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- #039: Hit Your Sales Target F.A.S.T.
#039: Hit Your Sales Target F.A.S.T.
Fix your leaky pipeline with the FAST framework
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Read time: 5 minutes
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Have you ever faced a sales slump and struggled to pinpoint the cause? Have you struggled as a manager to figure out exactly where to focus your team’s efforts?
Of course, you have. You’re in sales! It happens to everyone.
The FAST Framework provides a clear, systematic approach to improving sales results.
Whether you’re managing a team or taking matters into your own hands, this framework helps you identify and fix the biggest gaps in your sales funnel.
Instead of broad, generic advice, it provides targeted, personalized strategies based on your unique data. This way, you can make meaningful improvements that lead to real results.
Ready to fix your leaky pipeline?
Here’s a closer look at how it works.
The FAST Framework
This is a 4 part framework that can be used across your sales team or as an individual rep.
Find the cracks: Diagnose the root cause of the problem
Assign a metric: One metric that will move the needle the most
Skills training: Improve the specific skill to improve that metric
Track performance: Monitor progress and hold people (yourself) accountable
The secret to making this work is applying it to each individual rep. If you use average data across the whole team, you’ll get average results.
Here’s how it works.
Find the cracks
If your doctor prescribed medication without asking you any questions, would you trust them?
Probably not.
A good doctor will ask a number of questions and run tests to determine the root cause of your symptoms. Only then will they prescribe a solution.
You need to treat your pipeline the same way. Before assuming what actions you need to take, you first need to diagnose where the cracks are.
Start closest to revenue and work backward. Use the following questions to determine where in your pipeline you need to focus.
Have you already hit your target?
Do you have enough late-stage pipeline to hit your target?
Are enough deals progressing to late stage?
Are you creating enough qualified opportunities?
Are you having enough first meetings?
Are you doing enough prospecting activities?
Once you know where in your pipeline to focus, you then to understand why the issues are occurring.
Am I discounting too much and giving up margin?
Are prospects going dark in late-stage deals?
Are deals getting held up in procurement?
Am I losing to competitors?
Do deals keep getting pushed out each quarter?
Are prospects going dark after our first meeting?
Are prospects showing up to the first meeting?
Are my prospecting response rates high enough?
Do I know how many activities I need to complete every day based on my own conversion rates? (Hit your quota formula)
Keep asking yourself why until you get to the real root cause of the issue.
Your goal is to come up with the NUMBER ONE reason (closest to revenue) that you are not on track to hit your target.
Most people mess this up by:
Trying to solve too many things at once
Not using their own individual data
Using averages across the team
Not being honest with themselves about their skill gaps
Not asking why enough and getting to the real root cause
This process can be done in 10 minutes. It doesn’t have to take a lot of effort.
Sit down with each rep (or by yourself) and go through each of these questions until you have the NUMBER ONE biggest crack in your pipeline.
Assign a Metric
Without a metric, you won’t know how you’re progressing.
Your goal is to pick ONE METRIC that if improved, would fix that crack in the pipeline.
By focusing on one metric, it’s very clear what you're going to measure and how you are progressing. Too many metrics will spread your focus and it will be unclear if your actions are having the desired effect.
Here are some examples of metrics (closest to revenue first)
Discount percentage
Number of line items per order
Quote to order conversion rate
Quotes sent
Number of engaged stakeholders
2nd meetings completed
First meetings conversion rate
Contacts prospected to first meeting conversion rate
Number of contacts prospected
Conversion metrics are great when you’re trying to improve the quality of that metric. Ex: You're doing a lot of prospecting with minimal results.
Quantity metrics are great when you’re trying to increase activity levels of that metric. Ex: You’re not prospecting enough and need to prioritize it.
Once you’ve identified the metric, write down your current state and give yourself a goal.
You’ll then monitor that metric each week to see if the actions you are taking are moving you closer to the goal.
Skills Training
Now that we know where the gap is, why it’s happening, and how we will measure success, you can prescribe the solution.
The goal here is to focus on improving ONE SKILL. (you’re probably seeing a trend here)
When trying to improve any skill, you need to know what good looks like and you need consistent feedback.
There should be a constant cycle of learning, using, and improving.
Learn the skill
Use the skill
Improve based on results
Here are a few examples of skills you might want to improve (specificity is key)
Use negotiation levers other than price
Involve procurement and legal earlier in the process
Engage multiple stakeholders
Prove ROI through business cases
Upsell techniques to increase order side
Create urgency by quantifying business impact
Align your solution to high priority problems
Always get next steps with agreed-upon objectives
Improve follow-up emails and nurture existing deals
Improve multi-step sequences in prospecting efforts
Write problem-focused emails to get more replies
Leverage multiple channels like LinkedIn to engage prospects
Create better-targeted lists of prospects
Use deeper personalization when reaching out to prospects
These are just some examples of the types of skills you want to focus on. You’ll notics how each is very specific. We don’t say “negotiation” or “prospecting” are the skills we want to improve. Each of those skills is made up of many sub-skills.
Trying to improve too many skills at once is a recipe for improving nothing.
The trick is to pick the one skill that will improve the one metric. Once you master that skill, move on to the next skill.
Over time you’ll start stacking all of these skills together to turn you into a well-rounded sales rep.
You’d completely change your life in a year if you focused on improving each of the skills above one by one. That’s the power of skill stacking.
P.S. If you want to build these personal training plans for each rep on your team, this is exactly what we do at Succession. Individual skill assessments inform skill development plans to uplevel each rep based on their unique skills and experience levels.
Track Performance
Now we have a plan for how we’re going to fix our sales funnel (and it probably took less than 20 minutes!).
Create a set of actions you will take to improve your skills and implement what you’re learning.
If you’re a manager/sales leader, build a skill development plan for each rep and use it in your 1:1s to track progress.
Each week review what you learned, what you tried to implement, and how you're progressing toward your metric goal.
Hold yourself and your team accountable for actions you’ve agreed to complete.
Conclusion
This framework will help you hit your targets FAST.
Find the Crack
Assign a Metric
Skills Training
Track Performance
Find ONE CRACK, assign ONE METRIC, and choose ONE SKLL.
Use this framework for each individual rep on your team. Don’t fall into the trap of using team averages and giving everyone the same metric and skill.
The secret to making this work is the systematic skill improvement that will occur across the entire team because it’s personalized to them. You’ll improve the most impactful metric and skill to uplevel each rep with the greatest impact.
Want help rolling this out to your entire sales team? Schedule a call with us
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Episode 31: [Leadership] Founder-led sales, delegating, and prioritizing sales activities with David Nathan
Using pricing psychology
Founder led selling and how hard it can be
Delegate your low impact activities
Detach from the outcomes
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