To be successful in executive selling, you’ll have to make yourself, your company and your solution stand out. Not easy! Here, we tell you how to crack the credibility code using industry specific metrics.

If you want to create differentiation and gain credibility, you must quantify your solution’s impact using metrics that are meaningful to customer executives.

Traditional high-level metrics, such as ROE (Return on Equity) and ROA (Return on Assets) are always relevant, but industry-specific metrics demonstrate a better understanding of your customer’s business.

When you can credibly link your solution’s impact to those metrics, you establish yourself as a subject matter expert. Now, you’ll have a better chance at becoming your executive customer’s trusted advisor.

How to Find the Right Metrics

To find the metrics that are important in your customer’s industry, use analyst reports – they commonly benchmark companies with the key metrics of their respective industries. Also consider using trade journals and associations. With retail, Service Provider and Retail Banking industries as examples, this reference guide details this approach.

Retail Metrics: Dwindling margins present a significant challenge in retail. Streamlining processes, lowering operating costs and building customer loyalty are also top concerns. Core metrics within this industry include:

•  Revenue Growth: Year-over-year sales.
• Market Share: The percentage of the total available market serviced by a specific company.
•  Comparable Store Sales or Same Store Sales: Performance of existing stores in terms of sales growth, measured over a particular period of time and compared with the corresponding period of the prior year. Typically only those stores open for the entire period are considered, so the growth rate is not affected by either openings or closures. Note: the specific definitions for stores included or excluded from this metric may vary by retailer.
• Revenue per Unit (Square Foot/Square Meter): A measure of space utilization retailers use to determine a facilities optimal locations and floor plans.
• Number of Stores (Equivalent Units): An important metric that measures store openings and closures’ end-of-period impact. When shown as equivalent units, timing for store openings and closures is also incorporated; in the case of closures, this metric can be used to estimate revenue per unit.
• Store Margin: While the specific definition of store margin may vary by retailer, it provides a measure of store-level operating margin (i.e., sales minus cost of sales, labor and other store-related expenses).

Service Provider Metrics: One of the most volatile sectors of the market place, due to the increasing cost of acquiring new customers and the rapid consolidation within the service provider industry. Core metrics include:

•  Revenue Growth: Year-over-year sales.
•  Market Share: The percentage of the total available market serviced by a specific company.
• ARPU (Average Revenue per User): Revenues during a specific period of time divided by the average number of customers during the same period. Used to compare recurring revenue amounts to prior periods as well as to company targets.
• Churn: Customer churn is calculated by dividing the aggregate number of customers who cancel service during a period of time by the total number of customers at the beginning of that period.
• Net Adds: Gross additions of new customers during a period of time minus the number of customers that cancel service in the same period.
• OIBDA (Operating Income before Depreciation & Amortization): A measure used by companies to show profitability in continuing business activities, excluding the effects of capitalization and tax structure.
• Free Cash Flow: Cash not required for operations or for reinvestment. Usually presented as earnings before interest (obtained from the operating income line on the income statement) less capital expenditures, less the change in working capital.

Retail Banking Metrics: Increasing competition with non-banks has forced the industry to intensify its focus on fee-based services, cross-selling and customer loyalty. Core metrics include:

• Operating Revenue (Net Interest Income + Fee Income): Use this metric when your solution impacts fee income drivers, such as product mix, cross-selling, product bundling, customer retention and loyalty programs, and reducing time for entering new markets.
• Net Income/EPS Growth: Net income growth and earnings per share growth measure year-over-year profitability. Areas of opportunity include impacting cost savings, operational improvements and improved acquisition integration.
• Efficiency Ratio: Non-interest expense divided by operating revenue. The target range for retail banking is a percentage in the mid-40s. Potential points for aligning solution impact include increasing productivity at the branch level, shifting call centers to sales and enabling customer/employee self-service.
• Loan Growth: Evaluate year-over-year and quarterly growth compared with your customer’s peer group and you’ll identify new opportunities.
• Deposit Growth: Year-over-year and quarterly measurements of total deposits.
• Net Charge-offs: Ratio computed by current year provision plus the average loan balance.
• Cross-sell Rates: Ratio of customers using more than one product or service (e.g., checking accounts, credit cards, home loans, etc.) to the total number of customers.