• by Ari Rosenberg , Op-Ed Contributor, February 10, 2005

If you asked a publishing sales director how much revenue they have booked to date, they can tell you down to the dollar.

Ask them how much collective sales call activity has been generated and they will look at you quizzically before saying something like "we require a minimum of 10 calls per week."

It is time for publishing sales managers to track sales call activity as closely as they track revenue.

However, in order to collect this data accurately and honestly, it must replace the antiquated creative writing assignments most publishers require of their sales team, otherwise known as "weekly call reports."

I implemented and managed a sales call activity tracking system that was 100 percent quantitative. Which reminds me to remind you, what I offer in this column comes from my years doing what you are doing. My mistakes are littered across publishing companies, ad agencies, and clients across the country. My intention here is to share what I learned from those mistakes and the success I enjoyed when I got it right.

Tracking the sheer number of sales calls was something I did right. At the time, I did not distinguish between social engagements and face-to-face meetings, but I would do so now.

I collected this sales call information every Friday, and yes, it took a few hours but it was time well spent. Collecting accurate and honest data on sales calls is easier to accomplish when you are asking for numbers and account names as opposed to a 300-word essay on why you are not getting the business.

A simple excel spreadsheet allowed me to tally how many sales calls the entire team generated each week broken down by sales rep and accounts. After just one full quarter, I had a baseline in which to measure future efforts against.

After a full year, I was able to chart revenue and sales calls on the same page, and determine what parts of the year we needed to help stimulate sales call activity with road show presentations and client entertainment events. I was also able to report and analyze how many sales calls we had against each account, which is information that can be extremely useful in a variety of ways.

Accurate and timely data collection is the foundation for future success. If you read Rudy Giuliani's book on leadership, you would learn how he was able to lower the crime rate in NYC by collecting data on crime patterns within each precinct on a daily basis instead of monthly or in some cases annually. This allowed him to hold precincts accountable for increases in certain crimes and acknowledge decreases when they occurred all in a timely manner.

Football coach Bill Parcells once commented that his team "committed 97 penalties this year" and that he would like to see that number down in the seventies next year. Again, only with the accurate tracking of data can you derive achievable goals.

If you are a salesperson reading this column, don't hate me. This approach will actually help your sales efforts while eliminating the dread you feel when completing your weekly creative writing assignments. No, not your expense reports, your weekly recaps of meetings you had and of meetings you wished you had.

And for those sales managers who are operating as if their sales teams are doing 10 calls a week, please sit down, I have some news for you. That number is just not happening. I have shared this math in previous columns, but it is worth noting again that a sales rep would have to do in excess of 400 calls in a year if they were even sniffing that number per week.

This quantitative and honest approach to tracking sales call activity will allow everyone to manage expectations, not fantasies. Once you start to chart this data accurately, you will have information that can help you increase sales call activity while holding your sales reps accountable to realistic expectations.

Finally, over time, you will find that the percent increase in revenue you enjoy quarter over quarter will be a number quite similar to the percent increase in sales calls. It is funny how that works.