Numbers-PI Sales Academy Blog/Quiz #13
As a regional sales manager and national sales coach for Cox Communications early in my career, I had a V.P. of sales named Russ that I worked under. He was a reasonable man and used a saying I never forgot that went, ”Fools can figure and figures can fool.” He had certain numbers that were more important than others in monitoring sales activities. The takeaway? All numbers are not as valuable as others; they are not created equal.
As time moved on in our piano retail industry and SEO became the buzz in the marketing world, independent business owners rushed into the Google bid war to get their new websites seen. They had numbers fed to them by local agencies and vendors that were portrayed as very positive and proof that they were getting seen by a substantial amount of online visitors. They were trained to feel good about the traffic based upon the numbers being provided by the ad resources and for a long while that was sufficient. The issue? After months and years of being in front of what was portrayed to them as numbers verifying they were reaching a phenomenal swath and penetration into the consumer population, many of them began to become frustrated because the good numbers were not translating into more business. They looked and sounded good but you couldn’t take them to the bank! It turned out that they did have value but as my old sales boss used to say, ”not all numbers are created equal.” In light of that fact, which ones weigh more heavily into an equation that ends up equaling more sales? The conversion rates.
Why the conversion rates? Because they meant that a consumer action was facilitated. In layman’s terms – someone wasn’t just a visitor but did something to express true interest; they “took action.” That number, the conversion rate, meant that someone actually took a step inside the sales funnel on the buying highway. A buying sign was exposed.
When examining the LeadFlow and EventFlow programs at our digital marketing firm, conversion rates are the most important gauge in monitoring the success of a campaign or application. If the conversion rates show that ad views turn into actual workable leads at an 8-12% ratio, we are satisfied that the client is getting the proper amount of workable leads. This is far above the national average of 3-4% for luxury marketing online activities. If we develop an application/harvesting tool that is performing at a 5-7% rate, we watch the CPL to make sure it is decent and that the lead enrichment is robust to be sure it is a contributing element in the digital portfolio. If it is, fine; if not, we refine it so it performs at a higher level or we find a better place to put the marketing dollars. If we have an application that performs consistently with the national averages of 3-4%, we rethink it, reinvent it or trash it, because we don’t ever want to be average.
There are two marketing numbers most indicative of the health of a marketing method: one, the conversion rate of views into workable leads but even more critically for the retailer, the rate of leads that turn into sales. This conversion rate, call it the sell through, is what the retailer feels; it has a direct impact on the retailer’s profitability. You might think that this rate would be the most important of all the numbers but I beg to differ. Unless you are selling a commodity that can be successfully moved via direct contact with the consumer population, you are dependent upon the most important cog in the sales wheel… the sales professional. My assertion is that the activity numbers, which drive the sell through numbers, are the true engine of the apparatus. They are the reason for this article. If a sales individual does not know and monitor their own personal activity numbers they will never be the best possible version of their sales-self.
What do I mean by personal activity numbers?
Allow me to provide a concrete example: 25-5-2 and 1 are my numbers. I have bought and sold every type of marketing and advertising under the sun and even to this day, decades after I hit the streets, even after all the tech changes that have created the new playing field we sell on, they are the same: 25-5-2 and 1.
If I make 25 outbound sales attempts of any flavor, be they calls, texts or emails, I will make contact in today’s busy world with 5 live humans. Out of the five, I average 2 meaningful conversations where some sincere interest is expressed, and all of this various sundry activity will yield at least one sell. My closing ratio is actually 72% so 1.7 would more accurately be the final number, but I only count on closing 50% so that I don’t entertain any “wishful thinking” during my prospecting protocol… plus 25-5-2 and 1.7 sounds weird.
I have yet to meet the day-to-day sales pro in the piano industry who knew their numbers. I feel like the self-discipline of paying attention to them is overwhelming and a psychologically scary drill for most sales individuals to want to pay attention to. It’s easier for most to simply tell themselves that they “know what they’re doing” and stay in cruise control. Here’s the hazard of this mindset: you’re lying to yourself, maybe unintentionally, but if you are selling without the self-examination of looking through the lens of your numbers, you DON’T know what you’re doing. You’re just doing stuff, a lot if it’s good because you do successfully sell on some level, but you avoid the “Come to Jesus” moment with your personal activity numbers that people who operate as top performers are willing to have. Self-examination is what this entire sales course is all about. If you haven’t noticed, your willingness to examine YOU has everything to do with how valuable it will be on your never ending journey to become the best version of your sales-self.
Here is an example of a sales activity spreadsheet that would allow a sales professional to begin gathering the necessary numbers, and manage themselves more efficiently by knowing how much time and prospecting effort it takes to get to their goal:
It is simple but extremely vital math to perform. If your goal is to sell $800k gross dollars in this next sales year, then you take your average ticket price, call it $8,000, and divide the goal by how many sales you need to get there… Everyone has done this. In this circumstance. You would need to sell 100 pianos to accomplish this. Most sales pros have also gone the next step and divided the 100 pianos by twelve to see how many per month they need to average selling to get to that goal. In this instance it is 8.3, for the sake of simplicity, and to assure you get to your goal (especially if the avg ticket falls a bit short) call it 9 per month. 9 x 12 = 108 pianos, an honorable goal. With some big hits mixed in, you could have a great year! The issue is that for most sales associates, this is where the equation ends. They set their sights on 9 per month without the mental and disciplinary strength of knowing their activity numbers, which as I alluded to earlier are THE most important numbers.
Quality activity breeds higher sales. I’ll go so far as to pose this opinion – sales are not a thing in and of themselves but more accurately a byproduct of quality activity. No activity, no sales, more and better activity, more and better sales. Hard to argue with that, right?
Now follow me back to 25-5-2-and 1. 108 pianos multiplied by 25 personal outbound attempts of various flavors (calls, texts and emails) = 2,700 attempts per annum. 2700 divided by 260 working days a year = 10.4 daily outbound attempts IF you are proficient at selling appointments, be they in person or virtual in nature. If I were managing myself, I’d set that number at eleven minimum daily outbound calls BUT your numbers are yours and these are mine. If you need to make 50 outbound attempts to facilitate 5 conversations, 2 presentations and a sale, then you need to double that number to 20 minimum daily attempts.
How long does it take in between presentations and nurturing communications and your other duties to make 50 attempts per day? The average sales person has no more than 4 hours of outbound activity energy before they run out of steam. 12.5 attempts per hour for four hours, which is half of a working day, is what you need to invest to be on target with your goal in this scenario… but let’s admit it, this is all hypothetical. Before you task yourself to any outbound disciplinary number, you have to ascertain where you are personally with your average ticket vs. your goal, at which you ultimately arrive at by knowing your commission structure, The end game can be changed by selling more of this or that and the skill sets to close more of these or those, but the primary focus is to figure out exactly what your numbers are and, subsequently, if and how they may need to change.
All of the numbers in this writing are examples.The real world will provide you the ones to plug in; this formula, however, has worked for me and those I have managed in the past. In little ole Nashville in the 90’s, we outsold all the major markets month after month including Dallas and Atlanta where Cox Communications had 8-12 sales associates on the streets, and as regional manager I had 3 plus me. That is how I was to become recruited to share my team’s sales protocol so that the other regions could benefit from the culture we had established in Nashville. If I could choose those few key things to accentuate most to get a person from the level they are performing at to the next attainable one, one of those few key elements is the self-examination of their activity in detail enough to learn their numbers.
If a salesperson, a marketing entity or a company only focuses on sales numbers and not activity numbers they put the “cart before the proverbial horse” and ignore the fuel that makes a good sales culture run.
“Either You Run The Day Or The Day Runs You.” – Jim Rohn
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Jack is a thirty year marketing and sales veteran with an insatiable appetite for contributing to the sales success of others. After leaving Cox communications in the late eighties Jack has serviced clients such as: Goodyear, Allstate, Verizon Wireless, Steinway & Sons, and numerous independent businesses. His knack for creating targeted strategies has endeared him to clients who he has been privileged to service in many instances for over two decades.
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