Sales Ratio Drop Offs

In yesterday’s post, we began to discuss why it is so important that you track your activities and results.  Our primary focus is to “self-diagnose” areas in which your skill set needs to improve.

Today, we will discuss how to use your sales activity and results data to understand where the issues may be that are impeding your success.

Although there may be some variance by industry, I will guide you to track your activity and results in several key areas:

ACTIVITY: Qualifying Leads

• Track how many “raw” leads successfully move through your qualification process versus how many are discarded.

ACTIVITY: Contacting Qualified Leads

• Track how many contact attempts you make on your qualified leads and how many appointments for sales presentations/conversations you schedule. For this category, initial contacts and follow up attempts should be combined.

ACTIVITY: Sales Presentations/Conversations Completed:

• Track how many sales presentations are completed from the appointments that were scheduled.

ACTIVITY: Follow Up Contacts:

• Track how many follow up contacts you make after the sales presentation has been completed (but prior to closing the sale).

PRIMARY RESULTS:

• Sales Closed: How many sales do you close from your sales presentations?
• Commission Earned: How much commission have you earned?

Now, calculate your success percentages and ratios. Percentages are calculated as the result divided by the activity.  The ratios are always the activity divided by the result:

• Divide your qualified leads by your “raw” leads you began with. (EX: 70 qualified leads/100 raw leads = 70%)  1.42 raw leads to 1 qualified lead
• Divide your appointments scheduled by your qualified leads. (EX: 7 appointments scheduled/70 leads qualified = 10%) 10 qualified leads contacted to schedule 1 appointment
• Divide your sales presentations/conversations completed by your appointments scheduled. (EX: 6 presentations completed/7 appointments scheduled = 85.7%) 1.16 appointment scheduled to complete 1 presentation
• SPECIAL – Divide your follow up contacts by your sales closed for ratios only. EX: 4 follow up contacts/2 sales closed = 2 follow up contacts to close 1 sale
• Divide your sales closed by your sales presentations/conversations completed. (EX: 2 sales closed/6 presentations made = 33.3%) 3 sales presentations made to close 1 sale
• Divide your commissions earned by your sales closed. (EX: $4,000 commission earned/2 sales made = $2,000 [no percentage on this one]) average commission per sale = $2,000

Self-Diagnose any areas for improvement.  Check with your sales leader or trusted sales coach.  How do your ratios compare to those expected in your industry?  When you see any area where your results are less than industry standards; work on improving that specific activity.  For example, if you only get 70% of your raw leads qualified – and your industry normally gets 85% of their raw leads qualified, you may need to find a different lead source or work on what you say or do during your lead qualification process.

Tomorrow we will discuss how sales leaders and sales people can get creative to improve the skill sets that will bring better ratios.

QUESTION:

What happens to your income if you improve your closing ratio by 15%?