Tracking The Effectiveness Of Your Inside Sales Reps
There are a variety of metrics we all use to determine the effectiveness of our inside sales reps. Below are probably the most common ways that I've seen over the years:
- # of daily activities (dials/emails)
- Connect or conversation rate
- Talk time
- Leads passed
- Percentage of leads converted to forecast
- Percentage of forecasted leads resulting in closed business
While I would say that each of these metrics are important in evaluating your inside reps effectiveness, it's tough to put our finger on one being more important than the others. The problem is that even our best people struggle with being solidly consistent in each and every one of these categories.
Most people use lead volume as the primary way to ultimately evaluate the effectiveness of inside rep. What we have to take into consideration is that there are a variety of factors that can have an impact on your inside sales reps' success or failure.
For example you could have huge success in calling into the education vertical, but it could be completely different ballgame when dialing into the retail industry. Or let's say you just launched a new product expecting to see a huge amount of interest out of the gates, but the lead volume is much lower than what you're seeing with the flagship product. Sometimes it just a matter of getting the name out there but the lead volume has a high likelihood of suffering when you’re making the initial push. As you ramp your calling, my recommendation is to put a reasonable goal in front of your reps until you have a true sense of the marketplace.
So is there truly a fair way to measure quality of the work your reps are putting in?
While I wouldn't say there is one perfect metric, I would say my favorite is "lead rate". This usually tends to be a good litmus test on the level of talent you're working with.
This is measured by:
# of Quality Sales Convos divided by leads converted to the outside team.
From my perspective this is one of the most important tools in determining the quality of the person you have on the phones. They can make dials all day long and could have 5 hours of talk time, but if they are not making the most out of their conversations it will most likely be their biggest reason for failure. We all know how difficult it is getting a decision maker live, the question is how effectively are we using the time when we’ve captured their attention?
As we all know there are many ways to measure your inside reps success. My recommendation would be to start thinking of alternate ways of determining what makes a rep truly effective. Falling back on the standard metrics are necessary, but it may not always give you a true sense of the talent/potential of every member of your team.