We have metrics for virtually anything in selling. We have endless performance metrics, activity measures, pipeline/forecast, deal, prospecting, account retention, growth and other metrics. We have marketing and customer experience metrics. It seems we want to and can measure almost anything in selling, but we struggle with how to use them.
As an example, every year, I must review over 1000 pipelines. They are rarely healthy. When I ask sellers what they are doing to fix their pipelines, the universal answer is, “We have to fill the pipeline, we need our people to do more prospecting!”
That is a fine answer–but I look at the volumes of emails sellers, collectively, are inflicting on customers and the plummeting open/response rates; that’s a big lift–particularly for an opportunity starved pipeline.
I rarely find sellers and their leaders looking at other alternatives. Ways they can start tilting the numbers in their favor or finding different ways to solve the pipeline problem. Too often, they take pipeline metrics as given, not looking how they can change them, tilting them in their favor.
To be honest, I’ve always been a bit of a lazy seller. Using the previous example, doing more prospecting, finding and qualifying new opportunities is a lot of work–I know I have to prospect and keep my pipeline filled, but adding more on top of that to fix an anemic pipeline is just too much work. Even with all the tools, technology, AI, it’s still a lot of work!
Immediately, I tend to think, “How do I win more of the opportunities I’ve found and qualified?” It makes sense, doesn’t it? Rather than spending all the time to find even more opportunities, what if I just increase my win rate? I’m stunned at the win rates too many sellers accept. Just this morning, I read an exchange between two experts lamenting win rates in SaaS at 17%! Their conversation wasn’t about how to improve the win rate, rather how to find sufficient opportunities to make their goals.
The majority of the pipelines I look at have win rates less than 25%—with most falling below 20%. That means, I have to find and compete in at least 5 times the number of opportunities I need to achieve my goals.
Whew! That’s a lot of work!!! My lazy mind goes to, “If I can increase my win rate from 20% to 40%, I only have to work half as many deals to make my quota. I can afford to spend more time on those deals, making sure I can win them. And that ripples through to prospecting. At a 40% win rate, I only need to qualify 50% of the number of deals I needed at a 20% win rate, I don’t have to prospect nearly as much!
This is heaven for the lazy seller!
There are all sort of other ways, just when we look at our pipelines. What If I chased larger opportunities? I’d have to win fewer to make my goals than at my 20% win rate? Or what if I could reduce the sales cycle? What if we could reduce “No Decision Made” (Which is an aspect of win rate)? Or what if I could do all of these things?
For every aspect of selling, for virtually every key metric we track, there are multiple ways that we can look at achieving our goals! Yet too often, we do more of what we always have done. And at some point, this breaks.
For prospecting, for example, we shouldn’t accept the low meeting rates, low open rates, and so forth. We have to start trying to understand, “Why aren’t we getting more meetings out of what we are doing? What would we have to change to incite more of the right meetings, without increasing the volume?” What if we changed our engagement, outreach, and messaging strategies.
As we look at tilting the numbers in our favor, we have to understand what they are, what they mean, and what produces them. We have to drill down into the key metrics understanding what causes them and what might happen if we can change those things. It forces us to think, “Are we going after the right people/organizations? Are we engaging them where and how they want to be engaged? Are we trying to engage them on issues they care deeply about? Why don’t our outreaches resonate with with prospects? Do we stand out in their email inboxes, social channels? What do we have to do to stand out in all the noise?And on and on….”
We all fall into the trap of doing what we’ve always done. But when doing what we’ve always done fails, we don’t win by doing more of those things.
Find your “laziest” sellers that consistently make their goals. Odds are they have broken the code.
Afterword: Below is the AI generated discussion of this post. Enjoy!
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