Sales is a Numbers Game…Or Is It?

In many organizations, sales is a numbers game. Everyone obsesses over the numbers. The sales pipeline is broken down into a mass of metrics and everything is meticulously analyzed.

Performance is measured strictly by the numbers. The tremendous investment of time and resources that goes into gathering, measuring, and reporting sales data is written off as part of the cost of doing business. So is the time spent meeting to hash and rehash those same numbers.

With all of the numbers flying around, sometimes the really important ones—like what was actually sold today—get lost in the shuffle.

The simple truth is that there is much more to selling than the numbers themselves. The numbers are clues to performance, but focusing on—and worrying about—your numbers is almost as futile as trying to stay healthy by worrying about how many times your heart beats in a day, or how many breaths you’ve taken.

Why? Because the numbers are a record of something that has already happened.

With the football season rapidly approaching, let’s look at another analogy. The scoreboard tells the story of a game in progress. Simply by glancing at the board, we—and every player on the field—can see who’s wining and losing; we know how much time is left and what quarter we’re in. Some scoreboards even tell us who has the ball and what down it is.

But here’s the reality—the story of the game isn’t the game itself; it’s a story about it. The scoreboard can only tell us what has happened and the status of the game. Simply monitoring the scoreboard will in no way affect the outcome.

The only possible exception to this statement is that in some cases, focusing excessively on the scoreboard while the game is in progress might actually hurt a team’s chances of winning. Winning a football game requires the right game plan, effective plays, and the outstanding execution of football skills. It’s very straightforward.

The same principle applies to sales and selling. The “numbers” that we obsess over are historical. They are what they are and they can’t be changed. The numbers tell us how we did, but they don’t tell us what we need to do next.

Some sales managers will argue that numbers can in fact be proactive. This refers to the infamous “projections” that gobble up so much time and energy. Most sales people I know would readily agree that typical sales projections are either believable fiction at best or sheer fantasy at worst.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying that numbers don’t mean anything, because in the proper context, they do. But you need to understand the context, decipher the story the numbers are telling, create an action plan, and then, most importantly, take action.

One might certainly argue that the numbers can be improved going forward, but that kind of improvement doesn’t come simply from monitoring the numbers. Improving sales performance can only come from one place—taking precise, specific, and directed action.

Let’s go back to the sports analogy for a moment. A team doesn’t improve its performance between games by staring endlessly at last week’s scoreboard. Instead, players spend the time between games or matches in deliberate practice to plan their approach and improve their execution for their next contest.

The people who oversee and help to make these improvements in an athlete’s performance aren’t the scorekeepers. The people directly responsible for the successful performance of the team and individual players are the coaches.

Coaches exist to help players win games. Yes, of course they care about the final score and all of the stats. But it’s not the focus of what they do. The coach is there to help the players to get better, and to play at the highest possible level.

Consider this: Bill Gates, by just about any measure one of the world’s most successful people, had this to say about coaching:

“Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.” 

Think about it for a minute. Behind every great sports team is a great coach. Sometimes these coaches are so iconic—Vince Lombardi, for example—that they become more prominent that the team itself.

Very few Olympic gold medals have ever been awarded to an athlete without a coach. And the highest performing professional athletes in the world pay top dollar for the greatest coaches available for a very good reason—they want to continue to win.

The fact is that talent, daily practice, and attempts at self-improvement alone are not enough. These activities will only get you so far. To achieve greatness, you need a great coach. Otherwise, you are significantly limiting your success—in virtually any and every field of endeavor.

If you belong to a sales organization that focuses solely on the numbers, you might be stuck in retroactive limbo. As we’ve seen in our example, focusing on past performance alone will not have any impact on today’s sales call.

A good sales manager knows—or should know—that there is more to selling success than a spreadsheet. S/he understands the story the numbers are telling, and knows what to do to make it a story of success. The sales manager should then coach the sales team on exactly how to improve, instead of just telling them that they need to.

Good sales manages are by definition good coaches. They know how to teach and develop people.

In sales, you have to ensure that every single day you are executing at the highest possible level. Immersing yourself in the numbers every day won’t do that. That’s exactly what a sales manager or coach must help you to do.

If you are in a competitive selling environment that focuses on the numbers, and if your sales manager isn’t helping you to succeed, follow the example of the worlds greatest, most successful athletes—hire one yourself.

Yes, your company will benefit from your personal investment. More importantly, however, so will you. As your performance improves, your income will increase—along with your marketability. Your career capital is portable. Your sales coach will help you to increase your value, not only to your present employer, but to anyone else you choose to work with in the future.

The right sales manager or coach can help you to improve your sales performance and the results that you produce. If your sales manager isn’t helping you go grow, find a sales coach who will.