If you're behind on your targets and you're not bringing in the sales you ought to be, your boss may well be giving you that wonderful piece of motivational advice: "Make more sales calls! It's a numbers game!" Trouble is, it isn't!

I mean, it is to a degree, but that's not the whole picture. Read on to find out why the numbers may not be stacking up for you, and why making more calls is not always the answer.

The Lottery is a numbers game, because the statistically, the more tickets you buy, the greater your chance of winning (small though it remains). But life doesn't work that way all the time.

You don't hear a football manager saying to his team 'now just go out there and shoot as much as you can. It's just a numbers game. Doesn't matter where you are, just shoot!' Or a golfing professional telling you ‘well, I made it to pro level by hitting as many golf balls as I could. Didn't matter how or where, I just made sure I hit loads.'

It's not true that the more shots you take, the more you score. It's true that the more quality shots you take, the more you score! If you're in charge of a team, you can either measure results or activity. If you measure sales calls, phone calls or networking events, then you're measuring quantity and not quality. What about measuring sales or leads?

I spent two years of my life going to 126 networking events and spending thousands of pounds on breakfasts, lunches, dinners and memberships. I was all about activity. It wasn't until I began to understand what networking was about that I moved from counting my conversations to making my conversations count!

"Don't count your conversations. Make your conversations count."

Rob Brown

If you manage a team, are you spending your time measuring targets, figures and activity? Or do you spend time on people, coaching, nurturing, encouraging, getting in there with them and helping them get better? Activity, for the sake of activity, gives numbers. It also contributes to burnout, poor calls, bad morale, resentment of managers and turnover.

Think how you can avoid a numbers mentality that is favouring quantity over quality in your selling life. You could start by remember your ratios. If you make ten calls and get one sale, you can get better so you make 10 calls and get 3 sales. It's about quality. You can work on coaching and leading people. Instead of ordering them to do more, equip them to do better!

Numbers gives you numbers. Quality gives you success!