When do “KPIs” become meaningless?

Anyone who’s ever been an SDR has had to pound the phone and send emails to everyone and their mother.

At what point does outreach transcend the “it’s a numbers game” and start to be more about strategy that leads to results?

Background note: currently responsible for top tier enterprise expand accounts with established relationships at executive levels - entry level spray and pray approach isn’t the game here.

Curious how you’d prop this up to your sales leadership/Manager without breaking their “data driven” hearts.

What would you do?

Attached poll

Who cares - Quota is all that matters KPIs matter Pump your numbers to get them off your back The pressure is too much - quit

*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.

3 comments

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ChangeTheChannel

Good Citizen

Channel Sales Manager

As much as I'd like to say "the KPIs don't matter, if you have your meetings booked, you're in the clear" the reality is this:

Your boss has a boss, and that person is looking at the KPIs as a team number. Sure, your specific role may require a more strategic approach. But it doesn't sound like that's being considered in the structuring of your KPIs.

You can fight the good fight and find data points that may support why you should have to make fewer dials. But if the goal of an SDR is to get promoted, there are probably initiatives that you could spend more time on that will garner you points politically within the company. Faking/padding metrics is like a right of passage for an SDR anyways.

Also, a key lesson to remember here is that being "data driven" can prevent positive change as much as it can promote positive change.

SalesPharaoh

Big Shot

Senior Account Executive

KPIs should measure conversion rate so you wouldn't be wasting your and your SDRs time. At some point spray and pray will fail you.

Trinity

WR Officer

BusDev

I think KPIs matter as long as I can sort it by leading and lagging indicators

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TheColdestColdCall

When do “KPIs” become meaningless?

What would you do?

3 comments

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Just got promoted to team lead and my manager is asking me to motivate the team to hit their KPI's. Any tips on this since no one likes the KPI chat, including me.

SDR’s/ SDR managers, what do your KPI’s look like and do you think they help?