9 Sales Metrics to Increase Your Sales Territory Success: Plan Like Alexander The Great

Alexander the Great was born sometime around 355 BC in the area of Macedonia near Greece. While still in his early teens, Alexander grew to become a fearless and aggressive strategy-based leader who sought to conquer the whole world.

After wining the battle of Granicus (his first battle), his reputation spread quickly as a calculating, premeditated warrior known for his front line charges and coordinated attacks based on a systematic approach of planning each sequential step in his war campaign.

By the time Alexander was 23 years old, he was recognized as a controversial leader who had conquered half of the known world.

Historians debate his tactics and ambitions, but they all agree that his planning and detailed battle metrics were key factors for his success against entrenched competitors with larger armies.

Like Alexander, salespeople can plan their sales battle to minimize failure and increase their potential for sales success.

Having a sales strategy is good,
but having a sales execution plan is better!

Understanding the business metrics you need to hit your sales quota is the key to hitting personal income goals.

In many ways, sales is a mathematical model.

The following are 9 sales metrics you should use in planning sequential steps to win your sales battle. Most salespeople track their sales closing ratio as well as the overall value of their sales pipeline as business planning tools. But these two steps, although important, need to be part of a larger more detailed sequential plan to help salespeople hit their sales quota and companies reach their revenue goals.

9 Sales Metrics That Should Be Tracked

1. Closing ratio by job title of buyer (highest contact to whom you present.) This measures the title of executive you sell to help quantify where most of your sales will come from and helps you focus on changing your sales communication with executives who are harder to sell (i.e., closing ratios for CFO’s versus CIO’s.)
2. Dollar value of lost submitted proposals. This tracks potential sales volume in a territory, quality of your proposal messaging, and the sales success of a salesperson based on opportunity, not just an assigned quota.
3. Closing ratio by product or type of professional service you sell. Measures your sales communication success for each offering and identifies your strengths and weakness based on selling a product or service.
4. Closing ratio based on proposals submitted. Measures effectiveness of the style and content delivery of your sales proposals.
5. Closing ratio by geography. Helps identify local market demand anomalies and buying patterns by region. Also identifies market and sales quota enlargement opportunities.
6. Closing ratio by deal dollar value. Tracks market price resistance for your product or service and the strategic entry price-point in order to sell more. Also identifies areas in which salespeople may need training based on a price/value presentation.
7. Sales cycle length for each product or service. Helps identify sales forecasting accuracy based on average time for each type of sale.
8. Cold calls by phone, by LinkedIn and by partner referral per day to new prospects. Measures your attack on new business hunting capacity.
9. Warm calls per day to existing customers. Measures sales commitment to sell additional revenue to existing clients.

Have a plan, follow the plan, and you’ll be surprised how successful you can be. Most people don’t have a plan. That’s why it’s easy to beat most folks. – Paul “Bear” Bryant, football coach