It is widely known and accepted that high performance for sales teams is focussed predominantly around one thing - the bottom line results. As they say, there are very few business problems that aren’t fixed with more revenue. The only problem with measuring sales results is that they are very much a lag measure.

Stating the obvious: sales is one of the last steps in the sales funnel / process. Take the weight loss metaphor as an example. Sales results are a bit like stepping on the scale. Once you see the result, it is often too late to make a meaningful change immediately. What we have learnt over the past 10 years is to work our way up the sales funnel to get a highly accurate predictor of future sales success.

In an industry leading sales business we have measured and seen that if we acquire x amount of leads, make x amounts of calls, and meet these leads x amount of times per week we know our sales results will be y. It is an amazingly straightforward and accurate formula.

Volume of calls and / or Volume of meetings = Sales results

Conversely low performing sales teams we’ve seen and been a part of tend to look at the lag measure and at a loss to see the predictive nature of keeping regular accountability around sales activity.

Going back to the weight loss analogy: look at the diet and exercise activity in the past week or month and you’ll know with almost certainty the weight loss result. For traditional B2B sales teams the number of phone calls and number of face to face meetings is almost like a crystal ball in telling us where our results will be in the near future.