I think a lot of people confuse activity vs achievement. I have a client whose whole sales management philosophy is focused on sales activity. I totally agree that without sales activities, there isn’t going to be an achievement. But there is also another way to look at it, I’ve often asked my clients, why isn’t the pipeline moving? Firstly, we need to fill the pipeline, that’s sales activities, prospecting to be specific. Once they are filled, then why isn’t the pipeline moving?

I’ve found few reasons why pipelines don’t move. One of the main ones is this: the pipeline is stocked with many unqualified leads and prospects. If management wants to see activities, salespeople will fill the pipeline with activities, but what kind of activities? They will plug in any leads they have. And that is lots of activity and zero achievements.

The key to a healthy pipeline is this > if it’s a big deal, quality is more important than quantity because, in big deals, we need to spend a lot of time working the deal. 3x the target revenue would be good enough. > If it’s small deals, quantity is then slightly more important. This is where the law of averages plays a part.

In conclusion, while sales activities are important, also think of sales achievements. What is being achieved here? Running faster in the wrong direction leads to the land of loss. Lost of deals, loss of sales, lots of motivation and ultimately loss of salespeople because they are not performing and thus quits because they are pressured on sales activities but what is really more important is sales achievements.

Hanzo Ng SalesNinja Grandmaster