Man, in the world of sales and marketing it is so easy to fall in love with numbers and metrics that make you feel useful and productive.
But the question I ask so many of my clients and prospects is: are the thing you measure really all that important?
Sometimes I get a knee jerk: “Oh yes, absolutely!”
But more times than not, I get a pained look and some squirming because the answer is usually something closer to, “I don’t really know.”
Which typically boils down to a simpler answer: We’ve always done it this way.
The fact is that too many sales and marketing organizations simply measure activities because that is what they have always done.
Even with new technologies and new ways of touching customers, activity measures are still popular, even if they are useless in many cases.
They are trading quantity for quality.
Common mistake.
The thing is that for most of us, quantity isn’t the most important thing…it is often detrimental, taking our focus off of more important things.
So how do we narrow our focus to make sure we aren’t just chasing our tails?
Here are a few ideas:
Understand what outcomes or results are important to your overall success:
I’ll use my business as an example.
I’ve figured out over time that if I have 8 sales conversations a month, those turn into 4 more substantial conversations, and that one or two of those become clients.
If I do that, over and over, I am successful.
What are the statistics and measures that get you there?
Find a way to track those meaningful measures of success:
If it is something like meetings, that is pretty easy to measure.
But for some of you, it might be something that is a little bit more difficult to cover.
You are going to have to do a little work, but you need to make sure you have an understanding of what you can measure that is outcome focused that will enable you to get closer to your goals.
Measure your results against these outcomes so that you know your numbers:
My number is 8 meetings that turn into 4 better conversations that turn into 1 or 2 sales.
Your mileage may vary.
The key is that you need to figure out what everything means. This means you will have to have a little trial and error in your measuring until you come across your own formula.