If you’re in inside sales management, then you know all about metrics.
In fact, whenever I consult with new clients the owners and managers automatically begin showing me their call monitoring reports. They show me metrics on how many calls a rep is making, how much average time each rep spends on the phone, what their conversion rate is, and on and on.
When they ask me what I think, I tell them I think they’re measuring the wrong things.
Now don’t get me wrong—those things are important and they should be monitored. The problem though is that those metrics are not what drive sales.
You see, it isn’t the activity around the sale that’s most important (and that everyone measures), but rather,
it’s the activity that happens during the sale that matters most.
In other words, as a manager or business owner you need to know exactly
what and
how your reps are responding and dealing with objections, stalls, and other selling situations
during the sales call.
This is what’s most important and it’s exactly what most managers don’t focus on…
The good news is that this is easy to fix because there are two times when you can monitor and coach this:
- You can either monitor your reps while they’re actually on the phone with a prospect or client (by listening in), or:
- You can record the call and spend time reviewing and coaching your rep as you go over their actual call with them during your one-on-one coaching with them.
Both of these methods will give you the most important information of all: Are your reps using the best practice approaches to successfully handle the sales situations they run into 80% of the time when trying to sell your product or service?
If your reps either don’t know how to best handle these sales situations, or if they simply aren’t using effective techniques and skills, or worse, if they just don’t have the talent or willingness to consistently use proven best practices, then it doesn’t matter how much time they spend on calls, or how many calls they make or how many demos they set.
They won’t improve.
Again, what’s important is how they perform
during a sales call that matters. And your number one goal as a manager or business owner is to know how each of your reps performs while in the sale, and then to teach them the most effective, best practice techniques to win more sales.
Once you’ve given your team the skills and techniques they need to succeed in your selling environment—and you’ve trained them thoroughly on them—then managing simply becomes a job of coaching adherence to these best practices and measuring that adherence.
Bottom line: It isn’t the activity around the sale that’s most important, but rather, it’s the activity
during the sale that matters.
And if you’d like help putting a proven system together to measure, monitor and correct that, then
click here.
Related:
How to Negotiate to Close More Deals
