KPIs Killing Productivity?

Question

Was talking to a sales savage friend of mine on the links this weekend and he mentioned to me his first 80 dials are typically all to shit leads because he has to make at least 100 calls every day. He mentioned once he hits 80 calls that's when he starts to make his legit dials and this got me thinking.

At my current company our KPIs are 60 dials a day which I think is much more reasonable, but even that gives me issues sometimes. Once I've been on a project for some time and can fill up my cadence the 60 dials becomes much more manageable, but since emails and LinkedIn don't factor into the KPIs it's hard to spend time on quality personalized outreach. I have had some days where I know I'm doing legit things to generate business, but it sucks knowing any email or LinkedIn messages aren't factoring into the salesforce dashboard.

So I guess my question to the War Room is have any sales leaders who set KPIs ever lowered them and seen increased success? I will mention my company is pretty laidback and if you're doing your job and scheduling meetings that 60 calls a day KPI is not as important, but if you aren't scheduling it's a bad look if you aren't hitting 60 calls. I'm sure most sales organizations are that way (The best reps get lots of freedom) but I do wonder if reps would spend more time on quality outreach rather than mindlessly ripping if they had their KPIs lowered.

P.S this is my favorite meme template

Accepted Answer

Great post, Chep. I think the biggest issue with some 'call-farm' style companies is this need to hit x amount of dials.

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First off why is he sourcing shit leads imagine if those 80 leads were all good kid would be rolling in dough

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As @softserve mentions, have numbers on conversations rather than the number of dials.

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I hold my team to quality touchpoints per day, not dials/emails/LI messages. As long as they touch X number of account with quality TP's per day, I know they are moving the ball forward and all is good.

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Chep. I can't with you today 😆

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A previous sales job I had measured outbound calls and also phone minutes, so it was a matter of hitting one or the other in a given day. It encouraged conversations because 90 minutes on the phone with 10 outbound calls meant you were engaged with them all. Or if you couldnt get anyone to bite, then you would hit 60-80 calls etc.

However, people will always finagle the system, and as such, directories become VERY popular on peoples call lists

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Chep this is a great post and a fire meme.

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As a fully outbound sales rep, this is so true. I spend a lot of time researching and making 20-30 of which I get an average of 2-3 meetings because I take the time to look at who I'm calling vs smashing 100 dials just to impress my SVP of sales.

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I have found myself in the exact same situation. Our team told the manager what the issue was and he did a 180. Went from minimum of 80 dials no matter what to "I trust you guys to get shit done so all I will look at are results. If they aren't there though there better be enough activity to show it's not from a lack of effort" Totally changed things for us and everyone exceeded quota that quarter.

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KPI's for KPI's sake is never good. Having said that, they need a structure in place to create a good sales system.

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I have found managers who are just about the KPIs are less experienced and tend to do things for the sake of doing them. Call me crazy but I will do what makes me money and my company, if they have an issue with that well......... I also have issues with authority and being told what to do, so there is that.

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Absolutely. If you don't think that reps are just dialing fax and bs numbers to hit that KPI daily, you are mistaken.

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I've done it three times at different companies. It's a bit time consuming to get off the ground and it really depends on the industry you're selling to but the formula is:

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Haha that meme 😅

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What if the number of convos was the number one KPI to hit?

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Meme nailed it. I think KPIs are useful for reps who are NOT hitting their numbers. For reps that have a system that works for them let them run with it, and if results aren't showing then introduce a KPI system and examine the results to determine where the issue is.

KPIs are the death of a salesperson and also can result in fake output (such as pipeline generation).

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I find my productivity is connected to my crippling self doubt and soul crushing depression...

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I wouldn't last very long. From the beginning you've got to grind the calls/email/linkedin but once you establish yourself. Hopefully that's reduced because your phone is ringing. I hunt opportunities not dials and do everything I can to get my phone/email to ring vs chasing.

Chep

KPIs Killing Productivity?

32 comments

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