Posts Tagged ‘Sales Metrics’
Lisa Clark Shares the 3 Most Overlooked Sales Management Metrics
If every sales team has one goal, it’s to crank up performance and close more deals. Yet, the average sales team only has a small number of sales reps who are in the top level of quota attainment. While many organizations are turning to automation to help improve performance, this alone isn’t enough. Sales leaders…
Read MoreWhat You Can Measure, You Can Improve
In 2004, the company SPARQ (Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, and Quickness) set out on a mission to create the industry standard for measuring athleticism. Teaming with Nike, SPARQ grew to employ over 750 certified SPARQ trainers, and drew thousands of participants, including world-class athletes like Reggie Bush, Tim Tebow, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Bryan Clay. The ubiquity of the SPARQ Rating system underlines…
Read More5 Essential Change Management Principles
Despite how common the practice has become, many organizations continue to struggle with change management. That’s because too many smart people mistakenly believe they can design their way into change. This misplaced ambition isn’t surprising. Smart people have a winning mentality. They’ve had great historical success, come from great schools, and have enjoyed rocket ship…
Read MoreThe Real ROI of Sales Acceleration Technology
In the sales industry, we count wins in dollars and cents. That’s what matters more than anything else. Any solution we adopt must increase revenue. If it doesn’t, then it’s as useful as a polka dot bikini at a black tie event. To understand how sales acceleration technology can fuel your organization’s revenue growth, we…
Read MoreThe Fitbit Model of Sales Acceleration
A couple of months ago, I interviewed branding and creative agencies. During one discussion, I shared our company’s vision: “We believe science holds the key to unlocking human potential.” The agency asked how our vision is any different from Fitbit’s, the popular fitness tracker. It isn’t. XANT’s predictive and prescriptive self-learning engine, Neuralytics, works strikingly…
Read MoreA Winning Sales Culture Starts With The Right Sales Metrics
We spend a lot of time at XANT discussing how our platform and its applications help companies accelerate their sales process and ultimately increase revenue. We have a lot to offer, but it’s nice to step back, speak with customers, and see what they can teach us. Last week, I spent some time with a small marketing…
Read MoreLike Moneyball – Sales Data Wins the Day
In the movie Moneyball the Oakland A’s baseball team was at the bottom of their game. To quote the movie … “There are rich teams, there are poor teams, then there is 50 feet of crap, and then there is us.” Based on a true story of the 2002 Oakland A’s who used statistics to hire…
Read MoreInside Sales Tip: For Lead Routing, Skill-based Trumps Regional and Ad-Hoc
Saw that lead metrics guru Trish Bertuzzi posted an answer to question on Quora talking about the most appropriate way to do sales lead routing. And I thought I’d quickly chime in. In the actual Quora question, the person asks, “What’s the most effective way to route leads?” One of the respondents immediately chimed in…
Read MoreSales Tip: Confidence vs. Intellectual Laziness
A couple of years ago we hired what we thought was going to be a stellar sales rep. He appeared to be smart, well-spoken, and had the individual charisma that we thought was going to make him a star. So when the numbers came back after six months, I was surprised that he was nowhere…
Read MoreSales Metrics Not Just About Measuring Productivity, but Creating Motivation
Most managers will tell you that the primary reason to use good sales metrics and sales management tools is to improve performance.
Good processes and metrics, the old idea states, makes it easier to track productivity, accountability, and reward reps accountable for the work they do.
What’s not talked about as often, however, is the idea that having clear, consistent sales metrics also acts as a motivational force.
When sales and lead generation teams have to work with goals that are unclear and poorly defined, it leads to a psychology of paralysis. Time and effort are precious commodities in a sales organization, especially when agents have to constantly reevaluate and prioritize their activities. Sales reps simply don’t have the time to work on “stuff” that isn’t going to produce a real benefit for them and the organization.
But without clearly stated goals, reps are forced to guess what the most important use of their time is at any given point. Should they take that appointment, or get back on the phone? Is this product demo really going to be worth it, or should they be re-contacting that deal that got put on hold last month, but had a lot of potential?
Without a clear indication of how any given action is going to help a sales rep maximize their time (and ultimately the company’s), it leads to frustration and apathy, and most reps in this situation react by going with their gut instinct of what’s going to make them more money, regardless of whether it’s good for the company or prospect.
Good metrics and processes allow managers to be more effective, but don’t forget that a rep who doesn’t know how to get maximum reward is rarely going to give maximum effort.