, and why people ultimately buy (or don’t buy!)
Lastly, our AI Forecasting Assistant offers complete visibility into your deal pipeline so you can build accurate forecasts using AI-powered conversation insights. Improve your deal win rate by proactively managing deal risks with our Deal Health Alerts and Deal Risk Scores so no winnable deals fall through the cracks.
