I am a huge fan of Franklin Covey's work. I can't tell you how many times I have told myself to:

"Start with the end in mind" and "Seek first to understand and then be understood"

These are two habits I think my staff would like me to remember every day!

A lesser known, but incredibly valuable aspect of Covey's work is Business Execution Solutions. The video linked here provides an overview of these solutions (be sure to view the "Execution" video on that page).

The essence of Covey's work around Business Execution Solutions is that mediocre strategy well executed is infinitely more effective than a brilliant strategy poorly executed. Covey asks that managers' focus be on just a few "wildly important goals" rather than too long a list of so-called prioritized "to-do items". Specifically, he recommends that managers focus on 2 - 3 goals on which they can execute completely and successfully rather than trying to execute 5 or more goals with the percent of goals executed effectively dropping as the number of goals increase. There is a lot more to it, but you get the point.

This principle can increase sales if you apply it to the management of your sales force. The more prospects a field sales person has the less effective they are in working them and the more difficult that sales person is to manage. While the optimal number of prospects for one sales person is a function of the product or solution (price tag, target executive, size of prospect...), I find that the optimal number of prospects a sales person can effectively manage in any given quarter (for a complex solution, multiple decision-makers and long sales cycle) is about 30. In my experience, you could predict an individual sales rep's potential success during the next quarter based on how effectively they moved specifically named prospects the previous quarter. If documented movement in the sales process (defined however you like) has occurred, even without closed business, then you can predict potential revenue for the next quarter (or sales cycle) based on that historical perspective. If every quarter ends with little or no revenue, but a whole new group of prospects "look great for next quarter" then you can count on the next quarter looking just like the last one—disappointing.

You can figure out how many prospects a sales executive can manage at any given point in time by doing some simple math. Assume, for discussion, that a sales person has 160 units of time (hours) per month and since there are a finite number of units, there are a finite number of activities that can be accomplished. If a sales rep is working on closing two-to-three deals in the current month, it may be that 80 units of time are consumed with just those deals. That leaves the other 80 units to be spread over 27 accounts. Let's say another two-to-three accounts are going to eat up 40 units of time because they are scheduled to make a decision the following month. Now we are down to just 40 units of time to cover 24 accounts or about 1.5 units of time per month per account. Some of the remaining accounts will require just ¼ unit of time (an email or a quick phone call) while others might take over two units of time. If a sales rep has too many accounts, they do not have the time to effectively close business and manage the activities that accounts representing future business require. And, a sales rep managing too many accounts is almost impossible to manage because there is just too much smoke and generally not enough fire.

This probably looks simple, but it is absolutely the root cause of significant problems in many companies.

Start with the end in mind. Prioritize and, on an account by account basis, estimate how much time will be required to effectively work each prospect. Then you will know how many prospects a sales rep can handle in your company.

Let me know how this works for you.

By Dan McDade