How One Company Used Data to Improve Its Sales Staff For this company, it's all in the numbers.

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Staff development isn't a term that excites most employees, but at KnowBe4, it's one of the most appreciated parts of the job. The Florida-based company sells security-awareness training to businesses, and each member of its sales team numerically tracks their efforts and progress (called substats). Weekly development meetings help them either continue growing or correct what's wrong. Expansion director Drew Graef explains a handful of one employee's substats from late 2016.

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Contacts

"We think of our reps as consultants more than pitchmen. The first phone call should be 75 percent listening. If you have a bad conversion rate from contact to demo, something's off."

Number of web demos

"We ask that our team does eight demos to prospective clients a week, so when there's less, our quality-control manager would sit down and discuss the disconnect. We do demos on the fly -- call someone, ask them to head to a browser where we can share a screen and present. That's hard for some salespeople, so getting over that hurdle can be the issue."

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New prospecting leads created

"Top reps spend an hour each day on prospecting leads. Maybe a year ago someone got a quote but then nothing happened; you call them back, and that's a prospecting call. The fact that in 14 weeks there were just two created here, well, that's not good. We'd figure out how to improve these numbers and do additional training if needed."