When I was working in the corporate sales world, my old company’s main key performance indicator (KPI) for the sales team were:
– Sales Revenue and
– # of calls made
Their rationale was, “it’s a numbers game”, the more calls you make, the more sales you make.
On the surface, that’s somewhat true.
But in reality it didn’t quite work out that way.
I observed many of the sales would just pick up the phone, dial and then hang up very quickly.
Another “call” notched in the record.
Do you think that brought in much sales? (No)
I didn’t do that.
I thought it was pointless.
I would have a much smaller call volume compared to my colleagues but when I made a call, it counted, I had real conversations.
I reached real people. (Even for an Introvert like me, my desire for making quality calls outweighed my discomfort in actually reaching someone).
But the way the company “measured” high-performing sales, I would be considered a poor performer.
I still managed to make sales revenue targets despite my lower volume of calls which makes you wonder whether # of calls made makes sense in tracking?
What I realised was when you focus on the WRONG KPI or performance driver you incentivise poor performance in reality but on paper it looks like your team is performing up until your bank balances tell you suddenly one day you have no money coming in.
Is there anywhere in your business where you might be using the WRONG performance indicator?
