OKR Examples
OKR Examples for Sales
Sample OKRs along with relevant discussions, organised by function
Sales
The sales function, traditionally goals & target driven, lends itself well to OKRs. These levels of OKRs are indicative & can be different for organizations, depending on the size, stage & maturity of OKR processes.
Company Level OKRs
Objectives | Key Results | Observations |
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Increase profitability by 42% every quarter for FY 2017-18 |
| Increase profitability by 42% every quarter for FY 2017-18 Observations A variation of this objective is common among the top 3 objectives of various companies. Similarly, the first KR will simply calculate the profitability based on sales occurred for a particular period. The second and third KRs are responsible for the increase in sales, and they lend to the calculation of the first. |
Team level OKRs
Objectives | Key Results | Observations |
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Increase sales funnel by 35% by Q4 2017-18 |
| The objective here can be common for most companies, but the KRs may not necessarily be same. For example, not everyone goes on a ‘Salesperson hiring spree’ to increase sales. Some rather prefer to increase the efficiency of the sales process than increase further costs. Apart from the first KR, the remaining three do provide a way to determine if the team has achieved its goal. |
Increase nationwide reach of product by 35% by Q4 2017-18 |
| For this particular objective, the Sales team needs to collaborate with the Marketing Team to make sure that every channel, actual and digital, is tapped into. Only then will they be able to cover more ground, in a lesser amount of time. The third KR provides an example of how the 2 teams can collaborate. |
Improve distribution network by 35% by Q4 2017-18 |
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Improve inbound leads processing by 35% by Q4 2017-18 |
| This instance also shows where 2 different teams should work together. The 3rd KR is primarily the responsibility of the marketing team, which then passes on to the sales team to make sure appropriate action is taken to handle these prospects. |
Improve efficiency of Salespersons |
| The first KR should be facilitated by the HR department in consultation with the Sales Head or Manager. These sessions could be conducted by external authorities as well as experts from within the organization. |
Increase efficiency of the sales analytics process by 35% Q4 2017-18 |
| While this is a Sales environment, the KRs (and even the objective, to an extent) that are being set must be for the IT Department of the company. The second item is simply a task while the third KR needs to define ‘sales activity’ clearly. |
Individual Level OKRs
Objectives | Key Results | Observations |
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Increase prospect to lead conversion by 20% by Q3 2017-18 |
| The first KR, while doing its job, can be phrased better – where the emphasis is on ‘Achieve’ rather than ‘Target’. The second KR is phrased better, where the word ‘Positive’ encourages employees to log only impactful reach-out attempts. |
Get insights from customers for previous quarters sales |
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Get insights from prospects by Q4 2017-18 |
| The link between the objective and corresponding KRs is tenuous at best, even though the KRs are providing valuable information about the effectiveness of newsletters campaigns. The objective Might work better as ‘Get insights into the effectiveness of company’s weekly newsletter by Q4 2017-18’. The KRs would support the objective very well. |
Increase efforts on cross-selling by Q4 2017-18 |
| Instead of basing the objective on an unquantifiable element like effort, ‘Increase revenue by re-engaging with existing customers’ helps the individual consider alternatives to re-engage with existing customers which earlier would have been limited to only cross-selling, increasing chances of generating more revenue from them. |
Maximize sales efforts for every region by 35% |
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Increase customer retention by 50% Q4 2017-18 |
| The first KR aligns itself well against the objective, but the 2nd KR needs to be detailed – like ‘85% customers are satisfied with product’, making it easier to identify what the remaining 15% is not happy about. Instead of being vague, the third KR can be, ‘Remaining 15% customers’ problems addressed by providing relevant solutions’ |
Increase quality of prospects identification process |
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Participate in 5 trade events in 2017-18 |
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