I detest bullshit – especially when it is bullshit that we all recognize but refuse to acknowledge out loud. My tolerance level for bullshit has dropped to lifelong record lows ever since I retired.
Why? Because I no longer have to pretend something is true just to keep my job or earn a bonus or make the “number” or “look good”.
I’m lucky that way.
This came up in a conversation with a former colleague about the KPI’s and metrics we used to run our old sales team. We had dozens of formulas, rules and metrics we used to manage our inside sales team.
The first was, a sales rep had to make 130 dials/day or get 4 demos booked. They could stop at 100 dials in a day if they had booked their 4 demos. Otherwise, they had to keep dialing.
But here’s the problem. Everyone – and I mean everyone – knew the last 30 dials of the day were total bullshit. These dials usually happened after most of the other sales reps had already left for the night or were drinking beer and socializing with coworkers. The reps who were making the last 30 dials were exhausted, burnt from a day of unsuccessful prospecting, anxious about missing their number and just wanted to get it over with.
Occasionally, I’m sure, a rep stumbled across a willing prospect who accepted a demo. More often, it was like Chinese Water Torture.
How can I be so sure? Because I had my analyst run the numbers. Those last 30 dials of the day were the least productive.
Yet, we kept doing it.
Because the entire management team was running the business “by the numbers”. We measured, tracked and analyzed everything.
And we were crushing it.
90% of our reps were successful – some extraordinarily so. We exceeded our goals every month, quarter and year. The business growth was phenomenal.
But that doesn’t change the fact that those last 30 dials were bullshit.
I wonder though, what could we have done differently? I’ve run teams where I only measured results and not work effort. My rockstars delivered on those teams. My mediocre people got worse. My poor performers got fired.
I remember on of my rockstars saying, “Everybody needs a kick in the ass sometimes”, when I finally called him out on his extremely low call numbers after weeks of seeing no results from him.
So I don’t have a good answer. I wish I did.