Misleading Sales Numbers Part 2

Earlier this week, I posted about misleading baseball and sales statistics and hoped that Jeff Angus, author of Management by Baseball, would weigh in about the statistics part.  His most recent post on the Management by Baseball Blog does indeed expound on the baseball part of my theory with incredible detail and, as I had hoped, with the data to back it up.

To continue with the original theme, here are some more numbers, other than revenue, that can be very misleading:

Number of Appointments Booked:  the quality of those appointments is more important;

Number of Opportunities in the Pipeline: that number is important only in the context of the required number of opportunities for each stage of the pipeline.  Over or under? Focus on the gap and fix it.

Value of the Opportunties in the Pipeline: like the previous entry, the value is important only in the context of the required total value of opportunities for each stage of the pipeline.  Over or under? Focus on the gap and fix it!

For both number and value of opportunities, simply use the monthly goal, closing percentage, average order and length of sell cycle to determine how many and how much should be in each stage of the pipeline.

Dials and Conversations: Big numbers don’t impress me. How come the salesperson who always reports 40 dials, 10 conversations and 3 appointments never seems to have any meetings and never seems to be adding anything to the pipeline?  It’s not really the numbers of dials, conversations and appointments booked; it’s the ratios and whether or not they’ve improved since last month.  Same lousy ratios? Then the salesperson isn’t practicing, isn’t hanging tough on the calls, isn’t asking the right questions, isn’t finding a compelling reason to meet, is just going through the motions, or perhaps not making the calls at all.  Improve the ratios and you’ll improve the number of quality meetings taking place.