I recently did an engagement with an SDR team. They wanted help choosing and tracking success metrics. Like most teams without seasoned revenue operators in-house, we got caught up talking about metrics that don’t speak to the big picture. Here’s how I like to explain my point:
While driving to work this morning I saw a 620 horsepower vehicle (I know because it said “620hp” right on the side). Obviously, this is an incredibly fast automobile. NASCAR stock cars usually have 850 to 900 horsepower. So any vehicle with ⅔ as much power as a professional race car has got to be fast, right?
This is what I saw on the highway:
I use this to make the point that there is more to speed than power. Things like weight distribution, torque, and suspension affect a vehicle’s top speed. No single factor can be an accurate indicator of top speed.
Judging the success of an outbound campaign by its open or response rate is just like guessing a vehicle’s top speed based on horsepower alone. That’s why it’s so frustrating to hear sales development leaders compare the response rates of their “best” sequences. If you’ve spent any time in sales development, you know that this conversation happens hundreds of times at every conference.
Some of you—the ones who talk endlessly about response rates with other sales leaders—are probably feeling a bit of resistance to this message. You still want to tell everyone about your amazing response rates. This happens for a simple reason—response rate is easy to measure.
But response rate can be a false indicator of success. To make my point, I’ve written an email that you simply can’t beat. This is yours, free of charge. I guarantee you that this email will destroy your best open AND response rates:
You’re welcome…
Without understanding the rest of your sales development funnel, open rates and response rates are meaningless. Stop talking about them.
