Sales Success Key #2 -- Numbers Orientation

Sure, “sales is a numbers game”—but that usually refers to the idea of throwing spaghetti against the wall with the knowledge that inevitably some of it will stick. That’s the simple part of the numbers aspect of selling. There’s a much more rigorous part too.

In my opinion the most successful salespeople think in terms of volume and rates. I don’t just mean they sit with a spreadsheet and crunch and study those numbers—though they might. I’m suggesting that their brains have been trained to actually work that way. Or, they were born that way; the style of thinking is, after all, basically rational. In the same way that you seek to invest your money in accounts with the biggest return, or pay off credit cards that charge the highest interest rate first, salespeople too must invest their primary asset—the minutes of their day—into the activities that yield the best return. In a capitalistic environment, a salesperson ought to sell as much as possible (the volume part), with as much profit per sale (the rate part) as possible. And to do all this in the finite amount of time available.

We don’t want volume alone; we want profitable volume. We don’t want as many appointments as we can get, or to give as many presentations as possible; we want them to be qualified appointments and presentations to audiences who are most likely to proceed with a commitment. It’s a balancing act; we seek to optimize both.

If I have a geographical sales territory, I want to be efficient in my travels. If I manage big accounts, I want to apportion my time based on where I’ll get the biggest bang for my minutes. If I generate leads, I want to know the rate at which they convert and make a science of measuring cost per lead and cost per sale by lead source. If I focus too much on volume, then I might blow it on efficiency. If I focus too much on efficiency, or profitability, or productivity, then I might not get the volume I need.

Every business has its mathematics. The best salespeople think mathematics. In retail, for example, the game is to get as many customers into the door as possible, maximize the rate at which they walk out with a shopping bag in their hand, maximize the average cash register transaction value, and optimize the average profit percentage per transaction. Volume and rates. Volume and rates.

It takes a person with honed left brained intuition to succeed at this game. Or natural skills in differential calculus such that you dream of minimums and maximums. Or a boss who harps.

The problem with all this, of course, is that integrity and compliance with laws and policies need to be woven into the picture. All this striving must be done within certain parameters. Therein is the clash between capitalist values and, well, other stuff.

We’ll save that for another day.