Have you identified the key sales performance indicators that are dragging you down? I conduct Sales Performance Evaluator™ web-cast meetings across the country to help sales management diagnose were they are weak and were they are strong, all pointing to unique systematic training processes to gain more sales revenue in less time. The evaluation is based on real sales performance numbers in line with revenue objectives, so it’s ultimately an objective review versus a subjective approach.

My findings show that 90% of the time the sales force under the 'sales performance microscope' is not achieving enough new sales appointments to have a ‘right to win’ in line with their sales objectives. Simply put, they are not putting enough logs on the fire to keep it burning.

Simply put, they are not putting enough logs on the fire to keep it burning.

Does your sales force ‘put enough logs on the fire’ in line with your current key sales performance indicators and your sales objective? If they are not, you should be looking closely at what I term the #1 sales competency in sales; the conversation-to-appointment ratio.

Let’s take a close look at the Conversation-to-Appointment ratio. This is the number of conversations it takes to generate a single sales appointment. Most sales organizations do not measure, let alone emphasize or train around the “Conversation-to-Appointment Ratio.” Most do not know what it means.

Consider your own Conversation-to-Appointment Ratio. I’ve asked hundreds of sales professionals, “What is your conversation-to-appointment ratio? The typical answer (after a bunch of back and forth) is about 10-25 prospecting conversations will yield 1-2 sales appointments. That’s a 4-20% success ratio.

And that equates to a lot of prospecting conversations and a lot of time to achieve enough new business sales appointments each week to be successful. In fact, the sales management leaders that have gone through my sales performance Evaluator™ sessions spend 40%-60% of their time on sales prospecting activities and are still coming up short on their sales appointment generation barometer.