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Relationship Selling Metrics: Face-to-Face & Write-Ups

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Relationship Selling Metrics: Face-to-Face & Write-Ups

Guest writer Floyd Jerkins continues his series on Relationship Selling Metrics by looking at the numbers in face-to-face sales and also in your tracking of your sales with write-ups, and a careful system of staying organized.

Operating a business requires a basic understanding of financial management. Knowing the numbers is important in making good decisions. If your expenses are too high or sales are dropping off you make changes. Do you know how many customers your sales team talks to every week? Many organizations don’t know the answer and are leaving thousands of dollars on the table for a competitor to get.

Ok, let me do a reality check. There are issues with starting to measure a sales team’s effectiveness. Typically, the measurements start with sales volume and other financial metrics. Make no mistake about it; I am a proponent of these. The challenge is to identify where the sales process can be improved before the close of the sale. When you can enhance salespeople’s actions from the start to the end of the sale, the closing ratio goes up significantly.

By now in your business life cycle, you have some sort of a CRM in place. Various tools on the market are either simple or as complex as you want. Getting your sales team to log each sales action properly is yet another challenge and a whole article all to itself. So, with my disclaimers in place, let’s explore.

Measuring a salesperson’s success by the total revenue they generate is only one part of the equation. If a salesperson is selling 5 million a year, but leaving 5 million on the table, really, how good are they?

First, to be successful in sales, you have to talk to a lot of people. You also have to give a price to make a sale. Simple, right? Here is my rationale for a few sales performance metrics to get us started. Each CRM, as well as your organization, may call them something different, so please read between the lines if you will.

  • Face-to-Face Contacts- This category measures how many face-to-face contacts a salesperson encounters on a day, week, and month. This could be a new prospect who has never been to your store or a previous owner who’s bought from you before or even a referral.
  • Sold- Meaning the product is sold and delivered. Paperwork is done, financing is approved, and the checks have cleared.
  • Write Up- Meaning that the salesperson quoted a price and then wrote the order. This doesn’t mean it’s closed, just that a written order was initiated.

Sample Questions About Performance

What percent of Face-to-face to Sold do you think is a good number? 

In the article, Relationship Selling- How to Measure Sales Success, I outline the basics of measuring the types of customers most businesses have. The average closing ratio, many say is 20%. I think that’s a weak number and here’s why.

Long-standing businesses have repeat customers. What if your sales team has 100 Face-to-Face contacts in a month that are repeat customers? Do you think closing 20% is acceptable? I don’t. The salespersons selling process needs to be revised because they cost the business thousands of dollars. Factor in your marketing investment to get an ROI that’s not impressive.

Take each “unit” the salesperson sells and divide that by the total number of face-to-face contacts in a given time period. If you establish a salesperson has a 20% closing ratio, what if they could improve that 5%? A 5% increase would increase the “unit” sales. This is a “natural” increase to make more sales. It doesn’t cost you anything if you help your salesperson improve their effectiveness.

Your business should be closing at least 40% to 60% of your repeat customers. Without measuring, you have wishful thinking. 

What percent of Write-Ups to Face-to-Face contacts is a good number for an experienced salesperson?

Typically, a salesperson will share a price with a customer before they even qualify what the customer wants. This is generally because that’s one of the first questions a customer asks, “How much is it?” Salespeople feel obligated to answer every question vs. learning to control the sale through questions.

The rule of high volume and high margin sales is never price before you establish value. 

A salesperson who verbally prices, especially if they don’t establish value before pricing, will have a lower closing ratio compared to a salesperson who makes written quotes every time they price. Increase the number of professional write-ups, and you will close more sales. 

80% of all pricing should be in writing. 

How effective is an experienced salesperson that sells 30% of their previous customers? 

Let’s say you are measuring the type of customers your sales team is talking with. You know the % of each category. Every time a salesperson prices a customer and a sale is not made right then, the customer leaves the business.

Statistically, I know that most salespeople are not good with follow up. Nearly 7 out of 10 don’t follow up within 24 hours after they price a customer who doesn’t immediately buy. Part of this is because sales managers often focus their team in the wrong direction due to various financial or inventory pressures. The other part is they lack a system as well as the verbal strategies to service the customer. Many salespeople are great at selling the sales manager on why they shouldn’t call back, or they wait on the customer to “get back to them” as they artificially promised.

If this experienced salesperson is only selling 3 out of 10 customers, what is happening to the other 7? If you have a sales team of 10 with a 30% ratio, look how much is being lost due to an inefficient sales process.

Measuring allows you to know the realities of how to improve your sales team’s behaviors and maximize your marketing budget. 

Measuring tells you exactly where to influence the behaviors of your salesperson and sales team. 

Learning to be Effective Starts with Performance Sales Metrics

Talking to a measured number of prospects in a given period of time is just part of being successful in sales. There are only so many selling hours in a day, week, and month. Learning how to be effective with each contact starts the journey of successful time management.

By establishing value and knowing how to communicate that to a prospect, the closing ratio goes up dramatically, but so do the margins. A sales-driven organization takes time, energy, and the correct vision to have a highly competent team.

What are the performance sales metrics for your sales team? 

Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.

What Is the Role of the Sales Rep in the Digital Dealership?

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What is the role of the sales rep in the Digital Dealership?

In tonight’s blog, guest writer Mets Kramer defines and explains what exactly is the role of the sales rep in the Digital Dealership.

At this year’s AED Summit, I ended up in the same conversation several times.  It took one of two forms.  First, the question was raised, what is the role of the sales rep at dealerships in the future? The second, even more blunt, do sales reps still have a use?  If they do have a use, what is it?

Let’s start off by saying, absolutely, sales reps are still important and will likely remain important.

Yet, the fact that these questions are being asked suggests the role of the sales rep must change.  When I spoke to dealers, reps and even some customers, over the course of the event, it became clear that customers are changing.   Modern customers, typically next generation owners or their buyers, have no use for the coffee-bringing and unprepared rep that comes for a chat and to ask “do you need anything”.    Customers now have access to all the information they need about the equipment they are interested in.  From numerous websites, social media and videos a contractor can research to their heart’s content.  They find specifications, performance review, instructional videos and opinions.  They use this information to make their purchase decision, often without the need or involvement of a sales rep.  In a 2014 survey by the Acquity Group, only 12% of all respondents wanted to see a sales rep.  The rest wanted to do their research and get various forms of on demand support.  Imagine how much that has changed in 8 years and with Covid’s acceleration to digital.

When I was responsible for parts and service in Canada years ago, I loved getting invited by sales reps to meet their customers. When we arrived, conversation was always lively, with customers expressing their problems and concerns and we were able to discuss solutions.  Sometimes these meetings took several hours but there was always value.   I started to realize that customers were busy, knew their business and valued their time.  When the conversation was valuable customers were happy to receive us, if not, they had work to get back to.  It’s this question of value, the value we bring when we visit the customer that is changing the role of the sales rep.  Providing value gives us access to the customer’s time and allows us to build a relationship.

Years ago, sales reps were the ones with product training and access to specifications and brochures.  Their value derived from having access to information that customers didn’t have available.  As the internet has taken over a huge part of that role, the value of brochure bearing sales reps has dwindled.  The new opportunity is the role of Trusted Advisor.   This role can focus on different aspects of the customer’s business, but typically it’s based on providing customers with a more in-depth understanding of their equipment and fleet in the context of their business.   For the sales rep it’s a golden opportunity to develop a richer relationship with customers, by bringing more value to their customers, but with a new perspective.

For dealers and manufacturers this transition comes with several challenges.   The first is recognizing the change is happening and unavoidable.  Second it will require restructuring and retraining salespeople and finally dealers will have to become more knowledgeable about their customer’s business and put information in place to allow salespeople to bring new valuable insights to their customers.

This first challenge might be the hardest, it’s one caused by a generational and expectation gap between senior leaders at dealership and the age and expectations of the buyers and decision makers at their customers.   If dealers continue to believe their customers think and act the way they used to, they will make the mistake of continuing old sales models.  They risk continuing to provide sales teams with only modest product training and nothing of further value and they risk having customers who see no value in the sales rep or the dealership.

Once dealers and manufacturers wake up to the new reality of their customer’s expectations, the second challenge begins.  It starts with redefining the role of salespeople, it means recognizing the new and changing channels of communication customers prefer and identifying the areas of knowledge reps need to be trained in.  To some degree this will require sales teams with different backgrounds and skillsets.  They will have to be able to understand construction, contracting and fleet finance.  Dealers will have to invest in more training than in the past.

Finally, after recognizing the change, dealers, with the support of manufacturers, will need to create tools and information that exceeds the capabilities of their customers. These tools will need to be accessible to salespeople in real time, as customers are more informed and want to transact faster.  The information will have to give the sales rep and the customer new insights into fleet management, finance, and project or production costs.   Armed with this information the rep will continue to be a valuable resource for their customers.  They will continue to be welcome.

Once implemented, this new role for dealers and reps will provide even deeper relationships, not only based on friendship and personality, but on knowledge and understanding.  For those dealers that make this change soon it will be a source of competitive advantage and differentiation.  What’s clear is customers are making or have already made the change.  Their expectations are different, how they prefer to engage has changed more than dealers think.

Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.

Overcoming Objections – PTS-WE-U09

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Overcoming Objections – PTS-WE-U09

The sales process is complicated. Determining the right customers to call on the telephone is not easy. But all of that work is undermined if the individual on the telephone with the customer does not know how to handle the objections that the customer might present.

How these objections are handled can make the difference between a sales success and a failure. This webinar deals with the methods to employ: the “how to” of overcoming objections. In the sales process typically you are looking for an order or at least a positive outcome of the sales call. In order to achieve that outcome, it has to be understood that the customer has to learn about what it is that you are selling. In many cases, an objection is simply an indication that customer does not have enough information yet to make an informed decision.

From keeping your cool, to making the objection specific, and providing compensating factors, everything about the “how to” overcome an objection is exposed.  If you no longer want to run the risk of losing a sale, you can’t miss this one!

The time is now.