Understand the metrics that drive sales people

Smart managers know that doing more activities will lead to more sales. The question is, how do you identify exactly which tasks and how much of each task will create your most efficient sales machine. Chances are, you’re tracking calls, emails, meetings, etc. An exemplar manager will also be tracking other milestones in the sales cycle, such as second and third client meetings, access to people of influence and power in your prospect, competitors identified and quotes sent. It is important to understand what your high performing reps are doing more efficiently than the rest of the team? How can you inculcate these skills into your new reps as you on-board them?

Incentive competitions can tell you the metrics that separate the high performers in your team from the mid and low performers. 

For example, one of your reps swears by picking up the phone, others have call reluctance or if they do make calls, they don’t document them in Salesforce. How to motivate the team – run a competition. Set the team a stretch metric with a reward and you’ll be amazed at how many calls they make in an hour or a day. This allows you as a manger to determine if this new threshold should be a daily mandate. While the quantity of calls is important it is worth looking at the quality of the call. The sale will not progress if their time is spent talking to voicemail boxes rather than the decision maker. These variable soon add up to a roadmap that show how you can train your new reps on sales best practices. Then sit back and manage to the numbers!