Jason Jordan, recently published a post on HBR Blog titled – In Sales, Can You Manage What You’re Measuring. In this post, he talks about the KPI’s that sales teams have and if they are the right sets of KPI’s.
He also talks about the fact that it far better to measure the lead indicators – “Sales Activities” to better predict and influence the result – “Sales Revenue”.
This is a very interesting blog post and brings to focus a very important topic in sales management – How can a manager hold his sales rep accountable BEFORE there is a decline in performance.
What you do once the sales rep has missed his quota is only post-mortem and if you have let it go till this situation, there is a good possibility that you would have missed your quota as well.
There are a couple of other important aspects that this post doesn’t address :
- Which of the activities of the sales manager do you measure and how? In my opinion, the front line sales manager’s role is the most critical in the entire sales organization. They are the key folks who can make the difference between a good strategy well executed and a great strategy botched up.
- The effect that the compensation plan has for both the sales rep and their managers. It is absolutely critical to ensure that whatever you intend them to work on, is represented in their comp plans.
I did write a post about my thoughts on “Building a high Performing Sales Team.
I have also written a blog post about, “What’s the Measure of a Sales Manager’s Success.
These are my thoughts. What do you think? Do let me know by commenting or tweeting to me at @rmukeshgupta.
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