Comment: Sales Rep 'Effort Statistics' Paint a Revealing Picture of

If organizations are going to be serious about retail investment sales and management, they need not only a plan, but also concrete tactics for implementing the plan.

One effective way of monitoring this implementation is with "effort statistics."

Effort statistics measure "shots on goal." They quantify daily marketing activities, such as the number of new-client contacts, the number of phone calls, the number of face-to-face meetings, and the number of cross-sales.

"Sales is a numbers game," the old saying goes. Today, those are the numbers that count.

In the past, managers have been told to deliver according to bottom-line criteria such as revenue, types and numbers of products sold, and number of new accounts.

These criteria are results indicators. The challenge of managing by results indicators is that they are historical in nature. They cannot be managed; they can only tallied and evaluated after the fact.

If increased revenue is the goal, process indicators should be tracked in the form of effort statistics.

Effort statistics tracking has proved to be effective in evaluating the quality of client coverage. The statistics help investment representatives break old and bad habits.

One such habit is going into the "trade bunker" - working on an important trade in a way that consumes nearly all of the investment rep's time. Even if the "big trade" is won, the rep's coverage of other clients has suffered or stopped. The pipeline has dried up, and the prospects for next month look bleak.

Effort statistics ensure that events such as large trades or market movements do not interrupt the marketing process.

By monitoring effort statistics, the manager can see not only what is working, but who is working. Displaying the effort statistics charts of all investment representatives in a highly visible place (near the water cooler, for example, or outside the manager's office) will help in motivating and managing the investment representatives.

A sales manager from a regional bank in Philadelphia said, "Effort statistics are probably the single most effective management tool that I have. If I have my statistics up to date and displayed prominently, the reps manage themselves, because no one wants to look like a laggard."

Effort statistics also help in moving from a "trust me" system of management to a "show me" system.

In the past, sales management was based primarily on trust. Investment representatives were rarely questioned about their marketing plans; they were evaluated almost entirely on the revenue they generated.

More recently, the markets have indicated that clients are scared. Many representatives are confused by the sudden loss of revenue caused by this fear.

Now is the time when "show me" management must be implemented. High- performing managers have moved away from results indicators, such as revenue reports, toward a system of quantifying activities, or effort statistics.

As a sales manager from a major commercial bank in New York put it, "Ringing the cash register isn't enough anymore. I need to know what my reps are doing, and effort statistics provide a quick picture of who is trying and, more important, who is succeeding."

Mr. Deans is a vice president at Corporate Performance Systems Inc., a management consulting firm specializing in banks.

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