Is Sales simply a numbers game?

We hear it all of the time, Sales is just a numbers game. Typically it means that the more people you contact the more success you will have. Unfortunately, I have witnessed many sales leaders manage 'activity' as the primary number in support of the argument. But that simply lacks common sense.

Sales is indeed a numbers game, but the top line contacts do not matter unless they actually turn into pipeline and revenue. So the numbers you should be paying attention to are not at the top of that funnel, they are the in middle and bottom of that funnel. In other words, sales is a mixture of quality and quantity.

In order to build pipeline, the numbers that you really need to be looking at will measure effectiveness of your contacts rather than the quantity of your contacts. In today's sales environment where activity is essentially not measuring a phone call, but really measureing the fact that you loaded a contact into a sales automation engine for a "sequence." that includes multiple contacts, the metric around "activity" is simply measuring how many impressions are in your sequence. The more effective thing to be looking at here is your response rates. Who is opening your outreach and who is engaging with it and at what pace.

In addition, the other number a sales leader should be looking at how well your sequence is turning contacts into pipeline. If your conversion rate is low, you had better be looking at improving your messaging rather than pushing for more contacts through the system.

The B2B sales and marketing model is changing quite a bit. There has been both a massive shift in technology available to the SDR/BDR role. At the same time, the buying behavior of the B2B signatory has also shifted. This is necessitating a completely different look at the traditional Sales and Marketing roles.

The discussion around conversion and response rates is an age old discussion in marketing. We live and breathe around understanding how one word converts better than another word. It is a highly natural discussion for a marketer to be A/B testing subject lines and constantly shifting the creative and content of a message. But this is a less natural discussion for a sales leader.

Conversely, discussions around building pipeline and sales velocity are less natural for a marketing leader. While marketers are well versed in discussions around messaging and buyer psychology, they tend to be less comfortable discussing sales metrics. This all needs to change as we blend the roles more and more.

Marketing needs more sales focus and sales leaders need more marketing focus. Yes, sales (and marketing) is a numbers game. But the numbers we need to focus on are changing and the focus of sales and marketing leaders is shifting. It's a discussion worth having.