President/CEO of Tyson Group, #1 WSJ and USA Today bestselling author, expert sales negotiator/consultant for the world's biggest brands
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This year’s spring training is far behind us. For the salespeople and baseball fans among us, we find ourselves once again inspired by the lessons and inspiration offered throughout the history of America’s favorite pastime. Some of these stories can be applied to teams both on the baseball field and in the office.
One favorite example of mine is seen in one of the most disruptive wildcards in baseball history. This story is portrayed in the bestselling book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, which was later adapted into the successful film Moneyball.
For the uninitiated, the storyline follows how the Oakland A’s leveraged Bill James’ statistical analysis methodology called “sabermetrics” to recruit the right talent so they could effectively compete against more powerful franchises—even those who could afford the best sluggers and the quickest fastballs in the league.
An industry is disrupted.
What the Oakland As realized is that games aren’t simply won or lost based on the best ERAs and RBIs. When put under a microscope, statistics tell a much different story. And you must leverage data to win.
Historically, baseball organizations have been notorious data collectors, taking detailed records of every single player’s batting average, RBIs, percentage of stolen bases, singles, doubles, triples—you name the action, it’s been recorded. The problem—or the opportunity that the Oakland As saw—was that most franchises only used certain stats as a yardstick to recruit talent.
Here are three predictors for achieving a successful sales outcome by leveraging the power of data.
1. Make observations from the field.
A good sales leader is a game coach—always observing interactions, behaviors and skill sets during a game scenario. In sales, how often are you watching? Are you making observations in the field using technology to observe how your salespeople are interacting with prospects? Are you roleplaying? Are you running through your sales team’s prep work—their planning sheets?
2. Use metrics that matter.
Sales is just like baseball: There are stats for everything. But when you are coaching or building a winning sales team, are you looking at the metrics that matter? Are your salespeople efficient but not effective? Or are they effective and not efficient? I know a lot of sales professionals who can make 50 to 100 dials a day, but it doesn’t mean they can sell when they do get an appointment. I also know salespeople who will waste an inordinate number of resources to get the job done, which cuts into their profitability. Always use metrics that matter: number of dials, first appointment booked rate, second appointment booked rate, close rate, referrals, etc.
3. Utilize assessments.
Are you using tools that can assess your sales team? Have you ever done a 360° assessment on your salespeople? Have you measured their strengths and weaknesses? Have you ever thought about doing a personality assessment to look at the way they think about themselves and others? If you don’t assess your sales team regularly, how else are you going to measure—let alone improve upon—competencies and skillsets?
Taking Your Team To The World Series Of Sales
For the sales leaders among us, our journey to a successful year is going to be determined by how well our teams train and critically reflect upon their use of the data-based sales metrics outlined above. Now is the time to start making observations and asking yourself the right questions: This year’s season is just getting started.
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