When you run a Sales Org, you have a wide choice of metrics you can track daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

If I had to pick just one metric for measuring a Sales Org’s health, my answer would be clear- I would choose Rep Participation Rate (RPR) (defined as the % of Salespeople at the company who exceeded their monthly or quarterly quota).

Building and scaling a Sales Organization is a function of aligning resources against a market opportunity. It is critical to think about the quality and quantity of those resources. In addition, we must think about where to align those resources against the market opportunity. RPR gives you a path to understanding the whole picture.

RPR gives you a quick view into the quality of the team- are the majority of Salespeople hitting their number?

It also provides a measurement into the quality of the Management team- are they increasing RPR month over month through effective coaching and development?

If the team is strong but RPR is low, perhaps we have a quantity issue. We may have over-hired relative to our current market opportunity (measured by our number of leads or prospects). Sometimes, the problem can be more pernicious- a drop in RPR can be due to a Company’s Product/Market fit not scaling with the market.

RPR doesn’t answer your questions for you. But in the hands of an experienced Sales Leader- RPR helps you ask the right questions. And as you can see, it goes beyond Sales productivity. It gives you insight into, Recruiting, Marketing, and Product/Market fit.

And more than any other metric, it shines a light on the X factor that drives many Sales teams- morale and momentum. All else equal, a team with high morale and a feeling of momentum will pounce a team without those characteristics. And it is rare to see a team with below 50% RPR have that X factor. To create a high-performing environment, Salespeople need to look to their left and right and see the majority of people exceeding quota- ideally two out of three.

RPR is also essential to your Startup’s financial plan. A common approach to building a revenue model is to work backward from the model to determine your next year’s Sales headcount. But as I shared in my post about Building your 2022 Revenue Model, it is vital to take the time to think through what investments to make to ensure productivity stays high as you scale. Be aggressive but ensure RPR stays healthy. Otherwise, you may need to reduce the team and get RPR back in line, which is disruptive for everyone.

Sales Leaders should think about RPR as the most straightforward metric for measuring their Org’s health. If it dips below 50%, be mindful that you may be scaling ineffectively. If RPR is very high, see it as a sign that the Org is healthy, and perhaps you should be scaling faster or pushing the team harder by raising goals.

Rapidly scaling a Sales team is like taking a long road trip across the country. Some days you’re cruising along with the sun shining and the windows down. Other days, you can’t seem to avoid traffic, road closures, and bad weather. Stay close to your people and close to your numbers. RPR is a view into both. It is one of your best maps.