Making the Number; Putting the Science In Selling
Review
“Our conversion rate of prospects doubled from 20% to 40% and the average time-to-convert shrunk from 6 to 3 months. Netting it out — sales benchmarking has single-handedly improved our revenue by 5% this year alone.”
That’s what Geoff Smart; CEO of ghSMART has to say about “Making The Number” a new book by Greg Alexander, Aaron Bartels and Mike Drapeau of Sales Benchmark Index.
During the course of my work, I regularly encounter CEOs, sales managers and sales people who hugely overestimate very simple sales metrics like:
- Num of Dials to RPC.
- Num of Call to Appointments.
- Num of Meetings to Proposals.
- Num of Proposals to Successful Close.
- Average Sale Value.
- Average Length of Sale.
- Optimal Pipeline Levels.
Collecting information may seem like an old principle in sales but unfortunately most businesses don’t collect the right data and even when they do, are often unable to utilise this data in an effective way to improve sales performance.
This leaves sales managers relying heavily on instinct when coaching the sales team. Is this a major factor that results in?
- 40% of all salespeople missing their targets
- 27% of salespeople not producing enough sales to cover their employment costs
- The average life of a sales manager being fifteen months
“Making the Number” using its five step-methodology teaches the reader, how to use benchmarking to select, collect, measure and analyse the right metrics so that great decisions can be made.
Measuring and using sales analytic s should not only be the preserve of complex sales cycles or big companies. It could be argued that measuring and successfully using sales data is even more relevant to a smaller business, where bad decision making, particularly during those early growth years could potentially have dire consequences.
Whether you are a door-to-door salesperson or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, why not pick up a copy, have a great read over the Christmas holidays and use benchmarking to help make your number in 09.
Tags: Making the Number, managing sales teams, sales analytics, Sales management, sales metrics