RahRahBooty

Business Development

Does revenue hide all sins?

I'm a sales managers worst nightmare when it comes to adding new opportunities, pitches etc. Why? Well I hate prospecting and HATE wasting my time running a full sales cycle with a bullshit prospect I know won't buy/doesn't have budget just to play the numbers game. I've always leaned pretty heavy on quality vs.quantity and thankfully I've always exceeded quota.

That said, half the sales roles I've had turned a blind eye to my shitty metrics because I pulled results, and the other half didn't give a damn about the results and constantly tried to performance manage me over metrics.

So, what's your opinion?

Should revenue hide all sins?

Attached poll

100% No, more opportunities = more revenue Yes, managers measure metrics, leaders measure results Maybe you should find a new career

*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.

👑 Sales Strategy

📬 WR Feedback

14

25 comments

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funcoupons

WR Officer

3

👑

If you're exceeding quota and your manager is still bitching about you not making enough cold calls or whatever, time to find a new company to work for.

RahRahBooty

Executive

1

Business Development

Yeah I was curious how others feel about this because I’m currently in a role that wants to play let’s threaten a PIP every 3 months over opportunity adds… yet I’m leading the entire sales team in revenue and there’s people still sitting at 0 mid year…. Again, quality over quantity.

Sooooo I’ve been on the fence about finding a new job or not.

funcoupons

WR Officer

1

👑

Sounds annoying as fuck. I would definitely be looking at new opportunities.

goose

Politicker

0

Sales Executive

Be careful here. Just because you hit your number doesn’t mean people aren’t going to expect more out of you. Seems like Kobe saying “I scored 60, look at the other guys…”

Winners win. Create more opportunities.

RealEstateVeep

Politicker

2

VP of Real Estate

As much as businesses like to pretend that they're here for us or we're family (insert other corporate BS) - we're brought in to make money. As long as we're doing that we can do whatever.

RahRahBooty

Executive

0

Business Development

That’s how it should be

RealEstateVeep

Politicker

0

VP of Real Estate

Agreed!

Stratifyz

Big Shot

0

Account Executive

How dare you ask for big boy rules!

Grimhelm

Politicker

2

Mid Market Account Executive

Money Talks and Dogs Barks - A$AP Rocky

But for real, making money and hitting quota is the job. If that's happening, the process shouldn't questioned. Should be questioned when the numbers aren't being hit.

RahRahBooty

Executive

1

Business Development

Agreed!

Gottapumpthosenumbers

Opinionated

2

Biz Dev

KPI's are meant to be just that - INDICATORS (of success). That said, if you're consistently hitting and exceeding quota, you should be given a pass by a great leader. Should they encourage you to play the game? Of course, that's their job. But at the end of the day, you as an individual contributor should not have to worry about a PIP if you're hitting revenue regularly.

KPI's should be used to develop and coach AE's/SDR's that are underperforming, not hider top performers.

Riss

Opinionated

2

I don’t even know anymore 🤪

Yes IFFFF you are above quota. As a mgr. I can't tell you the number of times I had new reps try to convince me their "quality over quantity" metric worked better than my KPI's. I'm a very science driven sales person. I can tell you to the exact # of linked-in connections I need to make to get a phone call....those conversations would really grind my gears. If you are even AT or hopefully above quota--Do you.

goose

Politicker

1

Sales Executive

Nah. This is BS. This is the exact stuff addressed in the post. You know your numbers. They don’t apply to anyone else. Even if they were sort of the same you’d have to control for a shit ton of variables like your network, your picture, your education, your hobbies, your city, your name, your favorite color and a lot more. Your numbers are yours. No one else’s. And to try to compare them is fruitless.

RahRahBooty

Executive

0

Business Development

Ahh I wish I had KPI’s thay specific. Totallt geg where you’re coming from though. If I wasn’t producing then I’d be busting ass to make sure my metrics were there.

Riss

Opinionated

1

I don’t even know anymore 🤪

Our KPI's or the ones I assigned were never that specific, but I tracked everything on mine after I had read "the difference between amateur and professional sales is how predictable your revenue is"...the thing with that, as soon as I started tracking everything and doubling my output, I learned 3x as fast and my conversions became double everyone else's. That's also part of why, if you are a performer, I trust your own KPI's and that you've probably found the efficiency & quality levers. Before that...it's volume and meeting KPI's.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

1

☕️

Sales performance is a seesaw that is either balanced by activity generation or revenue generation. When revenue is up you are spending time running ROI-positive cycles, but spending less time generating new pipeline. When those cycles either get won or lost, you have very little pipeline to fall back on, and the seesaw then tips to the other side and you have to blast the activity up in order to get back to running ROI-positive cycles.

If you spend too much time on either side you're going to end up with a deficiency that is hard to overcome without neglecting the other...and that's why the metrics are in place so that you don't end up killing your pipe or burning out on pipeline generation activities.

If you continue to hit the daily, weekly, and month metrics then you are more likely to have a nice, even pipeline that you can rely on month over month.

RahRahBooty

Executive

0

Business Development

Yeah yeah yeah I get all of that.

goose

Politicker

1

Sales Executive

Tough to vote on this. Goodhart’s Law says something like “Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” To me this applies to sales metrics. Measure appointments, get appointments. Measure revenue, get revenue.

Perhaps we need to study behaviors and identify what guys like you are doing to drive revenue and just keep doing what works.

GDO

Politicker

0

BDM

I think in your case it s time management. Nobody should waste their time on prospects that will not buy. Certainly not for the numbers. But the time won should be used productively as well.

RahRahBooty

Executive

0

Business Development

I don’t waste my time.

Justatitle

Big Shot

0

Account Executive

It’s really nice to be protected by the revenue you bring in but if that is your shield then you are also running a risky operation when you don’t have the revenue to protect you. I prefer being someone that sticks to a process and has the positive optics and is well liked by other departments for things aside from my number. I also get that it’s sales and the number is what you get most heavily judged on

GreenSide

Politicker

0

Sales manager

Yes, absolutely. That said, if I'm not hitting consistently* then I expect my manager to look at my metrics.

*Consistently is very important, if you crush it all the time then you're below one quarter, its unreasonable for a manager to come down on you as hard as they might on someone who consistently under performs.

Flippinghubs

Opinionated

0

Account Executive

I think it covers a lot, not all but most

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