When working with sales leaders, I almost always hear this comment: “we have metrics, but they’re not accurate.” My comment is usually: “Let’s make them accurate or eliminate them.” I’m not trying to be cute – I really mean that. If the metrics are wrong, don’t waste time on them. Fortunately, there is a common reason that metrics are inaccurate, and we’re always able to develop a solution. In fact, I believe it’s the number one reason that sales metrics are inaccurate…
While there are many reasons, the main culprit that I’ve found is that the process is too cumbersome. As a sales leader, you’re overwhelmed and wearing a dozen hats. So are your sales people. Most of them have to balance prospecting, networking, managing current customers, putting out fires, etc. Both of you are way too busy to have to consider a complex reporting system. Make this process easy for you and for your sales people. A few ideas:
- Limit the amount of metrics to three or less. That’s all you need. I suggest Sales, Outstanding / Open Quotes Amount, and Quoted Amount Year-to-Date (or trailing 12 months if you can).
- Make sure the reporting required of the sales people is reasonable. Ideally, the reporting should merely be an output of meaningful activity performed by the sales people. If you don’t have a system in place that allows you to track this data, then I suggest investing in one. If that’s not an option, then create a mechanism that keeps the sales people from being in front of a Word document for three hours per week reporting their day-to-day activity. This level of reporting is unreasonable and ineffective. It’s very reasonable to expect to be able to report data and activity in a simple manner that is transparent to the sales people.
- Make sure the reporting process is easy for you (management). If you have to spend six hours every Saturday merging several documents and doing the math manually, you have to stop … now. Take next week and devise a process or mechanism to help you bring together all the data in a nice format quickly and easily. It doesn’t have to be magic, but if you’re spending more than 30 minutes per week generating reports from your sales team’s activity, then you need to change your system.
You can do this, I promise. You just need to make it reasonable for the sales people and for you. Once you’ve got this down, you can use your metrics in ways you never considered. (Return on Friday to read one idea to using your metrics that will exponentially help you hold your team accountable.)
