In this client’s industry, it’s traditional to be driving around your territory and going to see people. However, he devised some new strategies that resulted in him driving less. He was using email and the phone more often than his colleagues. He was getting people to come to his office instead of driving out to see them. He was building communities on his social media platforms and putting stuff in the mail.
As a result, he was building deeper relationships with multiple people and being more efficient because he was using technology. Using these strategies allowed him to bring in the most revenue for the company that year and even set a record, yet he was in trouble for not putting enough miles on his car.
[bctt tweet=”Are you measuring the wrong metrics when it comes to your sales reps?” username=”EngageColleen”]
Mileage on a car is a vanity metric. It doesn’t give us any solid understanding of what the seller is doing to achieve such great success. The manager in this situation needed to take a different approach. They need to look at the seller and say, “What is he doing to have hit such a record number of sales? Why can’t we get the rest of the team to do the same? ”
So, don’t measure the wrong metrics. Make sure you embrace success on your team and when one seller is doing something different that’s producing incredible results, start asking yourself how you can apply their strategies to the rest of the team. Doing so will bring everyone to a new level and you’ll be able to accelerate your sales.
Thank my lucky stars I am in a start up that does not have old school discipline.
I agree that its important t measure the right metrics. In my organization there is some metrics however that are required to ensure that critical information is available for strategy and decision making such as prospecting to expand customer base. How you you hold Reps accountable for inadequate reporting such as updating their sales pipeline when they are meeting sales targets.
This guy’s company seems to be measuring “outputs” vs. “outcomes” — they’ve lost sight of the true goal.
Very interesting question and generally faced by so many in the sales profession. Well, question is to develop the business relationship with the client, how you do it has to be defined by whom? If it has to be decided by the company in terms of the process then there must be some reason for it and ideally, the process should be followed because the process has been designed keeping in view the cultural context and to ensure that targets are achieved not by one but by all. I am aware of certain sales professionals in a pharma territory who have got the solid relationship with the clients and can get the sales on the telephone only BUT exceptions do not make the rules especially when culture context supports control on the process. At other places where probably control is less required and individuals are supposed to design their own process, different metrics may be designed because the ultimate objective is to drive business through relationship.