hoc today? Sketching it out is the first step to bringing some order to the process... and thus bringing predictability to getting the desired outcome. 6) Focus on results rather than activity. Example: Tracking the number of qualified opportunities created per month is much more meaningful than focusing on the number of sales calls made per day. 7) Track fewer, more important metrics. It's easy to go overboard in over- building reports and dashboards, ending up with “dashboard clutter” in which too many reports and metrics make it difficult to focus on the most important ones. Work with your team to prioritize metrics. Think in handfuls, not dozens. Five of the most important metrics in lead generation and sales development: 1. New leads created per month. 2. Number of qualified sales opportunities created per month. And the total dollar amount of new qualified pipeline generated this month (the best indicator of future revenue). 3. Percentage conversion rate of leads to qualified opportunities. 4. Total bookings or revenue(broken out by “New Business,” “Add-On Business,” or “Renewal Business.”) 5. Win rates. What percentage of new pipeline resulted in won deals? 8) Pay special attention to “batons” that cross functions. Whenever a process crosses teams (Marketing handing leads to Sales, or Sales passing new clients to professional services, etc.), a “baton” is passed. These handoffs are the cause of 80% of the problems and defects in your processes. Redesign how the batons are passed to ensure they are passed smoothly and aren’t dropped. 9) Take baby steps! Consistently try lots of little improvements. If you keep at them, they'll add up to big changes over time. (Remember the part about patience?) Companies think that they can make bigger changes than they can, faster than is possible... and end up biting off more than they can chew, creating a “two steps forward, two steps back” syndrome.