As I was going through some papers on my desk, I ran across a sales accountability sheet I wrote a while back. For all you sales experts out there, I am curious if you use a similar tool to make sure you are reaching all your sales goals.
I must have picked this up through a book or training program, but I can not remember where it came from and before I was taking on so many tasks to run my company, I used to shoot for getting these 4 point everyday.
Here is how it works. In order to stay productive and manage your time well you get a scorecard everyday. Your goal is to reach 4 points everyday.
Here is how you score sales goal points.
- Get a lead, a referral, or an introduction to a decision maker –
1 POINT - Getting an appointment to meet the decision maker –
2 POINTS - Meeting the decision maker face-to-face –
3 POINTS - Getting a commitment to a close (a purchase) or an action that directly leads to a close –
4 POINTS
So you see all you have to do is fulfill any combination of these daily habits and add the points. If you get 4 points everyday you should be easily meeting your sales goals.
That being said, I ask you to share your thoughts on this technique.
- Have you used this technique?
- Do you use a similar technique, if so what is it?
- How successful is a daily habitual tool like this for reaching your sales goals?
Please share your thoughts below in the comments section of this article.
Great post, Dale.
Every salesperson should have a system to measure these kinds of activities. A CRM system will usually track ALL of this stuff for you, and allow you to measure your activity for each.
Two things I’d be worried about for this would be:
1. Some of this stuff isn’t always within your control, like getting a referral or closing a specific deal. So, I’d make the metrics more like: a) calling a prospect/lead b) writing a proposal.
2. I’d keep track of which of these activities you’re doing in what proportions. For example, you might be very comfortable writing proposals, when you should be calling more prospects because that proposal isn’t going anywhere.
3. Also, you should measure your conversion rates from step to step. If you’re calling 100 prospects and not booking any face to face meetings or you did 100 face to face meetings but haven’t written any proposals, you should use those metrics to re-evaluate what you’re doing in each step. Maybe you need sales coaching with prospecting. Maybe you need to re-evaluate when you write proposals.
Hope that helps. Keep up the good work, Dale.
Great post, Dale.
Every salesperson should have a system to measure these kinds of activities. A CRM system will usually track ALL of this stuff for you, and allow you to measure your activity for each.
Two things I’d be worried about for this would be:
1. Some of this stuff isn’t always within your control, like getting a referral or closing a specific deal. So, I’d make the metrics more like: a) calling a prospect/lead b) writing a proposal.
2. I’d keep track of which of these activities you’re doing in what proportions. For example, you might be very comfortable writing proposals, when you should be calling more prospects because that proposal isn’t going anywhere.
3. Also, you should measure your conversion rates from step to step. If you’re calling 100 prospects and not booking any face to face meetings or you did 100 face to face meetings but haven’t written any proposals, you should use those metrics to re-evaluate what you’re doing in each step. Maybe you need sales coaching with prospecting. Maybe you need to re-evaluate when you write proposals.
Hope that helps. Keep up the good work, Dale.
Pete,
Thanks for the excellent comments to this article. Your points really bring a lot of value to this conversation. We should all certainly work a few of these ideas into our sales mix as well.
Pete,
Thanks for the excellent comments to this article. Your points really bring a lot of value to this conversation. We should all certainly work a few of these ideas into our sales mix as well.
Glad it helps, Dale.
The best thing I ever did for my career was hire a sales coach.
That would be my first advice to anyone who wants to grow their business.
Glad it helps, Dale.
The best thing I ever did for my career was hire a sales coach.
That would be my first advice to anyone who wants to grow their business.
Thanks for the tip Pete. I think both myself and my readers would like to know what to look for in a sales coach. Any ideas or suggestions on how to make sure you find the right sales coach or at least a quality sales coach?
Thanks for the tip Pete. I think both myself and my readers would like to know what to look for in a sales coach. Any ideas or suggestions on how to make sure you find the right sales coach or at least a quality sales coach?
Dale:
Good post. I think a daily goal/tracking system like this can work in many situations depending on what you are selling. The more repetitive and product oriented your day is the better it works.
Since we sell capital equipment it is possible to spend days on a proposal or bid due to their complexity and size so our daily activity varies.
Also a majority of our deals are competitive bid and we sell nationally so we don’t always get a chance to meet face to face with a decision-maker because of travel requirements, committees or the various bid processes we face.
However, I would not discount this for someone who is just starting out or who is in product sales that have a short gestation period. The gestation period for our solutions can be as short as 3 months or as long as 5 years.
I also think today’s focus on using inbound marketing to help identify more qualified prospects and reduce cold calling makes some of the goal areas not as meaningful. As an example, your number 1 item would not apply because the sales person that works for a company that uses inbound marketing successfully would get a a steady flow of leads given to them.
So here’s a question back to you, “What would your benchmarks or points be for someone that benefits from inbound marketing?”
Dale:
Good post. I think a daily goal/tracking system like this can work in many situations depending on what you are selling. The more repetitive and product oriented your day is the better it works.
Since we sell capital equipment it is possible to spend days on a proposal or bid due to their complexity and size so our daily activity varies.
Also a majority of our deals are competitive bid and we sell nationally so we don’t always get a chance to meet face to face with a decision-maker because of travel requirements, committees or the various bid processes we face.
However, I would not discount this for someone who is just starting out or who is in product sales that have a short gestation period. The gestation period for our solutions can be as short as 3 months or as long as 5 years.
I also think today’s focus on using inbound marketing to help identify more qualified prospects and reduce cold calling makes some of the goal areas not as meaningful. As an example, your number 1 item would not apply because the sales person that works for a company that uses inbound marketing successfully would get a a steady flow of leads given to them.
So here’s a question back to you, “What would your benchmarks or points be for someone that benefits from inbound marketing?”
Great question, Chuck.
At HubSpot, we generate about 25,000 leads/month.
We are, indeed, a low priced repetitive sale. So, while we don’t assign points to activities, we track these metrics very closely.
Here’s some of the things we track.
# lead connects/day
# attempts/lead
# lead to ‘qualifying call’ conversion ratio
# qualifying calls
# qualifying call to demo ratio
# demos
# demo to customer conversion rate.
We measure a whole slew of other things too. But, that’s the high level.
PS. Even though inbound lead generation drives our business, we also generate referrals from customers, work with resellers to close deals, sell internationally and to different sized businesses, as well as do some targeted “warm calling” using sales 2.0 techniques.
Each of these smarketing channels have different metrics we measure. But, the important point I’m trying to make is that we have metrics for each one. The cost of customer acquisition is different for each of these channels. Sales cycle is different for them.
So, the lesson of the story is: no matter what sales process is right for you or your business, defining, tracking and analyzing metrics is critical for achieving sales growth month/month.
Great question, Chuck.
At HubSpot, we generate about 25,000 leads/month.
We are, indeed, a low priced repetitive sale. So, while we don’t assign points to activities, we track these metrics very closely.
Here’s some of the things we track.
# lead connects/day
# attempts/lead
# lead to ‘qualifying call’ conversion ratio
# qualifying calls
# qualifying call to demo ratio
# demos
# demo to customer conversion rate.
We measure a whole slew of other things too. But, that’s the high level.
PS. Even though inbound lead generation drives our business, we also generate referrals from customers, work with resellers to close deals, sell internationally and to different sized businesses, as well as do some targeted “warm calling” using sales 2.0 techniques.
Each of these smarketing channels have different metrics we measure. But, the important point I’m trying to make is that we have metrics for each one. The cost of customer acquisition is different for each of these channels. Sales cycle is different for them.
So, the lesson of the story is: no matter what sales process is right for you or your business, defining, tracking and analyzing metrics is critical for achieving sales growth month/month.
Chuck,
You are correct some of these POINTS need to be fit to work with your company. I too am calling on businesses from all over (mostly national, but a handful of international as well) so the Face-To-Face is hard for us as well. Face-to-face could however mean phone or skype conversation or a webinar about your product or service.
As far as Points for inbound marketing, Pete would be a better person to nail down the solid Points.
For our company though, it goes back to these points:
1. Write at least 1 blog article a week, but shoot for 2-5.
2. Spend an hour or two a week looking for relevant industry or business related content to share with our followers on Facebook, Twitter and Linked.
3. Spend about an hour or two a week trying to engage and interact with our Facebook Fans so we are able to keep these fans and also grow our # of fans.
4. Spend and hour or two a week reviewing and following up on our web leads.
5. Spend an hour or two review our web stats and analytics to better understand how effective all of these items are.
By spending 5-10 hours a week on inbound marketing, we have had pretty good success.
This is great news, but I think doing some offline sales is still important.
The question is as we grow, will we need to hire a sales team that calls and networks face-to-face or will we be building a team of ex-journalists to come on board and blog like crazy and double, triple or quadruple my current inbound marketing efforts?
Where do you think things are going?
Chuck,
You are correct some of these POINTS need to be fit to work with your company. I too am calling on businesses from all over (mostly national, but a handful of international as well) so the Face-To-Face is hard for us as well. Face-to-face could however mean phone or skype conversation or a webinar about your product or service.
As far as Points for inbound marketing, Pete would be a better person to nail down the solid Points.
For our company though, it goes back to these points:
1. Write at least 1 blog article a week, but shoot for 2-5.
2. Spend an hour or two a week looking for relevant industry or business related content to share with our followers on Facebook, Twitter and Linked.
3. Spend about an hour or two a week trying to engage and interact with our Facebook Fans so we are able to keep these fans and also grow our # of fans.
4. Spend and hour or two a week reviewing and following up on our web leads.
5. Spend an hour or two review our web stats and analytics to better understand how effective all of these items are.
By spending 5-10 hours a week on inbound marketing, we have had pretty good success.
This is great news, but I think doing some offline sales is still important.
The question is as we grow, will we need to hire a sales team that calls and networks face-to-face or will we be building a team of ex-journalists to come on board and blog like crazy and double, triple or quadruple my current inbound marketing efforts?
Where do you think things are going?
Wow Pete excellent comments.
I think showing the things you track and how this is similar to the points system I mentioned is very powerful. Ideally we would have a measurement and sales system for our offline and our online sales to match the level we have with our inbound marketing methodology and analytics. This would be a powerful system that would allow anyone on our team so see the same results.
It will be interesting to see a system like this.
Wow Pete excellent comments.
I think showing the things you track and how this is similar to the points system I mentioned is very powerful. Ideally we would have a measurement and sales system for our offline and our online sales to match the level we have with our inbound marketing methodology and analytics. This would be a powerful system that would allow anyone on our team so see the same results.
It will be interesting to see a system like this.
Pete:
Impressive list of measurable areas and I think we all agree that every business/market/company will have some unique metrics and the key is to identify the ones that matter and track them.
Pete:
Impressive list of measurable areas and I think we all agree that every business/market/company will have some unique metrics and the key is to identify the ones that matter and track them.
Hey Dale.
I think it’s important to separate sales activities from marketing activities. Both should have metrics, regular activities. But, they are very different.
Marketing can provide scale to sales activities by filling the top of the funnel and making it easier for a company to find the ‘low hanging fruit’; the prospects that are warmed up and ready to buy. HubSpot does such a great job of marketing that often times, I get on the phone with a prospect and they sell me on them buying our software. But, most of the time, we have to get on the phone, identify their needs, challenges and problems, and then determine budget, authority, timing, etc and suggest next steps. Those next steps are usually a goal setting call where we identify the financial goals and consequences of not doing inbound marketing. Once we confirm their needs, problems and that they want to fix it, we’ll present a solution to them. Sometimes, that’s doing a demo. Sometimes, that’s starting a trial and designing a trial experiment. These steps are designed to show them how we can help them solve their problems, hit their goals, within their budget and timeline. We then close the business by asking for the order. For agencies or firms like Chuck, the next step is usually a proposal.
You can’t do all that on a webinar or in a blog post. I know you know this. It’s common sense. But, when I was a business owner I constantly struggled with whether I should spend time on marketing or sales. I enjoy marketing more. But, I also needed to pay the bills. I don’t make any money when I do a webinar with 500 people unless my reps reach out, connect with them and follow the process above. The same lesson applies to a small business, whether there’s 5 people on your webinar or it’s a rare small business with an audience like HubSpot’s.
Long story short, I think the worst thing a small business can do is prioritize marketing over sales. Most SMBs have to make enough money to pay personal bills, expenses and fund growth. The best way to do that is to nail sales efforts. If that means cold calling or attending a networking event every night or writing blog posts and building landing pages only at night when the kids go to sleep, that’s what should be done.
Hope that helps. I’m not saying this all applies to you. I’m just saying I’ve seen this problem a lot. And it’s easy to fall on that trap. I have a unique perspective on it, I think, because I’ve lived through both experiences.
This has been an awesome discussion. I’m going to send it out to a bunch of HubSpot’s resellers.
Hey Dale.
I think it’s important to separate sales activities from marketing activities. Both should have metrics, regular activities. But, they are very different.
Marketing can provide scale to sales activities by filling the top of the funnel and making it easier for a company to find the ‘low hanging fruit’; the prospects that are warmed up and ready to buy. HubSpot does such a great job of marketing that often times, I get on the phone with a prospect and they sell me on them buying our software. But, most of the time, we have to get on the phone, identify their needs, challenges and problems, and then determine budget, authority, timing, etc and suggest next steps. Those next steps are usually a goal setting call where we identify the financial goals and consequences of not doing inbound marketing. Once we confirm their needs, problems and that they want to fix it, we’ll present a solution to them. Sometimes, that’s doing a demo. Sometimes, that’s starting a trial and designing a trial experiment. These steps are designed to show them how we can help them solve their problems, hit their goals, within their budget and timeline. We then close the business by asking for the order. For agencies or firms like Chuck, the next step is usually a proposal.
You can’t do all that on a webinar or in a blog post. I know you know this. It’s common sense. But, when I was a business owner I constantly struggled with whether I should spend time on marketing or sales. I enjoy marketing more. But, I also needed to pay the bills. I don’t make any money when I do a webinar with 500 people unless my reps reach out, connect with them and follow the process above. The same lesson applies to a small business, whether there’s 5 people on your webinar or it’s a rare small business with an audience like HubSpot’s.
Long story short, I think the worst thing a small business can do is prioritize marketing over sales. Most SMBs have to make enough money to pay personal bills, expenses and fund growth. The best way to do that is to nail sales efforts. If that means cold calling or attending a networking event every night or writing blog posts and building landing pages only at night when the kids go to sleep, that’s what should be done.
Hope that helps. I’m not saying this all applies to you. I’m just saying I’ve seen this problem a lot. And it’s easy to fall on that trap. I have a unique perspective on it, I think, because I’ve lived through both experiences.
This has been an awesome discussion. I’m going to send it out to a bunch of HubSpot’s resellers.
Again Pete, these are all great points. It might be interesting to see a sales coaches perspective on all these items and I have reached out to one and I know you passed it on to another. I will have to see if I can find a few more. to review this and give their feedback. This would be great for Brandwise as well as all the readers of the Brandwise blog. Thanks for all your help.
Again Pete, these are all great points. It might be interesting to see a sales coaches perspective on all these items and I have reached out to one and I know you passed it on to another. I will have to see if I can find a few more. to review this and give their feedback. This would be great for Brandwise as well as all the readers of the Brandwise blog. Thanks for all your help.
This is a great conversation, especially as it pertains to a sales coach:
Here is what I recommend you evaluate a sales coach for.
1. Have they been successful managing sales people. By successful how did the sales teams they managed perform and did they exceed their quotas?
2. Do they have at least 10,000 hours or 10 years of front line sales experience. You really want an expert and not someone that hasn’t sold in years or decades.
3. Do they keep score and can they tell you how other clients are performing.
4. What is their selling process/method and does it fit with inbound marketing.
5. Do they know what inbound marketing is and how to integrate it with what you are doing.
6. Do they use an assessment to objectively establish a baseline from which to build a growth strategy.
Finally, in this new era of sales and marketing, you really need to make sure you are working with someone that understands both sales and marketing. Traditional sales model prospecting methods are outmoded. To be successful, marketing can no longer be executed apart from sale an vise versa. Hence a coach that is bilingual will help their client get further faster.
This is a great conversation, especially as it pertains to a sales coach:
Here is what I recommend you evaluate a sales coach for.
1. Have they been successful managing sales people. By successful how did the sales teams they managed perform and did they exceed their quotas?
2. Do they have at least 10,000 hours or 10 years of front line sales experience. You really want an expert and not someone that hasn’t sold in years or decades.
3. Do they keep score and can they tell you how other clients are performing.
4. What is their selling process/method and does it fit with inbound marketing.
5. Do they know what inbound marketing is and how to integrate it with what you are doing.
6. Do they use an assessment to objectively establish a baseline from which to build a growth strategy.
Finally, in this new era of sales and marketing, you really need to make sure you are working with someone that understands both sales and marketing. Traditional sales model prospecting methods are outmoded. To be successful, marketing can no longer be executed apart from sale an vise versa. Hence a coach that is bilingual will help their client get further faster.
Teicko,
Thanks for sharing this information. I think when anyone is looking to hire a new service provider and they are not familiar with an industry, it is very easy to make mistakes and just hire someone. As you pointed out though they need to not only be an expert at sales, but also need to understand inbound marketing as part of the sales mix. I do think having client testimonials or a score card showing how they have help many companies meet and exceed their sales goals is important.
So it looks like you focus on both sales and marketing for your service offerings. What type of clients do you mostly service?
Thanks again for sharing these points on how to find a good sales coach.
Teicko,
Thanks for sharing this information. I think when anyone is looking to hire a new service provider and they are not familiar with an industry, it is very easy to make mistakes and just hire someone. As you pointed out though they need to not only be an expert at sales, but also need to understand inbound marketing as part of the sales mix. I do think having client testimonials or a score card showing how they have help many companies meet and exceed their sales goals is important.
So it looks like you focus on both sales and marketing for your service offerings. What type of clients do you mostly service?
Thanks again for sharing these points on how to find a good sales coach.
Dale,
1.Yes, relevant scorecards are very important. Whereas so few people have training in selling, they don’t know what they don’t know. Unfortunately, most think hitting a sales quota qualifies them as a sales expert and a coach.(It reminds me a lot of people that have LinkedIn accounts fancying themselves and internet and social media mavens).
2.I dont’ think industry experience is very important. In fact I think it is detrimental to have a coach that has a myopic view of an industry. One of the main values I bring to my clients is more than 20 turn around in a wide array of industries. You want a coach that brings possibilities not baggage. With that said, I do think it is important to have ananlogous experience. To that end, Dave Kurlan has proven sales success does not lay in age or industry experience.
3.We serve B2B clients and a handful of B2C. We only take on B2C clients if they cause oriented and have both sales and marketing problems(SMarketing).
4. A coach should understand how you hold you accountable against a sales goal, help you drive the right sales actions to achieve your goal, be a source of motivation and make you more effective at selling that you would be otherwise.
For me, a good sales coach is someone that I would be nervous to sell against.
Dale,
1.Yes, relevant scorecards are very important. Whereas so few people have training in selling, they don’t know what they don’t know. Unfortunately, most think hitting a sales quota qualifies them as a sales expert and a coach.(It reminds me a lot of people that have LinkedIn accounts fancying themselves and internet and social media mavens).
2.I dont’ think industry experience is very important. In fact I think it is detrimental to have a coach that has a myopic view of an industry. One of the main values I bring to my clients is more than 20 turn around in a wide array of industries. You want a coach that brings possibilities not baggage. With that said, I do think it is important to have ananlogous experience. To that end, Dave Kurlan has proven sales success does not lay in age or industry experience.
3.We serve B2B clients and a handful of B2C. We only take on B2C clients if they cause oriented and have both sales and marketing problems(SMarketing).
4. A coach should understand how you hold you accountable against a sales goal, help you drive the right sales actions to achieve your goal, be a source of motivation and make you more effective at selling that you would be otherwise.
For me, a good sales coach is someone that I would be nervous to sell against.
This may have been stated as I didn’t read all of the comments. I have seen this system before. In the insurance business it is known as the success manual developed by Al Grannum back in the 50’s. It was adopted by NWM as ‘the way’ to be a successful insurance agent. It is a process that contributes to an 80% failure rate in that industry. The problem is the confusion between reporting numbers, holding people accountable to numbers and having the appropriate reward, consequence process in place when people fail to hit the numbers or manufacture numbers to keep the manager off of their back. The key is your sales coach. The sales coach must not make excuses, is willing to do everything possible to succeed, has no need for approval from the sales team, has a supportive record collection relative to coaching sales people and a supportive buying cycle that is consistent with the sales cycle of the industry they are in. Tough qualities to find without the right assessment tools.
This may have been stated as I didn’t read all of the comments. I have seen this system before. In the insurance business it is known as the success manual developed by Al Grannum back in the 50’s. It was adopted by NWM as ‘the way’ to be a successful insurance agent. It is a process that contributes to an 80% failure rate in that industry. The problem is the confusion between reporting numbers, holding people accountable to numbers and having the appropriate reward, consequence process in place when people fail to hit the numbers or manufacture numbers to keep the manager off of their back. The key is your sales coach. The sales coach must not make excuses, is willing to do everything possible to succeed, has no need for approval from the sales team, has a supportive record collection relative to coaching sales people and a supportive buying cycle that is consistent with the sales cycle of the industry they are in. Tough qualities to find without the right assessment tools.
Tony,
Wow! 80% failure rate? Yikes, that is a little scary. So Tony, it looks like your company does sales training so are you saying that people should hire sales coaches with experience in the clients specific industry? What kind of assessment tools do you recommend for someone shopping for a sales coach?
Tony,
Wow! 80% failure rate? Yikes, that is a little scary. So Tony, it looks like your company does sales training so are you saying that people should hire sales coaches with experience in the clients specific industry? What kind of assessment tools do you recommend for someone shopping for a sales coach?