National Sales Center

How To Monitor Sales Activity

Tracking sales activity requires a balance between quantity and quality. What good, for example, is a sales funnel overflowing with unqualified “prospects” that will never buy anything?

I understand the need for high activity numbers and there is a way to insure these numbers are balanced with a quality factor.

The way to keep all sales activity numbers˜honest” is to monitor the “conversion rate”. In other words, how much of that activity resulted in the successful generation of “the next step”. You will soon discover why this is so very important.

Tracking the number of telemarketing calls made by a rep is important, but it is much more important to monitor how many call resulted in an appointment. Why give an award to a sales rep that made 200 canvassing calls only to get 3 appointments. Give the award to the sales rep that made 100 calls and got 10 appointments.  “Sales” is all about results, not effort.

Reporting Sales Activity

Let’s take a look at how sales appointment activity is tracked. Sure we all want a lot of appointments but how many result in a second appointment or a proposal? When you track sales activity with the “conversion rate” in mind, you begin to understand deficiencies that need to improve. This is an important point and one I’ll get back to in a paragraph or two.

The one “conversion rate” factor that can never by overlooked when tracking sales activity is Close Rate. A sales rep’s Close Rate is the ultimate conversion factor and it brings “honesty” to all other sales activity numbers. All sales activity must be tracked back to the Close Rate. Failure to do so leaves you with a bunch of meaningless numbers. Track sales activity as potential orders flow through the sales process.

What is the motivation behind tracking sales activity? At times, we track sales activity because we have a manager that wants these reports. Then there are those “managers” that simply don’t trust their reps and want to insure they are working. Others incorrectly believe that a 50% increase in sales activity will result in a 50% increase in sales. I believe the leading reason for tracking sales activity should be to understand a sales rep’s weaknesses and that’s why the “conversion rate” is so important. Only then can you recommend the right sales training courses.

One sales rep could be great at prospecting but lacks the sales skills to close orders. Another sales rep may be great at closing sales but needs better sales prospecting skills. The best way to uncover a sales rep’s deficiencies is to tack sales activity with the “conversion rate” in mind.

How To Track Sales Activity

There is a point when sales reps can’t work any harder. I’ve seen sales managers drive sales appointments only to see the number of appointments increase while the number of sales decreased. This happens because in an effort to please their sales managers, the sales reps began wasting their time on unqualified appointments. Sales managers exist to help their salespeople succeed not just to drive activity for no other reason than to have a good-looking sales activity report.

You help sales reps succeed by analyzing the “conversion rate” when tracking sales activity. Use that “conversion rate” to monitor a sales rep’s skills deficiencies. Then, help that sales rep succeed by getting them the right sales training.

I wish you great sales success by properly tracking sales activity!

Nick Moreno

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Tags: monitoring sales activity, tracking sales activity