I Made 40% Fewer Calls And Hit Quota Every Month (Here's How)

Speaker A: 00:00:37

One of the first things that I did when I took over a sales team early in my management career was kill the call minimums. Revenue per sale actually doubled with this team. And here's my experience from building sales orgs my entire life.

Most sales managers are cracking the whip on volume, on activity, on call counts, on all the inputs that you want into the sales system, and that's what they're optimizing for. It comes at the expense of optimizing for what you really want, which are the results from that activity. Okay.

And the gap in between that and knowing when to push on one and when to optimize for the other is really what differentiates the teams that are crushing it on a consistent basis in the teams that stay flat or even decline.

So what I'm going to do in this video is I'm going to share very briefly the context for why I killed the call minimums requires just a brief explanation as a. Because you don't want to just go in and just like, all right, we're done. Like, there's no, there's no standards now.

Okay, so there's, there's a little bit of that.

And then I'm going to share the cultural shift as a team that we had to, to implement, to make sure that worked and that we got the results that we wanted, how that led to doubling revenue per sale. And I break down the Laffer curve later in this video. That's the framework that you want to use when you think about when.

When does volume start actually killing my results? All right, let's dive in. All right, so here's how this went down. I, I had sold with this sales team, alongside the sales team.

I was promoted from within four or three years. All right? And I, it was an environment where it was 100 call a day minimum. Like, that was, that was the standard. It was enforced pretty regularly.

A salesperson was a top producer. I was a top three producer there out of the national sales team.

But I was always in trouble because I wasn't hitting my call minimums and I had the highest revenue per sale in, in the country. I was, you know, the results were clearly there.

And the, you know, I'd get these, like, you know, these, these bullshit conversations of, you know, hey, we got to get your volume up. You're doing this right now.

But, man, if you just doubled your calls, like, if you went from 50 and 60 a day to, you know, 100, 120, like, you double your results. And I knew that wasn't going to be the Case.

Like, I knew what I was doing to get the results that I was getting, and I knew that it required a little bit of extra work and a little bit of preparation and a little bit of recon. So I knew the time that I was investing was leading to the results that I was getting. Yet they wanted to focus primarily on the activity, right?

And I wasn't the only one.

Like, they were top producers were frequently written up for not hitting call minimums, despite the fact that they were the people that were consistently crushing it. So right out of the gates, one of the first change changes that I made, the big changes was I eliminated the call minimums, right? And it was.

It was within days, right? I said, okay, like, we're not doing this anymore. And you know why? Because I, as a manager, I don't want to manage that. Like, that's.

That feels silly, like, to run around and look at hourly call reports and gaps between our, like, minutes of calls and say, hey, you got to do more. Yeah, I know this is a silly conversation. I know you're hitting the number, Jimmy, but got to do more. Like, you're doing it wrong.

I knew that that was not a way I wanted to manage, so I killed the call minimum. Now, at the same time, what I did was I implement stronger minimum standards for production, okay?

So what I did was I eliminated the standards and the minimum requirement on one end, the inputs, but I established more clearly and stronger minimum standards on what I really wanted, which was the results, okay?

And so we put a baseline minimum standard on results, and then we put stretch goals and we put a lot of tiered bonuses and other things that I'd added in over time. But, like, at the same time, I eliminated one standard because I said, I don't know that I actually care technically how many calls you make.

What I care about is how many sales you make, right? Like, that's. Or at least what I care about most. If I have a standard on one thing, I want it on the thing that I truly want.

And I communicated that standard. We put it in place. It was. It was a realistic, attainable standard that people could hit on a consistent basis.

But it was very clear, like, this is what we are managing to, right? We are managing to outputs, we are not managing to inputs, we are managing to results, we are not managing to the activity levels.

If you make a ton of calls and you don't sell anything, I'm sorry, that doesn't impress me because I can't pay the rent on call attempts. You can clock 300 calls by the end of the day. And you know what? Like, atta boy. But if you don't sell anything, we have done nothing.

In fact, we've moved backwards because we've burned part of a list that somebody else could have gone through. Maybe it would take them more time, but they would produce dramatically more value. Eliminate one standard, establish the other standard.

So the policy was one part of it, but then you look at it, you go, okay, well, the team itself probably needs to change a bit because let's face it, there are people, unfortunately, that, like, if you don't tell them to, to work and you don't stand over their shoulder and like, hey, did you, did you do your job today? Did you do your job today? Unfortunately, there are people that have to be managed that way.

Those people are not going to make it on a team that I'm running, right. Because I'm not going to do it.

Like, I think my job as a manager has higher leverage and more impact on the organization when I'm able to, on things like strategy and culture and, you know, the messaging and the positioning and the audience, not when I'm standing over people's desk going, hey, make another call, make another call, make another call. So the people that required that weren't going to be a good fit and candidly, we, we let go a significant number of people.

We turned over the team over, you know, a period of several months. There were a lot of, A lot of changes with, with the team. Now, replacing people that need to be micromanaged requires a different recruiting way.

Right? Like, you got to think about who you're, who you want in this role and how you're going to attract them and what you're actually screening for.

Because we're no longer looking for somebody with a pulse that will follow orders and respond and make more calls every time we crack the whip. We're looking for somebody who is results driven, Somebody who's going to come in and figure out the best way to get the results that they want.

Somebody who's motivated internally to go get things that they want. Somebody who's going to look at the comp plan and say, all right, how do I. How do I maximize that?

Somebody's going to look at their list and say, all right, how can I be as strategic as possible to help this thing get me to that thing that I really want, which are the sales? So you've got to recruit differently, you've got to interview differently, you've got to advertise the role differently.

So we Weeded out, you know, the people that weren't going to work. We brought on the people that were going to work.

We stacked the team with people that were more proactive people, more in line with higher close rate and higher revenue per sale than a higher number of calls. Calls. So that became the team.

So now in this new environment, if you make 40 calls and you get 200% of quota, instead of getting a note from your manager that says, hey, you got to do more calls so that you can get more of the results, what you get is a note that says, hey, can we sit down? I'd like to break down what happened yesterday or how you're getting the results on less activity.

What I'd like to do is learn as a manager, how are you doing that? There's a ton of knowledge. If I can scale that, if I can systematize and operationalize that, then I've like, holy, our list gets more valuable.

Our team gets better.

Like it's, I mean, everything gets better when you figure out that the person that's able to get 100, 200, 300 Dakota on less activity is actually an asset. Like, they're showing you something that you can learn from and then operationalize with other members of the team.

And if you have the right people on the team, they're going to like take all these things and start putting them together. Like, oh, well, Sally's doing that. Cool, I'm going to work that in. Okay. Piece by piece.

And then the team itself, like starts to piece the best practices together and starts to figure out how do we optimize for what we really want, which is, frankly, don't we all? More output with less input. Like, isn't that. That's the name of this entrepreneurship? Right? Like, we want the highest leverage possible.

Salespeople are no different. Show me a way to get more sales with less effort. That's good for me. It's also, by the way, good for you. So what was the impact on the team?

Well, obviously the caliber of the team went through the roof. Like, I was now managing adults.

Like I was managing people that came to work on time because they wanted to get started and do their job and make more money. Right. Instead of like me having to like have a sign in sheet for what time you got here. I don't give a shit. We're all here for one thing.

We're all here to, to get the results. So the caliber of the team went up. The culture of the team changed significantly. It became more collaborative, it became more productive.

It became more focused on the things that we really want. And ultimately what I had was a team of adults who took ownership of their actual job.

They didn't have somebody standing over their shoulder telling them what they needed to do every single minute of the day. As for the results, we were doing fundraising. So this was at the, at the Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. chamber of Commerce.

Fundraising revenue per sale on our fundraising doubled because we're making better calls and we're learning from each other instead of just making more. So fundraising revenue per sale doubled. We led the first increase in small business membership for the organization in a decade.

And we went on to hit our number, which increased like which, which got more aggressive every sing year. We went on to hit our number for 10 years in a row.

Despite all sorts of changes in the economy, all sorts of changes in the political environment, all sorts of changes all over the place. All the things that would become excuses for not being able to hit your number. We just plowed through.

We figured things out faster because we had a better team, because people were taking ownership and they understood what we really want, which is the result. Now here's the other thing.

The list that you're calling when you take this approach to thing gets more valuable because instead of getting through it faster, you're looking at it as an asset and saying, how do I get more out of it even if it takes me more time? The list that we're calling, every name on that list now becomes significantly more valuable.

So the value of the list went up, the value of the membership went up and our renewal rates increased, our fundraising averages increased, our win back rates increase. And within three years of doing this, we had this kick ass team that's crushing the numbers with no minimum call counts.

We have other divisions in other organizations now coming into our office walking through saying how do they do it, right? Like we started in sourcing work from other organizations because our sales teams had numbers that just like were off the charts, okay?

And this is the impact of looking at the thing that actually matters. And this is the impact of looking at the thing that actually matters and optimizing for that. It's the results, it's the output. It.

Okay, so that's not to say volume doesn't matter, right? So let me hit on this. Volume matters, right? Like if you, because if you say no minimums doesn't mean no activity.

There is a threshold, there is a point at which you, you have to make a, an optimal amount of calls, right? So if you, if, if you take this to the extreme.

And you say, well, hey Ray, if you're saying activity doesn't matter, well then nobody makes calls and you guys will get rich, right? Well, obviously not. There's a, there's an activity level. There's an input level of every system that's required to get an out.

The question is, is it the optimal amount? That's like a system is just inputs, outputs. What happens in the middle? Is it the optimal amount of activity that you have?

And one of the things that I use for this is, you know, Ronald Reagan's economist in his cabinet, Laffer had the Laffer curve.

And if the story I understand is true, like he drew this on a napkin in a restaurant or something and he effectively it's a line and then you have a half moon, okay? Now on that curve, there's a point at which if you increase activity, you're going to increase output.

And the reason he drew it had to do with tax rates, right?

Like you can increase taxes up to a certain point, increase revenue to the government, or you can decrease tax rates and still increase revenue because you spur growth, right? So it's like finding the optimal point at which point in the tax rate.

The question he was trying to answer is, do we increase and it leads to a decrease in revenue and at which point point can we decrease taxes and have it still increase revenue? And where does it have like the counter effect? And it works the same way with sales, right?

Like you can't say, hey, we're going to do no taxes and just assume that, you know, economic growth is going to take care of everything. Well, then there's no taxes. Okay, well, same thing.

Like you can't have no calls, you can't have no activity in sales and still expect results from it. Okay? But there's a point at which you increase things, you're going to continue to get increases in the result.

And there's a, a threshold that once you cross it, once you start forcing activity beyond that level, then what you're going to do is like actually decrease, right? So there's a tax rate. If you go to 100%, well, nobody's going to do, right. Like nobody's going to take a risk.

Like I'm not going to try to make money or start a business for if I'm going to give 100% of my money to the taxes to the government, right?

So same basic concept, not to make it political, but like thousand calls a day isn't going to get it done because there's no quality associated with it so the same. The concept is there's an optimal amount of activity that leads to results. And our job in sales is to figure out what is that optimal level.

Maybe mine were slightly lower than it needed to be. Maybe mine were slightly higher than it needed to be. But as salespeople, we're going to always try to find what is that threshold? Like, what.

What I don't want to do is I don't want to put work in that leads to decreased results in what I want and get paid on which are. Which are going to be the sales. So the Laffer curve is kind of the framework that I use for this.

In terms of just like the concept of it, we're looking for optimal. We're not looking for the maximum amount of volume.

Now, more important, importantly, when you build a culture, you build a sales team around activity metrics and around call minimums, things like that. It leaves you as the manager or you as the business owner, holding the bag entirely on the thing that you really want, which are the results.

Because you can have people that give you exactly what you want on a consistent basis and they feel like they're winning. I'm making the calls, boss. I'm making the calls. I'm making the calls. You're like, yeah, but I. I really want sales.

They're like, it's, hey, I'm hitting the numbers. And then I. That's not what you want.

Like, when you build a team that's based on results, when you like the outcome and you have people share that ownership, what you do is you say, this is what I want. This is now what we all want, the results. Now I'm going to distribute the responsibility and the ownership for achieving those results.

And I'm going to empower you to, in some ways, like within reason, find ways to get me the thing that matters most. Right?

And a lot of times, by the way, that innovation leads to a whole bunch of, like, really cool continuous improvement because people are finding, you know, new little tweaks and this and that, and before you know it, you've got a system. You're like, damn, this is actually way better than I would have done it myself. You distribute the ownership of the results.

You create an environment where people are finding better ways to do things instead of showing up and checking the box at work like, that's not what you want with your team. There's no more, more relevant time to have this conversation, in my view, than right now in sales.

AI is coming to gobble up basically anything that's going to be volume based.

Anything that's going to be activity based, anything that's going to be based on efficiency in the minimum call count like that AI is going to explode. That you can get a thousand calls an hour with, with AI today and with a lot of automation and like that.

So if you were focused on things like activity metrics and making people adhere like strictly to a, to a script and like that, like it's one, you're going to eventually have trouble finding anyone that's willing to do it.

But two, why would you hire people to do it when you can get that done frankly more efficiently than with a good legitimate salesperson who's making actual sales calls? You want to shift the focus to quality. You want to shift the focus to results. You want to shift the focus from, hey, we know exactly how to do this.

Make this minimum of calls like read this script verbatim. Do not, do not change a word like to. At least in my view, hey, no, we're going to run a team and these are the results.

These are the best practices to get there. These are the activity metrics that we know to be true that are going to optimize your chances of getting there and surpassing those results.

Yes, you have some freedom and some flexibility to innovate so long as we remain focused on what the actual results are. If what you're doing is different than what we kind of recommend to do and it's getting you better results, then you can expect.

We're gonna, you're gonna get a call and I'm gonna say hey, that like what's what, what are you doing different? Like how's that, how's that working?

And then we're going to go back and we're going to try to operationalize that like that is how I think about quality sales teams today. Like that's how we built a world class sales team. And listen, AI is going to be able to replace a lot on the volume and like the verbatim scripted.

But like stuff like innovating your sales practices and getting really good high quality people to have high quality conversations that are more dynamic and can't be perfectly scripted. This is the way to do it. So my recommendation don't manage just to the call counts because that's the easiest thing to manage.

Manage to what we really want, which are the results, which means a better understanding of what's driving those results beyond the activity metrics and make sure that you bring on the right people who take ownership that understand like listen, I'm not here to to check a box on activity and all the inputs in the world don't mean jack shit if I don't get outputs and I want people on the team that are like myopically focused on what that what that result is going to be and I want my managers or myself if I am the manager focused on what really matters is the outcomes and it is the sales because again we can't pay bills with call counts. I hope this has been helpful. If it has, go ahead and hit like and you know subscribe. If you have questions go ahead and drop those below.

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