Effective measurements, tracking and informed decisions can ensure a sales team moves in the right direction.
By Jason Welsford – President and Part Owner – Welsford Company and ValveMan
Measuring and driving performance are essential skills for any sales team—and sales leaders. I have carried these qualifications throughout my career, and well into my current leadership role in the valve industry.
A challenge we manage is utilizing structured, scalable, and systematic performance metrics and sales approaches without losing the customer- first ethos that make the business special.
The following are the performance metrics that can be tracked, create interest and used as a compass for continued business growth.
1. Customer Tiering: Prioritize Where It Matters
A good practice is to tier customer accounts based on three key factors: order frequency over the past 12 months, average order value, and the breadth of product categories purchased. While straightforward, this framework helps ensure that sales teams are not simply reacting to the most vocal customers.
Instead, they are prioritizing those with the greatest long-term value. This can lay groundwork for more strategic time management and focused account development.
2. Call Volume and Talk Time: Activity That Matters
It’s important to monitor two critical indicators: the number of outgoing calls and average call duration. Short calls may signal surface-level activity; long ones without movement might reveal qualification gaps.
VoIP tools like RingCentral provide visibility into sales activity without the need for direct oversight. These tools enable sales leaders to identify behavioral patterns, uncover areas for improvement and coach teams toward more effective customer interactions.
3. Quote Conversion Rate: Turning Proposals into POs
Some criteria that are commonly tracked include the total quotes issued, which represent the percentage converted to orders and the time from the quote to closing the sales and orders. These metrics provide a pulse on quoting strategy, pricing issues, follow-up consistency, and spec alignment. This ensures that a sales representative’s understanding of the company’s product (including specifications, features, and capabilities) aligns with the customer’s needs and expectations.
“Once trust is built with a client, set a goal to earn a greater share of their valve needs across business segments.”
Often, it is not all about quote volume. It’s about quote performance and the potential from ardent follow ups. One stat to remember is “80% of quotes die without follow-up.” That insight can lead to setting up formal follow-up expectations, guidelines and tracking compliance.
4. Follow-Up Discipline: Leave no Opportunity Behind
Every two weeks, ask each sales representative to file a report on quote status and follow-up activity. Determine consistency, responsiveness, action plans and timeous next steps. Whether the system is formal or informal, the key take away is what gets measured gets done. This metric alone can help reclaim ‘inactive’ opportunities.
5. Transactions per Sales Representative: Frequency Builds Trust
Remember to not just track revenue. Monitor how many transactions a sales representative is completing. Smaller, frequent orders often signal strong relationships and the potential for future opportunities.
We use this insight to coach sales representatives on expanding wallet share. Our leadership team partners with each salesperson to identify growth opportunities within accounts that reveal consistent activity.
It’s a metric that highlights seeds being planted and nurtured for future growth, as opposed to just closing deals.
6. Average Order Value: Insight into Sales Strategy
Average Order Value (AOV) can help uncover a number of criteria. This includes missed bundling or upselling opportunities, overreliance on low-margin wins, and confidence (or lack thereof) in promoting higher-value solutions.
Of course, not every customer has the same ceiling. A backend team helps estimate opportunity size by account to coach sales representatives accordingly and identify areas of untapped potential.
7. Sales by Product Category: Cross-Sell with Confidence
Dividing and/or segmenting the overall customer base into select groups based on similar characteristics can help specify marketing needs, sales strategies, and product offerings to meet certain objectives.
We segment by:
- Valve type
- Manufacturer
- End-use industry
- Order size
This helps identify a sales representative’s strengths, training gaps, and underleveraged product lines. Once trust is built with a client, set a goal to earn a greater share of their valve needs across categories. This is when subject matter experts can help support sales representatives while maintaining service.
New and Re-Engaged Customers: Fuel for the Future
It’s equally important to constantly track new account wins and re-activated dormant customers. When a sales representative lands a new account or revives an old one, always suggest they relay their experience to the sales team. This can be a moment of recognition, growth, and motivation among peers. These stories matter and can help empower other sales representatives.
Case Study: Turning Transactions into Traction
A sales representative of ours consistently received small weekly orders from a regional food processor, which didn’t seem all that significant.
However, by analyzing transaction count and product mix, our backend team identified that they weren’t purchasing valves in several product categories we carried.
As a result, the rep and our team uncovered a larger spec opportunity that eventually turned into a facility-wide upgrade—and a long-term, high-value partnership. That’s the power of structured metric analysis paired with relationship depth.
Final Thought: Process + People = Performance
The valve industry is technical, complex, and deeply human. Metrics matter—but only when they are used thoughtfully. When someone misses a goal, ask why. It might be a coaching issue, or it might be a personal one.
Further, make success visible. Celebrating progress fuels momentum. It reinforces a culture to always build on.