Sales Is Still A Numbers Game

By Gil Cargill, Sales Acceleration Coach

But, the numbers that you need to monitor and measure have changed dramatically, and I do mean dramatically. Back in my early days of selling for IBM, one of our management's mantra was “calls plus presentations equals sales,” and that worked.

But, in today’s world, there are many other metrics that need to be monitored, in order to optimize the results of your selling efforts. Keep in mind that most sales teams spend much of their time trying to generate leads. In other words, they’re trying to fill the funnel; and that’s important, but…

• What would happen to your top and bottom lines, were you able to increase the margin per deal by, let’s say, just 10 percent?
• What would happen to your top and bottom lines, were you able to shorten your sales cycle by as little as 10 percent?
• What would happen, if you were able to generate 10 percent more revenue from your existing accounts?
• What would happen, if you were able to get 10 percent more qualified leads from marketing?
• What would happen, if you spent 10 more minutes per day engaged in revenue-producing activities?

You see, all of the questions above are intended to point out that any one of those action items will produce an uptick in your top and bottom line. If you are able to do more than one, then there’s a compounding effect on your top and bottom line. By impacting two or three — perhaps, four — of those action items/levers, I've seen sales organizations increase their revenue by as much as 40 percent or 45 percent!  And, they do that without hiring one more salesperson.

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