ProActive Sales Management, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7

If You Can't Measure It, Why Do It?

To be effective, a manager must manage to a quantifiable set of standards. This is important for many reasons; communication and expectations are just two of the more obvious ones.

Unfortunately, in some companies sales management tracks revenues only. There are two reasons for this: One, it is easy to get the revenue numbers; and two, it is the only scorecard against which most managers have ever measured. The following are typical comments heard all around the sales world:

“Jim has a quota of $500,000 and he has sold $400,000 Y-T-D. So Jim is at 80 percent of his number.”

“Karen is at 112 percent of her number. She must be doing a great job.”

“Don has finished at 93 percent of the revenue plan.” ...