{"id":996,"date":"2007-06-12T09:52:19","date_gmt":"2007-06-12T14:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/the-proper-sales-metrics\/"},"modified":"2007-06-12T09:53:37","modified_gmt":"2007-06-12T14:53:37","slug":"the-proper-sales-metrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/the-proper-sales-metrics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sales Metric"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ll keep our baseball theme going today by referencing a well-crafted post from Dave Kurlan &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/UnderstandingTheSalesForce\/~3\/124045828\/Baseball-and-Sales-Management-by-the-Numbers.aspx\">Baseball and Sales Management by the Numbers<\/a>.  He develops a good analogy between how a manager&#8217;s style affects his starting pitchers&#8217; stats (ERA) and how different situational factors affect a salesperson&#8217;s revenue totals.  Towards the end, you get the fastball right down the middle of the plate (my emphasis):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Turning to sales, there are a number of statistics that are equally difficult to equate with performance, the most obvious being revenue.  <strong>Many salespeople, considered top producers by their companies, top the charts for revenue but don&#8217;t perform in such a manner as to justify the attention, rewards or commissions that they earn.<\/strong>  They may have inherited their accounts, built them up over decades, or have the best territory but if you removed those accounts and directed them to go out and sell, many of them would fall flat on their faces.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, some salespeople who don&#8217;t appear at the top of their company&#8217;s charts because they are new, don&#8217;t have the best territories or are starting territories from scratch, may be great performers, doing all the right things on a daily basis, but don&#8217;t get the recognition they deserve.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We&#8217;ve seen this inversion in spades often when we first start working with a client.  Many times a top performer (not necessarily <em>the<\/em> top performer) has achieved their status by owning the best territory, longest tenure or the largest, locked-in account.<\/p>\n<p>The unstated implication in Kurlan&#8217;s post is that a revenue metric is not the most accurate for determining your most skilled\/talented salesperson.  That being the case, how can you benchmark top sales performers?  If revenue is your metric for selecting the benchmark participants that establish the baseline, you may be sullying your results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ll keep our baseball theme going today by referencing a well-crafted post from Dave Kurlan &#8211; Baseball and Sales Management by the Numbers. He develops a good analogy between how a manager&#8217;s style affects his starting pitchers&#8217; stats (ERA) and how different situational factors affect a salesperson&#8217;s revenue totals. Towards the end, you get the fastball right down the middle of the plate (my emphasis): Turning to sales, there are a number of statistics that are equally difficult to equate with performance, the most obvious being revenue. Many salespeople, considered top producers by their companies, top the charts for revenue but don&#8217;t perform in such a manner as to justify&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/the-proper-sales-metrics\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assessing","category-sales-management"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-g4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2164,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/11\/a-hazy-shade-of-forecasting\/","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":0},"title":"A Hazy Shade Of Forecasting","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The stresses of this economy are affecting entire sales departments from the leadership down to the trenches.\u00a0 One piece I have noticed is a distinct aversion towards customer relationship management software.\u00a0 Interestingly, the resistance is coming from sales managers. What I believe I am seeing are sales managers with less\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Leadership&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Leadership","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/leadership\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2076,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/07\/how-pipeline-bloat-occurs\/","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":1},"title":"How Pipeline Bloat Occurs","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is another line from a sales employment ad (emphasis mine): The primary role of this position is to build a revenue generating sales pipeline which will primarily consist of prospective accounts. Pipeline bloat is something we encounter with sales managers on a regular basis.\u00a0 As you probably know, salespeople\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Employment Ads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Employment Ads","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/employment-ads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2130,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/10\/why-sales-forecasts-matter\/","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":2},"title":"Why Sales Forecasts Matter","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve noticed in some companies a casualness regarding sales forecasts from their sales team.\u00a0 Heck, I\u2019ve worked for some companies that shared that casualness.\u00a0 Some companies view it as an exercise in Excel gymnastics.\u00a0 Others view it as a coffee klatch activity.\u00a0 One customer of ours had multipliers (<1.0) for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":499,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/12\/empowering-the-sales-team\/","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":3},"title":"Empowering The Sales Team","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Sales & Marketing Management has an excellent article out titled Break the Bureaucracy. The gist of the article is the revenue differences between companies that micromanage their team vs. companies that empower their team (especially sales). First, an intuitive point from the author: The result of this micromanaging? Young hires\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":787,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/fixing-a-dis-incentive-plan\/","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":4},"title":"Fixing A Dis-incentive Plan","author":"Mike Cardinal","date":"March 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, the Rock Star really hit a nerve with his recent post - A Commission Plan Gone Bad. I'm having flashbacks to a comp plan that still makes the hair on the back of my neck bristle. When a comp plan becomes counter-productive -and the sales team is talking -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":775,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/who-to-promote-into-management\/","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":5},"title":"Who To Promote Into Management","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"CareerJournal.com offers When Managers Neglect To Coach Their Talent which covers a principle we incorporate into our process. \"The role of people-managers -- who develop talent and create sustained profits for companies -- isn't as valued as it should be,\" says Mr. Harter, co-author with Rodd Wagner, also of Gallup,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Retention&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Retention","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/retention\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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