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What Is Your Sales Team’s A. Q.?
Written by: Keith BentonArticle Overview: It has been known for some time that if you want to measure an individual’s intelligence, you administer an Intelligence Quotient test. This has been an accepted method of measuring one’s intelligence for many years. In sales management, intelligence is important, but this does not get you closer to measuring or predicting your sales team’s effectiveness or the ability to predict with any certainty the projections of future sales. How do measure this? With an A. Q. test.
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What Is Your Sales Team’s A. Q.?
It has been known for
some time that if you want to measure an individual’s intelligence,
you administer an Intelligence Quotient test. This has been an
accepted method of measuring one’s intelligence for many years. In
sales management, intelligence is important, but this does not get
you closer to measuring or predicting your sales team’s
effectiveness or the ability to predict with any certainty the
projections of future sales. How do measure this? With an A. Q. test.
A. Q. is Activities
Quotient. In sales management, you have probably already
figured out two primary things. One, you can never know for sure who
will be successful and who will not. Every applicant will let you
know in the interview process that they are the best salesperson you
have ever met. However, while some will be telling the truth, some
might tend to exaggerate. Second, not everyone will do what is
necessary to be successful. How do you determine which camp your
struggling sales person is living in? Is it a question of a lack of
training or a lack of activity? This is such a simple concept;
however, in talking with sales managers over the years, it is
unfortunately a concept they either don’t know about or are not
using.
Every sales
organization should have an understanding on what the basic
numbers are to make a sale. Some organizations operate on a one out
of ten rule. This means for every ten people or companies that a
salesperson sees, he will sell to at least one. Therefore, the A. Q.
is 1/10. In the insurance industry, the sales process I teach for the
A. Q. is 1/3. The question then becomes, “How long does it take
that salesperson to see the number of people or companies
necessary to make you’re A. Q.?” Each salesperson will differ
slightly; some better, some worse. But if that salesperson knows
their personal numbers, they will have a road map to run on; a basic
set of numbers that will help you predict what that salesperson will
sell in any given month. Does your salesperson know their numbers
and, more importantly, do you?
The challenge is that we
need to measure what we expect. However, one of the most dangerous
traps to fall into as a manager is to micro-manage your people. I do
not believe that requiring a report to keep track of every detail
every day will help you predict sales outcomes. Instead, this
tends to run off qualified salespeople, who would prefer spending
their time on selling rather than on reports. This process of
measuring expectations can be achieved with simple numbers. Depending
on your sales process and flow, your questions might look a little
different; however, here is the basic idea:
-
How many sales
introductions were done?
-
How many opening
meetings were done?
-
How many closing
meetings were done?
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How many sales were
made?
It’s all in the manager’s presentation. If the salesperson understands what numbers are needed to insure their success, they will be more apt to give them to you. How can you measure their success and do any planning without the data necessary to know if they are on track or not. This will help you manage the outcomes, set goals for the salesperson, and determine if there are training issues or activity issues that need to be addressed.
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Article Tags: future sales, insurance, insurance industry, intelligence quotient test, management intelligence, rsquo, sales management, sales managers, sales organization, sales person, salesperson, strong sales, telling the truth
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About the Author: Keith Benton RSS for Keith's articles - Visit Keith's website Keith is the founder and CEO of Benton Marketing Strategies. Keith has been training sales agents for several years with a simple straight forward approach to sales."When sales people learn what to say and how to walk from one step of the sales process to the next,confidence replaces fear". Learn more at www.agentsalestrainer.com. Click here to visit Keith's website Referrals The Path to Increased Sales Sales Techniques Selling Benefits 4 Sales Techniques for Overcoming Objections Attitude Belief and Confidencethe ABCs of Sales Qualities of an Effective Sales Team |
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