Forced inactivity LAST ski season resulted in…
It’s Saturday, Thursday I fell skiing -> not a huge horrific crash, rather one that jerked me around and strained some muscles making me stiff and sore.
There I was, not skiing AND not able to quickly do anything. A blanket over my legs while sitting on the couch. Cat napping curled up on my feet and dog snoozing on the floor – woofing in his sleep.
Austin Kleon’s latest book Keep Going had arrived so I took the opportunity created from inactivity to read it.
When I get to “Ignore the Numbers” it hits me.
The numbers, in sales, can get in our way EVEN though we need them.
Activity Example = counting dials.
Volume is important because calling people puts us in front of enough problems to solve… interested prospects… needs… wants… desires (ok so desires is probably a bit much).
Which made me think even more. If we’re going to ignore the numbers – what ARE we going to pay attention to?
Most of the sales results we track are still numbers. What if, instead, we looked at qualitative indicators of success?
- Value of the conversation to the prospect/customer.
- What was uncovered during the conversation?
- Willingness of the prospect/customer to consider something NEW.
- Their commitment to next steps.
The perceived issues with qualitative vs. quantitative indicators of success (based on my conversations with front line sales managers):
- It takes a llllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooonnnnnnnnng time to work with each salesperson, daily, to understand how they did the day before for all that stuff.
I’m not going to sugar coat this. SO WHAT? If you stop looking at the numbers, you’ll have more time. Here are two options to consider.
Option 1 = add it to your weekly coaching conversation check list.
Option 2 = pick ONE qualitative point to talk about each day.
- As an organization we know that people who do <insert number here> are successful.
I’ll challenge you that the people who are successful aren’t ONLY doing ###. Rather if you dig in, there is also a quality associated with their activity that could be missing from other people who aren’t as successful. Begin to look for the quality instead of the quantity.
- What about when what they do is great – but it’s not ENOUGH?
If you’re getting great quality from a salesperson, before defaulting to volume of activity – look at the people they are prospecting. Are they targeting your ideal customer OR the base line level companies? Perhaps shifting their focus to a new segment will give you better results vs. pushing the numbers.
I still remember the advice I received to “inspect what I expect” when I became a Director of Sales. If you’re focused on inspecting numbers – that is what you’re going to get. Instead start expecting AND inspecting quality of conversation.
Still thinking about this,
Lynn
ps: Ignoring the numbers means you must know what the qualitative measures of success are! That is true if you’re an individual contributor, one team among many, or an entire inside sales organization. Please click reply to work together and we’ll figure it out.
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