Example Case Number One: Joan, a new sales professional, doesnt have enough appointments. Why? During her quarterly review, you and Joan analyze her numbers. Does her lack of appointments come from an inability to articulate the companys value? Fear of the phone? Not asking for the appointment? Calling the wrong people? Through this dialogue and analysis, you can put together a coaching plan for Joan. In the meantime, as Joan is acquiring new skills, you can help her to positively influence the metrics she does have control over-in this case, the number of dials. Using the modeling tool, you can determine how many additional dials Joan must make to book enough appointments to reach her revenue goals. After suggesting this short-term solution, you can then implement a coaching plan that will help her to reach the standard rep appointment close ratio of 30 percent.

Example Case Number Two: Gary, a veteran sales professional, does not particularly like call canvassing-who really does? When you sit down to your quarterly review, you see that Garys dials number is very low-well below the standard rep minimum of 100 per week. While at first glance you see a need to discuss (in negative terms) this number with Gary, the modeling tool shows that Garys appointment closing ratio is at 40 percent, exceeding expectations, and his closing ratio is also high. Gary will clearly meet his quarterly sales quota. As a manager, you can use the sales modeling tool to show Gary how much more money he would be making if he increased his dials by just 10 or 20 calls, motivating him to achieve more. You can also pinpoint Gary as an effective closer and turn to him when there is another professional who needs coaching in that particular area.

The activity-based sales model is an essential tool; it has value for both the sales manager and the sales professional. It helps managers see how they are going to grow the business and develop a strong sales team, and it helps sales professionals get to the next level.

Tracking Tool 2: Weekly Report. The weekly report follows a report card format and lists a subset of the categories included on the activity-based sales model. The weekly report focuses on letters of engagement (LOEs) and provides highlights of prospect accounts. Sales call reports, which are entered into the contact management or CRM system, are automatically aggregated into the weekly report (see Exhibit 4.5).

Tracking Tool 3: Monthly Pipeline. This detailed and high level tool forecasts revenue by sales professional and details the prospect company, stage of sales cycle, date contact initiated, forecasted revenue and probability of close, factored revenue, and a quarterly revenue pipeline.

The weekly report and monthly pipeline tracking tools provide the sales manager with traditional pipeline information. When used as coaching tools,

Exhibit 4.5 Weekly Report

the manager, together with the sales professional, can examine the leads on a case-by-case basis. The manager might ask pointed questions, such as, Is this a real opportunity? and depending on the sales professionals response, the lead might be removed from the pipeline. Alternatively, the manager might ask, How can I help you close this lead? and can then contribute his or her industry or intuitive knowledge to help the sales professional win the business.

Tracking That Is Public. Complementing tracking that is coaching is tracking that is public. Public tracking is primarily informational and motivational. In addition to reviewing tracking tools numbers 2 and 3, the weekly report and monthly pipeline, with the individual sales professionals, these reports should be distributed to a larger audience: the firm leadership and the entire sales organization.

We know that sales professionals and professional consultants are competitive; this public disclosure of pipeline information encourages friendly competition. Sales professionals do not want to look bad in the eyes of their peers or their leaders, thus they work competitively to bring up their numbers. From the consultants perspective, if Joe in the trial services practice sees that a sales professional is working on a number of hot leads in conjunction with a competitive associate, Joe might think, Hey, I want to work with one of those salespeople.

Finally, in addition to serving as a motivational and forecasting tool, tracking that is public helps you, the sales manager, to promote the contributions of your organization and to justify the existence of the sales organization. Exhibit 4.6 provides a detailed key to the metrics and concepts for the activity-based sales model discussed in this section.

Sales Meetings

Communication within the sales organization and within the larger firm community is essential. Through effective communication, professionals share general knowledge, best practices, and intuitive insights. The agenda and schedule of sales meetings will be unique to a specific firm because the agenda is dependent on what the sales professionals want to cover, and the schedule will vary based on the size and development stage of your sales organization. New sales teams might require more frequent meetings, while seasoned teams might move to biweekly or monthly meetings. Learning, sharing, getting better, and practicing-this is the purpose of sales meetings. An overview of three meeting formats that will improve the communication, knowledge sharing, and productivity of your sales organization follows:

1. Weekly sales meeting: Weekly sales meetings form the core of team communication. These meetings should follow a standard format, focus