Imagine you have two sales people on your team. The first one makes 25 outbound calls in an hour. The other makes 35 calls in an hour? Who did a better job?
Ahh… you say there isn’t enough information to decide. Ok, they both made eight contacts. So, who is tops? Still need more information? The first sales person averaged three minutes per call. The other averaged six minutes per call. Now, who is the best?
I can go on drilling into the numbers but they are only meaningful if we have developed a sales performance model to which we can contrast the results.
The first step in that exercise is identifying the criteria of an effective sales call: what must be accomplished for a call to be considered a success? Outcome-based selling tells us that you first identify the objective and then develop the plan to achieve it.
The second step is identifying the expected call duration to achieve the call objectives. This is a key part of the model. If we determined that it should take 4,5 minutes to reach success, we can contrast the model with actual results…and identify performance improvement opportunities with our sales team.
The sales person who averaged three minutes per call may need coaching on rapport building, needs analysis questioning or concern handling to reach the desired outcomes.
The sales person who averaged six minutes per call may be unnecessarily extending the discussion which limits her ability to reach more prospects and sell more. Minutes on the phone and number of dials don’t tell you anything without a sales performance model in place.
