Whether you’re a salesperson, manager or executive, the most basic question that must be answered when dealing with sales metrics is, ‘What should be measured?’ You really can’t get to the how to measure until you know what should be measured and why.

That question will to a large extent determine the success or failure of the system you employ. But the very question itself creates conflicting answers. Senior management’s desires may be very different from those of the sales team members. The information most useful to management is not going to be the same information most useful to individual salespeople.

There is a natural dichotomy between what concerns management and what concerns salespeople. Management wants to know the big picture and improve gross performance; salespeople want to know how to improve their performance.

Jessica Royer Ocken discusses how to select the most critical Key Performance Indicators for your organization in Synygy Magazine. Although the article concentrates on the metrics most important to management, she does give some guidance in how to construct a system that will also help meet the needs of individual salespeople.