Pay and rank reps on show rate

1. Doing it is the hard part

Knowing what to do is not the same as doing it, and doing it is the part that matters most. The hardest part of working leads is actually working them. It is tedious, boring work that gets very unboring results. Once you know what to do, the key to doing it is culture. What follows is what has worked for one company, offered as experience rather than as a rule, and it is not put forward as the only way.

What culture is. The rules that govern good and bad behavior in an organization. The culture wanted here is a culture of execution: one that accepts the behavior that makes a team available, fast, personal and persistent, and rejects the behavior that makes it unavailable, slow, boring and fragile. Those are the four levers on SOP 85 — Set availability as a show-rate lever, section 3, turned into behavior.

2. Where the culture came from

The teenage son of one owner's neighbor kept turning up when business was being talked about, never saying a word, and when asked, said he wanted to make money. Some years later, unhappy at college, he was trying to wholesale real estate off online videos, cold-calling homeowners with no deals done and no idea how to sell. He was offered an interview for a cold-calling team, where he would get hundreds of repetitions a day, sink or swim. He got the job.

Once he had the job, the advice was this: everyone else will hit the quota of 150 calls a day; to be number one, find out what the top person does and do double. The rule, with its steps, is SOP 29 — Set outreach volume, section 8, and it is not repeated here.

A few weeks in, he complained that some of his leads were not qualified. The reframe: an unqualified lead is free practice. You still get to run the script and hear the objections. It came with a story from a gym: a man walked in looking homeless, and the owner tried to sign him up anyway, hoping to change his life. He paid a small deposit and never came back, but treating every lead as another swing of the hammer meant no lead ever felt like wasted time. A lesson came later, too: some people who look poor are wealthy, and appreciate not being judged. Do not judge; just do the work.

He took the reframe literally. He offered to take every under-qualified lead the rest of the team did not want, earned the nickname "garbage man", and kept closing them; what that did to the yellow band of leads is SOP 84 — Score and route inbound leads, section 4. He left that company as its top salesperson that quarter, out of 26, and went on to run sales for a group of companies, teaching new salespeople the same principles.

3. The sayings

One of the first things new salespeople are taught is a short set of sayings:

• be a garbage man: take the leads nobody else wants, and do not judge a book by its cover;
• yellows are the new gold;
• enough volume takes luck out of it;
• booking the next meeting from the current one is a way of life;
• every sale is an opportunity for free practice.

The team adds its own: way to do the boring work; enough volume takes luck out of it; speed is king. Further sayings: make the team love the boring work that gets results, do more than everyone else, be an equal-opportunity salesperson, and put the process above everything: nobody is above it, and everybody strives toward it.

These sayings run through the team, with a spirit of humility. Nobody is above the work; the work and the process sit on a pedestal, and all anybody can do is strive toward the ideal. Booking the next meeting is SOP 89 — Run the seven-day follow-up cadence, section 6.

4. Reward the right behavior

Rewards typically fall into money and non-money.

Money. Include a small commission bump for show rates. The size depends on the ticket price of the sale, but it is usually in the neighborhood of 5 to 30 percent of what a salesperson makes on a sale.

Non-money. Three categories: attention, affection and approval. In practice:

• give kudos to the people with the highest show rates;
• ask them what they did;
• when they say, as they always do, that they just followed the process, give them more approval and more attention.

The team joins in with the small sayings, and those sayings reinforce the right behavior. The reverse holds too. Somebody with a very high close rate who does not work their leads is seen, in this culture, as entitled and wasteful, and is told so.

5. Rank on three numbers

Rank the team by show rate, by close rate and by total call-to-close percentage. That takes both skills into account, working leads and closing them, and shows the whole picture of the team.

How to read the lists. If the team is doing well, the same people sit at the top of every list. If it is not, the lists look scattered. The nurture list shows work ethic and the closing list shows skill, and the first typically leads to the second.

Setters and closers. Something learned far too late: the best closers are typically the best setters. So setting is a great way to bring new people in at low risk. If they can set a lot of appointments, they can usually close; it is the same skill set, at higher stakes.

Why all three. It is hard to see why every business does not track all three numbers by rep. Businesses are obsessed with close rates, but the number that actually matters is how many of the leads you already have end up buying, because that takes everything into account. So you might as well weigh all of it when you pay the team and give it status.

Flag: the third number's name. It is called total call-to-close percentage, and lead-to-close ratio by rep is what is tracked; the aside above speaks of how many of the leads you have end up buying. This page does not settle which reading is right.

6. The five things it comes down to

To get the highest share of leads to turn up, you need:

1. Convenience. Make it as easy as possible for them to book and turn up.
2. Speed. Contact them as fast as possible from the moment they show interest. Prospects are highly motivated for only brief moments; make use of them.
3. Personalization. Raise the odds they turn up by showing them this is just for them, the way they want it. Show you are a real person, and that you will treat them as one.
4. Volume. Do not be afraid to reach out more than once, or to remind people of what they said they wanted. Serving them starts with talking to them.
5. Execution. Actually do it, and build cultural norms around loving the process.

None of it works unless you do the work. If you do, it will.

7. What this page does not decide for you

• The size of the show-rate bump for your ticket price. It depends on the ticket; the range is 5 to 30 percent of what a rep makes on a sale. This page gives no figure for a given price.
• How to weigh the three rankings against each other. The aside in section 5 names how many of your leads end up buying as the number that matters; nothing says how much weight the other two carry.
• What happens to a strong closer who will not work leads, beyond being told.
• How pay is structured beyond the bump. Setting sales pay as a whole is SOP 251 — Set sales comp and a career path for reps.

8. The checklist

Question	The answer
What makes it work	Culture: the rules for good and bad behavior
What the culture rewards	Being available, fast, personal and persistent
What it rejects	Being unavailable, slow, boring and fragile
The sayings	Garbage man; yellows are the new gold; enough volume takes luck out of it; book the next meeting; free practice
Money	A small commission bump for show rates, usually 5 to 30 percent of a rep's earnings on a sale, depending on ticket price
Non-money	Attention, affection and approval
The three rankings	Show rate, close rate, total call-to-close
What each list measures	Nurture measures work ethic; closing measures skill
New hires	Start them setting; good setters usually close
A high closer who does not work leads	Seen as entitled and wasteful, and told so
The five things	Convenience, speed, personalization, volume, execution

9. What this page does not cover

Doubling the top performer's inputs is SOP 29 section 8, and the daily volume rule is SOP 52 — Set daily advertising volume and keep going until the goal is hit. What happens to yellow leads is SOP 84 section 4.

Employment law and commission agreements are not covered on this page.