Impact Performance by Empowering Every Manager and Individual Contributor with Real-Time Access to Data

Revenue leaders know that hiring top-tier talent is critical to their organization's success. But what’s even more important is how we enable them after the onboarding process ends. Top performers need access to timely, accurate performance data to succeed. They need to feel like they are making an impact on the business and see the value of the work they deliver.

But oftentimes, reps can't see critical performance data, revenue goals, or efficiency conversion information. Key business insights are stuck somewhere in a rev ops dashboard and only reviewed with reps during weekly meetings.

Without this visibility, we can't expect top performers to reach their full potential. Studies show that when goals and progress towards goals are visible, attainment is 42% higher. Success rate increases even more (to the tune of 76%) when you report your progress publicly. So…why is senior management the gatekeeper to such powerful information? Why don’t we make progress to goal and other key success metrics visible and accessible in real time to our reps and teams?

The data doesn’t lie. If we want to fuel exceptional performance and get the most out of top talent, we can’t bury the big—or small—wins. Visibility is everything. When we democratize access to performance data for everyone, there’s no limit to our revenue potential. 

The Progress Principle

According to Harvard Business Review, visible progress motivates people to put their best foot forward in their work and in life. This is  the progress principle.

“Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run. Whether they are trying to solve a major scientific mystery or simply produce a high-quality product or service, everyday progress—even a small win—can make all the difference in how they feel and perform.”

We can think about the progress principle as it applies to sales and revenue roles in a few ways:

• Reps and teams need to believe in the power of their product to solve a problem
• Reps and teams should recognize every small win that paths them toward a bigger win
• Everyone should be able to see progress to goal and their individual impact on the company’s overall performance and success

In a study conducted by the authors of the progress principle, employees ranked progress as their top motivating factor at work. But managers felt that promoting or highlighting an individual’s progress was last in terms of motivating factors.

Managers have a tough job—but according to employees, the direct manager has the most significant influence on their success in a role.

Revenue leaders, enablement, and C-suite executives must give sales managers the tools and strategies to successfully motivate employees. Emailing a Salesforce report doesn’t motivate people, reflect accurate progress, or recognize wins in a meaningful way. If you want to empower your team, you need to build a culture of positive accountability, celebrate wins in real time, democratize access to data, and implement a Coaching Orchestration™ strategy that helps reps see their impact and continue to build on their progress.

Visibility is Critical to Creating Accountability

When you hold reps accountable to metrics they can’t see, don’t understand, or that don’t clearly ladder up to a company’s bigger vision, the concept of “accountability” can carry a negative connotation.

But accountability is powerful when established in a positive way. Giving reps access to individual and team performance data in real time empowers them to hold themselves accountable, stay motivated, and understand their direct impact on the business.

3 Ways Ambition Creates Visibility and Real-Time Data Access

1. NEW! AmbitionTV App 
Our newest TV innovation, Ambition’s TV App, allows you to broadcast real-time performance data anytime, anywhere, on any screen.

• Display leaderboards, accolades, and analytics in real-time via Android TV or Chromecast.
• Give your team a single source of truth for record-based alerts and real-time performance data
• Recognize accomplishments and celebrate wins in real time
• See how Instapage leveraged Ambition TVs and coaching to realize:
  • 275% lift in meetings set
  • 147% lift in SDR pipeline created
  • 80% increase in qualified opportunities

2. Slack and Microsoft Teams Workflows
By integrating sales metrics and KPIs into Slack, you’ll be motivating your team to achieve higher goals. Sales teams using Slack sell 25% more than teams who don’t use Slack. In our 2019 State of the Sales Survey, 32% of sales reps said that visibility into numbers was their primary motivator.

• In-app leaderboards, celebration alerts, and issue detection alerts to give your teams the visibility they need to drive more discretionary effort.
• Automated alerts trigger  in Slack when someone books a meeting. This allows your whole team to celebrate in real time and enables cross-functional awareness and communication.
• Recreate the sales gongs of the past by firing automated alerts every time a deal is closed. Global visibility and recognition is a powerful motivator that encourages sellers.
• Set alerts for activity that is falling behind for the day. If a rep hasn’t made 10 dials by 10 a.m., you know to reach out and course correct. If multiple reps are behind, consider launching a blitz to get the whole team moving.
• Receive an alert if reps are less than 50% to goal by mid month. This tells you if you need to coach around the pitch or check in to ensure that they are dialing to the right ICP.
• Workfront uses Ambition + Slack to boost recognition and visibility driving 83% of the team to be highly engaged in sales activities and objectives. By using Ambition to convert activities into objectives, they saw a 111% increase in qualified sales opportunities.

3. Coaching 1:1s

• Ambition’s Coaching Orchestration provides a 360-view into your organization's coaching strategy. You can see who's coaching, how often they coach, and how effectively they coach. This information allows you to create repeatable processes for what's working.
• Bring in a rep’s pipeline metrics, call recordings, and tailor every coaching moment between managers and reps. You can easily incorporate gamification here to help drive positive behavior change.
• Waste Management boosted closed-won opportunities by 47% and increased generated revenue by 50% in a single quarter with Ambition. See how the Waste Management team uses Ambition goal tracking to clearly define, visualize, and communicate broad company goals, team targets, and individual priorities.

“Everyone in sales tech today offers a little bit of coaching, but no one in the space owns it. This ongoing challenge has left my teams with a hodgepodge of dashboards and different places to log in and try and figure out how to provide value. With the evolution of technology partnerships that companies like Ambition are driving, sales coaches now have the ability to easily and quickly drive performance with data that means something.” 

– Donna Sanborn, Senior Manager – Digital Sales, Cisc