What if I told you that out of the dozens and dozens of sales metrics you monitor and report every month, 83% of them say absolutely nothing about what the sales team actually needs to be doing in order to achieve the objectives? And what if I told you that only 17% of these metrics are things that salespeople can actually do something directly to change?
Would that surprise you? Would it bother you that you’re generating a bunch of metrics that don’t—and can’t—help your sales team hit their numbers?
If so, I encourage you to study a new guide in the SellingBrew Playbook entitled, “Sales Metrics Sales Leaders Should Be Managing,” by Jason Jordan, the author of Cracking the Sales Management Code. Based on research by the Sales Education Foundation, the guide provides a lot of insight into how to identify, measure, and manage the sales metrics that really matter for generating improved results at-scale.
But I have to warn you—you may not like what the guide has to say.
After all, some sales operations actually seem to prefer to have their reps try to figure out what to do through trial and error. Some sales leaders seem to prefer the simplicity of just “yelling louder” rather than telling their salespeople exactly what they should be doing differently tomorrow in order to hit their numbers.
And frankly, some sales organizations seem to be much more comfortable explaining last quarter’s miss than determining which specific sales activities will actually produce the results the company is counting on.
So, if your sales operation falls into this camp, Jason’s guide may not be for you.
But if your sales operation is in the other camp—the camp that isn’t content to just cross their fingers and hope their salespeople are doing the right things—check out the guide. It will not only change your perspective on sales performance measurement and the sales metrics you should be managing moving forward, it will very likely make your job a whole lot easier in the process.
