Have you ever seen a software company that does not offer a dashboard with their product? Dashboards are so common that some tech companies have started coming up with clever names to distinguish their product from the masses like control center or storyboard. But what do people do with these reports anyway?
In sales, we are always looking for ways to predictably boost performance and metrics are a common tool used by managers. A dashboard of all the key metrics that predict performance is often refreshed ad nauseum until the manager has developed carpel tunnel syndrome. It seems companies are in love with the idea of measuring each possible step in the sales process. I have no problem with with this, but my question is always…
What will you do with the metric?
If the answer is to tell you that the sales person needs to improve the metric, we are in trouble. Managing to the metric will get you exactly what you want – improvement of the metric. But what about what you actually care about, revenue?
Lets use the example of phone calls per day and Bob the manager and Sally the sales rep to illustrate what will happen. Bob researches past performance and finds that the sales people who hit their number typically make 50 phone calls per day. So being well intentioned, Bob decides to set a metric for the team to hit 50 dials a day. Sally keeps missing the 50 dials per day metric and so Bob tells her she needs to get her numbers up, she says she will and continues on with what she was doing.
This dance continues for some time until Bob tells Sally that she needs to get her numbers up or she’ll go on a performance improvement plan. So Sally does what any sane person would do, she calls more phone numbers. Bob is pleased, but her revenue has not improved so he decides to double down and encourages Sally to call even more people. Sally, feeling frustrated, decides in order to appease her boss, she needs to dial some fax machines so that the dials reach the desired metric.
Eventually Sally quits, gets fired, or worse…stays with the company as a B or C player.
Dashboards and metrics are a great tool but they can become a tempting crutch for sales managers. It is easy to think that if your reps hit certain metrics the rest will follow. It is easy to ask them to reach certain metrics. But the risk is you miss the opportunity to truly coach your team, find out the root cause, and drive exponential change in performance.
Great sales managers uses metrics and dashboards as a diagnostic tool. If you know successful sales people at your company tend to make 50 dials per day that is a great data point. But only so far as it tells you that a given rep might have something they need help with. It could be that they are nervous about cold-calling, or they are swamped with RFPs, or that their conversion on the few calls they make is out of this world. There are many possibilities.
Some will say that there is a trickle down effect with metrics that lead to revenue. This is fair. But the metrics themselves mean nothing. They are indicators of qualitative performance. What one rep says and does in relation to the infinite variables offered by the customer on the other side of the conversation is the X factor in performance.
An account executive’s soft skills, like communication, listening, & empathy, all make the difference in a customer interaction. A good sales manager uses the diagnostic metric to get an idea of what’s going on. A great manager dives deep into the qualitative side to understand what is at the heart of customer interactions.
The key is to use the metric as a way to begin a conversation on what your rep needs and how you can coach them. Better yet, don’t even let your reps know what metrics you look at. This way when you coach them, and a metric improves, you know they aren’t being like Sally and calling fax machines.
The Ferment 