Indirectly Manageable Metrics: Sales Objectives

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An example of an “unmanageable metric” is revenue per rep. No sales manager can simply command a salesperson to have more revenue (though many have tried). There are many factors that affect a salesperson’s revenue number, so it, therefore, cannot be directly managed by a sales leader. Using this one criterion as the basis for our undertaking, we soon discovered three distinct levels of “manageability” into which nearly all of the metrics fell—Sales Activities, Sales Objectives, and Business Results.

Highly Manageable Metrics: Sales Activities
All of the metrics that were deemed directly “manageable” were related to salesperson or sales manager activities. These Sales Activities (and the larger processes to which they belong) can be managed through unilateral decisions of a sales manager.

For example, sales managers can direct their salespeople to complete account plans for their major customers, or they can select the types of training that they provide to their reps. These types of decisions provide the only sales force metrics that can truly be managed with any level of certainty and control because they are the immediate results of actionable decisions by a salesperson or manager.

Many of the metrics we observed were measures of nepal telegram data success in achieving specific selling goals or Sales Objectives. Sales Objectives are not unilateral decisions that can be directed by a manager since they require some level of agreement by customers or employees, but Sales Objectives can be influenced indirectly by managing the preceding Sales Activities that lead to Sales Objectives. For example, a sales manager cannot direct a customer to hand over a higher share-of-wallet (a Sales Objective), but they can direct their salespeople to increase their account planning activities (a Sales Activity) which should ultimately affect the share-of-wallet they receive from their customers.

Sales Objective metrics have a high value in diagnosing problems and planning future Sales Activities. They help you to measure what you’ve achieved, determine what you want to accomplish, and decide how you need to change your processes to make the new Sales Objectives happen.

Unmanageable Metrics: Business Results
Our final category of metrics we observed, Business Results, include very high-level outcomes, often at the enterprise level. Business Results have no direct relationship to Sales Activities or processes and cannot be managed directly. Business Results can only be influenced by achieving certain intermediary Sales Activities that are driven by Sales Objectives that lead to desired Business Results. For example, a sales manager cannot directly affect market share (a Business Result), but an increase in customer share-of-wallet (a Sales Objective) should lead to an overall increase in market share.