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Welcome to the Sales Transformation Podcast, the definitive stop for leaders driving change in the sales world. Hosted by Kevin Warner, we dive deep into the minds of Founders, CEOs, VPs of Sales, and Sales Development Leaders from trailblazing startups to industry-leading public companies.
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Welcome back to Sales Transformation brought to you by Leadium. In this episode, we have Carl Cox joining us to discuss the importance of finding your most important KPI. Get ready to uncover the key indicators that drive success in your business. Colin, the floor is yours.
Collin Mitchell:Alright. Welcome back to another episode of sales transformation brought to you by Leadium. I'm your host, Colin Mitchell. And today, I've got Carl j Cox on. He's the author of stuck at CEO.
Collin Mitchell:He's also the CEO of 40 strategy. We recently had Carl on the show where we talked about what KPI you should focus on. Lots of good nuggets there. Definitely recommend you checking it out. We'll drop the link in the show notes.
Collin Mitchell:For anybody who may have missed the first episode, Carl, just give us a little bit of background on yourself.
Carl Cox:Yeah. Once again, 40, CEO of 40 strategy. And why we're called 40 strategy is most people only spend about 2% of their time on strategy, which is about equivalent to 40 hours per year. So take a look at us when you're trying to be a little bit more effective with those 40 hours. So, basically, that's the the key thing.
Carl Cox:2, my experience has been primarily within companies. I've been with 7 different companies, gone from 2x to 7x in scale. And so I've had a lot of rapid growth within that, managed every function of department within the company, and just been fortunate enough to have been trained by Fortune 500 executives and primarily been, applying that to small to medium sized businesses, throughout my career, and it just had a lot of fun going through that process. And I'm really excited today, Colin, what we're gonna talk about to carry on from the previous episode of talking about leading indicators to lagging indicators. This next one's a fun one.
Collin Mitchell:Yeah. I'm guessing you you gave up on the battle of trying to get people to spend more than 40 hours on strategy. So you figured, let's just make them most effective in the amount amount of time that we know that they're willing to spend in this very important thing.
Carl Cox:You know, what's fun is when when no. You nailed it. I mean, what's so interesting is 90% of strategic plans fail to get 2 thirds of their strategic objectives done. 90%. And That's a good number.
Carl Cox:It's huge. And what's crazy is Mackenzie is only 20% successful with implement implementing, but the problem is nobody gets fired from hire Mackenzie.
Collin Mitchell:So, you
Carl Cox:know, our our concept is you're right. You know, people are only gonna spend so much time on strategy, but if you do strategy the right way, our clients get they're in the top 10% or better. You know, we our clients crush it because we do our 7 principles that we lay out in Lost at COO book because that's what we wanna do. We wanna make sure that people are doing it the right way. And when they do it the right way, it actually starts becoming fun, Colin.
Carl Cox:It's not just a waste of time and a a strategic plan that ends up collecting dust, you know, and that nobody wants to talk about 2 months down the road. We actually get things done, which is a lot of fun.
Collin Mitchell:And why do you think that so many failed? Do you think it's because it's not a good strategy to begin with? They don't focus on the right things, or could it be that they just have a hard time getting the team bought into the plan? Yes. All of them are.
Carl Cox:Fair? Is that fair? Yes. I it it is. The number one reason is time, actually.
Carl Cox:So 98% of core corporations or sorry. People within a corporation say, we just don't have enough time to do it. Often, the reason why they don't have enough time is they have not focused on the essential few strategies that they should be doing to have the biggest impact in the outcome. We're a huge fan of the Pareto principle, which if you are not familiar with that already, 20% of the activities that you typically do has 80% of the results. So what we do is we trim throughout the entire process of the strategic planning process to get to do a design of a plan that's essential for you to get it done.
Carl Cox:We then make sure there's a tracking mechanism to follow through and go through that process. And as a result, we have much higher success rate.
Collin Mitchell:Interesting. So the last time we had you on Carl, we we talked about, you know, some KPIs to focus on, you know, what people typically look at, what they should be looking at. And so we thought we'd have you back. And then today, we talk a little bit more about finding your most important KPI. And you talk told me, you know, before we started recording, you said something about what is your campus visit.
Collin Mitchell:So I'm I'm sure people are curious to find out what the heck does that mean.
Carl Cox:Yeah. This is a super fun story. As matter of fact, as when I was with a strategic planning software company when I when I uncovered this concept, if you may. And it was just a fun experience. It's a great story, and I think it's gonna resonate with everybody here.
Carl Cox:But the one thing I want you to keep in mind as your listing story is, what is your campus visit? So what happened is I was working with a charter school of all things. Okay? Working with a charter school, and I asked them, so what is your most important KPI? What is your most important key performance indicator that you have to make sure you're hitting?
Carl Cox:Now once again, sales audience, that's sales. Right? You know, you're talking about I we need to hit our sales number. Of course, it is. Right?
Carl Cox:That's your most important indicator. Well, for the school, it was students. That was their most important tracking thing because if they didn't have students, they didn't get revenue. Simple. Right?
Carl Cox:They don't become a charter school. So alright. So great. That's your most important KPI. How do you know during the year your students are increasing or decreasing?
Carl Cox:And they're like, well, we track the number of students. And, of course, this was a CFO. And as a former CFO, recovering CFO, that's what happens. You know, people just looking behind. And so I was like, okay.
Carl Cox:Okay. Let's ask this again. How do you know you're making you're making a difference? And and still kept on going towards the student. I said, okay.
Carl Cox:What is something that really kind of more of a leading indicator that's gonna tell you this? And they went number of applications. I said, hey. That's that's better. That is a better, you know, if you made leading indicator to the outcome.
Carl Cox:But I said, are you in control of people actually completing the the applications? They were like, no. We have no control of that situation. We don't know what's happening. I said, alright.
Carl Cox:So they said then finally, as we're going through this and kinda, you know, spitballing ideas, the superintendent goes, you know, Carl, when a prospective student is here on a campus visit, we'll roll out the red carpet for them. We will have one of our best students walk them through you know, as as a current student, they'll walk them through classes. They'll get the the building will be clean. They get to see the teachers and how engaged they are with the students. We show them the facilities, athletic facilities that we have that are world class.
Carl Cox:You know, we we give them this amazing experience. And then they come back, and at the end of the discussion, they'll come and shake my hand. And he said, you know, I knew every single time whether or not that prospective student was a good common sign to be a part of our organization. So I asked an important question, Colin. Yeah.
Carl Cox:So do you track your campus visits? What do you think the answer was? No. Yeah. It was absolutely no.
Collin Mitchell:You must Yeah. You must have been ripping your hair out. Like, what do you mean?
Carl Cox:Yeah. But You
Collin Mitchell:just told me how important this activity is. This ex well, experience. Right.
Carl Cox:And you're not tracking it. Exactly. And so so what's crazy is about this this this concept here, right, is the most important thing. So we start talking more about this concept. It's like, yeah, man.
Carl Cox:It was it's so important. He, like, went on and on. It's so important. I can't believe we're not tracking it. Right?
Carl Cox:It was a good acknowledgment. Boy, we better start tracking it going forward. And then he said something really interesting. He said, you know, I haven't been doing I haven't been handshaking the students recently because I've been busy working in my PhD. I wonder how it's going now.
Carl Cox:Right? So the most important action leading indicator to help convert a sale, Let's call what it is. Right? They're trying to sell a prospective student, like, coming to be a part of their charter school. They're trying to get that done, and they couldn't.
Carl Cox:They didn't know. They didn't know. Let me clarify. They weren't tracking. They didn't know for sure.
Carl Cox:And even worse, the superintendent was like, I don't know what's happening anymore. So this is where I like to always leave our audience and talk about this is, what is your campus visit? What you'll find often is the most important leading indicator, the most important thing we track is not actually being tracked in your CRM. It's not being tracked in your Salesforce automation system, and it's definitely not being tracked with the executives.
Collin Mitchell:And and what is it?
Carl Cox:Well, at since that what's that? Say that again.
Collin Mitchell:On the edge of the so for those that are on the edge of their seats wondering, what is this that you're talking about, Carl?
Carl Cox:So if you may, and this is where it's a little bit of a riddle, it's different for every organization. Every organization has its campus visit. It has its most
Collin Mitchell:critical part. What are some common ones? What are some common ones that you Yeah. Say let's say, I'm sure you've done this with many companies. Yeah.
Collin Mitchell:What are the top 3 that come up the most?
Carl Cox:Yeah. For the top 3 that typically come in is is the initial conversation with the client. So when you first first impression first impression. That's right. Yeah.
Carl Cox:That experience of the first impression of actually talking with the client for the first time is often the campus visit. And and the secret, Colin, is we'll go back to the school. The strategies to improve it are are a hundredfold. It's probably 5 to 10 fold, but let's just think about it. Okay.
Carl Cox:Do you have your best student walking you through campus? A little comparison. My daughter is, just got recruited recently for college to play soccer at a division division one school. We were she was getting walked through a division one school, and they brought their least effective communicator to do the campus tour. Right?
Carl Cox:Crazy. Like, crazy. What are you thinking? Right? Versus the one of the coaches, well, it's where she ended up going.
Carl Cox:I'll do a shout out to to TCU. She spent he spent 4 to 6 hours with her. Right? You know? So, anyways, experience.
Carl Cox:So that's one thing. 2, hey. Was the school clean? 3, did, did we meet on time? 4, did the superintendent have the connection?
Carl Cox:5, did we have a follow-up to make sure that they got it? 6, did we make sure the application was there? Right? Okay. Now let's go into business.
Carl Cox:Same concepts. Right? Did you have from the prospect to the actual meeting, did they have testimonials that they were getting prior to that first meeting that they already bought and sold in before you had met with them? Number 1. Right?
Carl Cox:2, is your person prepared for that meeting? Right? Do they know who they're talking with? Are they gonna listen to what their problems are? Are they gonna find a way to solve their solutions?
Carl Cox:3, do we have proper follow-up? Right? Did do we have the proper follow-up to make sure that we're getting the right questions, understanding it, and making sure it gets done? 4, did we set up a follow-up meeting to help close the deal if we weren't able to close it in that opening line? Right?
Carl Cox:There are those key things right there in that process of real connection when you have the proper buyer in the meeting, right, is in most k not I shouldn't say most. For many organizations, it's your campus tour. And once again, the magic isn't just the campus tour. It's all the actions around it to have it be a world class experience that they it's a no brainer, right, for that client to buy your product or service.
Collin Mitchell:Thanks for tuning in. Please don't forget to like and share so we can help more people transform the way they sell.