Are you staying away from this sales metric?
I wrote an entire chapter in Right on the Money on data. Specifically, about not letting data control you. I love technology and data, but you cannot let the wrong data control your business. So, here is my advice: get rid of one-size-fits-all metrics.
The One-Size-Fits-All Sales Metric
Sales managers fall into this trap most often. One-size-fits-all metrics are metrics that, for example, require every salesperson to make 50 calls a day, send 100 emails a day, or have 10 face-to-face engagements with their customers a week. Those metrics are useless. What we need to focus on instead are the metrics that matter to each individual salesperson. What I mean by that is every salesperson needs to have their own set of metrics when it comes to calls, closing opportunity management, meeting with customers, or field visits based on their goals.
How many calls is it going to take? How many opportunities is it going to take based on their closing ratios, opportunity size, and opportunity time to hit their goal? It could be 50 for one salesperson and 10 for another.
Emulate Top Performers
We also need to identify and emulate what our best salespeople are doing. Here’s an example: I once met with a customer, and they had a standard metric that noted all demos should be 45 minutes long. Thus, they had a number of salespeople who were hitting 45 minutes, but not reaching their target. Then, they noticed one of their sales reps was crushing her results and goals every single month (she was overachieving by 100-150% every month). They discovered her demos were only 20 minutes long.
Now, rather than penalizing her for not having a full 45-minute demo, they took a look at what she was doing in those 20 minutes to create such an extraordinary result. They realized that she was tailoring that demo only to the needs of the customer, whereas the 45-minute demo was overwhelming the customer with a whole bunch of features that the customer didn’t need, resulting in confusion and a lack of confidence in the buying process. By tailoring the demo and shortening it by half, this sales rep was not only closing more business, but she was creating more time to create more opportunities to close even more business, producing exponentially better results than her peers.
Skip the one-size-fits-all metrics, and make sure you’re focusing on the metrics that your best people are using to create success!
Hey Colleen, it was a great blog. if a sales manager is following a wrong sales metrics and not ready to adopt to the changes. now how do you suggest them to stay away from wrong sales metrics?
A sales matrix is a tool used to help you gauge the urgency and viability of sales opportunities. Is that work all that time! could you take a moment to comment your thoughts on that…
Hello Colleen,
Your blog is very impressive, inspiring and thought provoking. Missing the right metrics poses a significant risk to a business decision-making processes. Could you suggest some tips for avoiding sales metric challenges?
Nice Info,I would like to know the weaknesses or challenges you’ve found in any of your favourite product/service so far? and could you please tell me about the sales key performance indicators ?
Hello Colleen! Amazing post, thanks for sharing.
Could you share your thoughts on,
What if sales people take advantage of the freedom to create customized metric, eventually leading to under-productivity?
Agree 100% and then some. Would love to see a sales leader poll on this subject.
pls read mytake
If they create a metric that leads to underproductivity you would coach them up with new metrics, put them on a PPP or fire them. Metrics needs to be created from actual data and be standardized for the whole team.