You’ll hear the amazing stories behind these athletes’ minutes-long performances on the slopes or skating rinks of South Korea. Each one is an ode to human performance and the sacrifices, efficiencies, and practice required of the athletes — and their coaches — to qualify and compete in these worldwide games
Higher performance by your sales team leads to efficiency, expansion, and successes.
How about your team’s performance?
How do you measure your staff performance?
When it comes to revenue generation, only 3 metrics matter.
If you don’t monitor staff members’ performance or know what metrics are important, how will you know if your organization is on the right track?
What matters most.
Fundamentally the three that count are:
- The number of sales to new clients,
- Increasing your average sale, and
- Selling more frequently to your existing clients or sponsors.
Nothing else matters to your topline growth.
Except the indicators behind these three metrics. These are the operational indicators that will tell you how well your staff is doing.
Here are a sampling of these indicators:
- Number of referrals coming in.
- Number of contacts added.
- Number of calls and conversations to initiate sales.
- Number of leads qualified from the first two indicators.
- Number of proposals developed.
- The proposal acceptance rate.
You get the idea.
If your seller is busy making lots of calls to the wrong types of leads —companies that are inappropriate or too small for the opportunities you have to sell, for example — he or she will struggle to achieve the ultimate goals.
On the other hand, a seller who pays attention to this data, who doesn’t waste his or her time on the wrong opportunity, and who works to improve his or her persuasiveness is likely on the path to meeting annual goals.
As I develop this article, Roger Federer won his 20th career Grand Slam, taking the championship of the Australian Open, and the Philadelphia Eagles won their first Super Bowl ever.
Federer is 36-years-old and beat Marin Cilic who is 5 inches taller and 7 years younger. One of the keys to the longevity of Federer’s career is his performance strategy.
By winning more points through shorter rallies, he conserves energy against younger players. In short, he aims to play smarter, more strategically, and more efficiently.
Eagles coach Doug Pederson displayed calm determination throughout his team’s journey to an epic win. He also knew when to roll the dice.
How aggressive is your coaching? Where are you investing your time in supervising your staff members’ efforts? What metrics are you paying attention to?
And most importantly, in which performers is your organization investing? Your duds or your stars?
You may think my comparing champion athletes’ performance metrics to your team’s performance is a little over the top.
To that I say, what could be more important? Whether you run a nonprofit organization or a mission-driven business, your customers and clients, stakeholders and shareholders are counting on you.
If your team were performing on television, would we be cheering them on?
Many of my clients came to their roles without sales backgrounds and value having the right advice and tools to better realize revenue goals. If you or your business development staff could use some guidance on performance metrics or on ways to focus on your ideal client or sponsor, let’s talk.