Before Sales 2.0 there was Cycling 2.0 | Maximizing Sales Success with Metrics

Cycling is a relatively unknown sport here in the U.S. -– recently made hip by seven-time Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong.

What many people don’t know, however, is that Lance changed cycling forever with his revolutionary and sometimes ridiculed training techniques, which included integrating technology and supporting tools, all geared to maximize his chances of winning the Tour.

Lance's results have produced a now-mainstream training process and integrated technology (called a PowerTap) which practically every professional cyclist and many amateurs now use religiously to deliver winning results. The core process is all about capturing and analyzing data to improve:

• Power: the amount of wattage delivered with each pedal stroke to the rear wheel;
• Cadence: the number of pedal strokes in a minute; and
• VO2max: the highest heart rate where your body can maintain performance by removing lactic acid from your legs at an equal or greater rate than which it is created.

(I think I got that right.  Hopefully one of my cycling-geek Sales 2.0 mates –- like Umberto Milletti at InsideView -- will correct me!)

CYCLIST'S FIELD TEST

In this new era, cyclists perform something called a field test; they vary, but essentially these consist of three all-out 8 minute efforts – brief snapshots of work, but at maximum intensity.  Performance data from each marker is analyzed to determine the current condition of the cyclist and where any room for improvement may lie.

Only with this data can a detailed action plan be created, by providing the athlete with a very specific set of activities to be performed on each and every ride. No longer does a top professional pedal without a plan.  Otherwise, he’s just wasting his time (something in cycling known as junk miles).

At the end of every long day in the saddle, output from each key performance indicator is reviewed to measure actual performance against that days' goal. The ultimate objective is to find the perfect blend of production in all three areas in order to yield the optimal result.

Lance Armstrong pioneered this approach to cycling. He and his coach studied every one of the 21 stages of the Tour de France.  They looked at their nearest competitor’s results from the previous years and determined that if Lance could complete the entire race within a certain time, then he would win. 

Once they knew the ultimate target to beat, they simply reversed-engineered his daily activities, built his program, and began to execute the plan.  Get where I'm going?

SALES 2.0's FIELD TEST

With the onset of Sales 2.0, delivering top performance revenue results is no different.

As an elite Sales Pro, if you know what you did last year, and you have the sales tools and data to support it, then you should be able to, with pinpoint accuracy, determine precise sales activities which when delivered each day will produce winning results.

Here is what we measure at Glance:

• Marketing Power: spend and lead-gen activity needed to stimulate required demand. This is critical; no power out, no power in. Our success this year has been predicated by our continual analysis of our output (SEO, PPC, Drip, social media, etc.) and the results it generates.  Realizing there is always room for improvement, we need the ability to make changes on the fly.  That’s why we recently became a Hubspot customer.  Hubspot serves as our very own “marketing power tap”, helping us to determine if or when to shift gears.
• Sales Cadence: daily sales activity required in converting leads to closure. If our Marketing Power output is optimal, then the difference between delivering sales or not depends upon our Sales Cadence. How many times do we need to touch our prospects in a 7-day trial period?  Our lead nurturing campaigns? During smart dials?  How do we manage our multi-point customer relationships and deliver sales demos in an instant?  That’s why we have partnered with Fishnet Media, leverage InsideView, LinkedIn, track key contacts via social media with Gist and of course, use Glance.  
• Organizational VO2max: this is the point of peak performance, which lies just beneath maximum output -- where effective demand generation and efficient sales output (demand, number of reps, closure rates, average deal size, average sales cycle, etc.) can maintain a pace to hit target in a consistent manner, also known as euphoria.  Rarely do organizations hit this riders' high.  Here, we’re dialing it in through strong sales and marketing analytics.  We use Hubspot Reports and Salesforce.com dashboards to monitor SEO results, social media success, daily trials, outbound sales activity, conversion rates, and more.

Recently I have read some criticism of Sales 2.0 process, tools, etc.  Who knows, maybe this sales 2.0 revolution is over the top, non-pure, and breaks with tradition.  Maybe we’re too serious about all of this measurement stuff.  I mean, is Sales 2.0 just a fad?

Just like they said about Lance, right? 

-- Tom Scontras, VP, Sales & Marketing