I am beginning to think there are three things that people count in inside sales Activity – Results – False Indicators.
Activity
Activity that we measure in inside sales differ from organization to organization. The commonality is that these habits / behaviors / actions are what salespeople need to do to achieve their desired results.
How many changes as well. In fact I’d argue that you can measure the median – the middle of everyone successful salespersons activity BUT the success value will change by individual.
Take the activity and numbers your organization knows are success indicators: then count them long enough to figure out what YOURS are!
For instance: as a salesperson my average order size was significantly lower than the median size in the organization. Therefore the number of opportunities I personally needed to find each day was higher than the majority of the sales team – to make the same sales dollars.
Results
As salespeople we tend to think of results as GETTING OUR WAY. Yet that is only one side of results.
Certainly we count the good results – conversations, appointments, opportunities, sales.
Yet when we are looking at the results our activity generates – also count what doesn’t work. The way to success also involves changing what isn’t working, so you need to identify the results you don’t want.
For instance: when I get lazy and use general messages people don’t respond. That doesn’t mean templates don’t work… it means that the template email can’t be sent without personalizing something – the conversation script only is effective when I’ve done some research on the person – etc. Checking my results (over time) against the activity tells me what needs to change.
False Indicators
These are the activities that yield results ONCE or so infrequently that as salespeople we need to not keep going after them. Here are a few I’ve encountered, either myself or in recent sales coaching conversations:
- first call close – literally a salesperson cold called for the very first time, the person answered, needed what was being sold, and bought it.
- BIG deal… outside your target – when you either received a lead or were making prospecting calls and happened upon someone who bought what you sell / needed what you do, yet is WAY outside your success target market.
- that one success that didn’t follow the established buyer process – you know that customer who is completely different in their buying process than anyone else you work with, it feels faster/easier/etc.
Often in training classes and coaching sessions salespeople bring up false indicators, like they’ve found THE ANSWER.
Instead of having a repeatable methodology – in process and conversational flow; they begin to count… and count ON false indicators of success.
That one anomaly, becomes like the holy grail of sales success. “If only I could get more of ___________” Often searched for, yet never found.
Instead count your activity that consistently leads to the results you want.