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Why Tracking Sales Conversations Per Day Matters

2 min readMarch 10, 2016

Since releasing our Complete Guide to Inside Sales Analytics, I’ve had some time to reflect on what the most important sales metric is. While there are dozens of metrics that I believe sales leaders must track in order to succeed, one metric keeps sticking out in my mind, and it’s a fairly simple one: sales conversations per day.

lightning-conversations-per-day

What Constitutes a Sales Conversation?

There is no universal consensus on what constitutes a sales conversation, but I like to define a conversation as when two or more people having a dialog. And for the purpose of measuring them in Salesforce, I like to take a time-based approach. In most cases, if it’s lasting longer than two minutes, it’s probably a sales conversation. Of course, if you’re selling something with a 20-second value prop, like mortgage refinancing, it could be less, but for the brunt of B2B industries I recommend the 2-minute mark.

So now that we’ve defined what a sales conversation is, let’s talk about why they matter. To answer that question, here are some quotes about why it’s so vital to track sales calls.

Phone Calls Are Immediate and Personal

“The reality is that an offline conversation beats online engagement any day. I don’t just mean calling your grandmother instead of emailing, or talking to your date instead of texting. In the B2B world, calls are golden. They’re immediate, personal and convert at a much higher rate than clicks do.”

Source: The Salesforce Blog

Phone Leads Are More Valueable

“43% of all search-related conversions happen over the phone, and 65% of businesses consider phone calls to be their most valuable, highest quality source of leads, according to data .”

Source: Wordstream

Calls Are Where Relationships Are Forged

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from listening to thousands of sales calls, it’s this: despite all the tools intended to help sales reps engage with prospects — email, lead and account scoring, content, social media alerts, and many more — calls are still where relationships are forged or lost forever.”

Source: Hubspot Blog

You Can Learn the Best Times to Call

“In comparison to media such as social media or emails, a person’s telephone is still the best way to communicate a message for many people. Depending on your target audience, timing is very important. You want to call when your lead will be available and open to what you have to say.”

Source: Maximizer

Sales conversations per day is just one metric that today’s top-performing sales leaders are tracking. For some more sales metric that can help you optimize prospecting ROI, get your free guide to inside sales analytics!