Sales Stats that Steal Your Office Productivity

Sales managers are always under the gun to get their sales team to perform.  Some managers motivate while others drive through intimidation.  A sales manager's ultimate end is getting their team to do more; to get their team to produce more; to get their team to sell more by doing more. In other words, more really means to interrupt more. 

The holy grail of "managing by the numbers" are the immortal sales stats espoused by every manager from here to eternity.

According to Marketing Work Shops, here are the numbers pounded into sales people's head from the time they make that first cold call:

• 2% of sales are made on the first contact
• 3% of sales are made on the second contact
• 5% of sales are made on the third contact
• 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
• 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact

These numbers drive the sales person to continually follow up and follow up and call and continue to interrupt you till you purchase.

Now, look at the numbers expressed from the office point of view, i.e. those  receiving the sales calls:

• 52% of sales people follow up at least twice
• 25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
• 12% of sales people make three contacts and stop
• 10% of sales people make more than three contacts with a prospect

Every sales call made is a hit to your office productivity and an interruption to your flow of business. Every interruption to your business by a salesperson usurps about six minutes of productivity from your bottom line, according to a survey from last fall. 

What does this means to you and your productivity? Well, out of roughly 24 salespeople who could potentially cold call you:

• 24 call on you the first time
• 6 call on you the second time
• 3 call on you the third time
• 2 call on you more than three times. 

It's good to keep in mind that 80% of sales are made from the 5th to the 12th contact (an average of eight contacts). What this boils down to is that the 24 salespeople cold calling you equates to 47 interruptions that steal your business productivity.

The equivalent of 47 interruptions times six minutes is almost five hours of lost productivity.  Effectively, costing your business in essence of close to $84 in lost wages per person exposed to the sales call interruption.

The bottom line is you have to find a way to streamline your office processes and factor in the sales pitch and what they can do to impact productivity.

Who we are:

This blog is dedicated to help businesses increase productivity, decrease expenses and increase cash flow.

At ConnectionForce, we have created the very first online sales filter to allow you to pre-screen potential vendors before you agree to a meet with them.

Our goal is to totally eradicate Cold Calling as a sales technique within the next 5 years. (2015)

We are committed to making office managers and purchasers jobs easier by making sales people better. 

Learn more here

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