The Best Inside Sale Agents Want Daily Accountability

The word accountability is a dirty word for a lot of people and I think it’s because they somehow equate being held accountable with not being capable of doing things themselves.

I like to think of accountability as a strategy to help me not only accomplish what I set out to do, but get even better results because someone is pushing me to be an even better version of myself.

When we hire ISAs for our team, we look for those people who want to be held accountable so they can get better results for themselves and for our team. It’s important to not that we don’t micromanage them or act like helicopter managers. Rather, we have them do a couple of easy-to-complete tasks on a regular basis and then check in with them for a few minutes daily to see how their progress is coming along.

The strategy has worked wonders for our team members and for us and we get great results as a result of it.

Here’s what accountability looks like for us:

Our ISAs submit a report to the members of our leadership team at the end of each day. This Daily Accountability Report is emailed to the members of our leadership team and it includes the results of their calling efforts for the day. In addition to providing the details of their dials, contacts, nurtures, and appointments, they also record the names and addresses of each nurture and appointment they scored for the day.

The Daily Accountability Report is reviewed by the Sales Director. It’s his job to monitor the ISAs’ daily results and make sure that each ISA is on point for reaching their benchmarks. He observes the results on a day-over-day basis and reviews them each morning in the ISA team huddle.

In the morning huddle, the ISAs announce their results from the prior day in front of the group so they can own their results and be pushed by those of the other ISAs. The huddle acts a format for the ISAs to not only bond as a group, but also to hold each other accountable (and encourage each other when someone is having a tough stretch). From our perspective, there are five main benefits of this daily accountability strategy:

Accountability accelerates performance. Having to stand up and talk about their performance from the prior day pushes the ISAs to show up and work hard each day to get better results.
Accountability helps measure success and progress. The benchmarks are established, the daily huddle gives everyone a barometer of what their results are and how close they are to meeting and/or exceeding the standards that have been set.
Accountability keeps people involved. Things come up to get us off our game all the time. Personal life, boredom, fear, getting distracted, feeling tired…they can all get us off course. Having to show up and be accountable for their results each day keeps our ISAs involved in the process of their success.
Accountability keeps people responsible. Accepting responsibility for our actions and results keeps us in line and motivated to do better day in and day out. By having to account for their actions, our ISAs must take a close look at themselves and begin to eliminate excuses while taking specific actions to get the results they and we want them to achieve.
Accountability validates beliefs. When we’re held accountable by someone, we can bounce thoughts and ideas off of them to either confirm or disqualify what we believe, helping us get better clarity about our goals and what we have to do to achieve them.

In the end, dials, contacts, nurtures, and appointments drive the train toward helping our ISAs reach their goals while helping our OSAs reach theirs.

Another Layer of Accountability

Getting regular appointments for our OSAs is great—don’t get me wrong—but if the appointments aren’t with sellers who are ready, willing, and able to sell, they’re not worth our OSA’s time. In fact, we tell our ISAs to ask themselves if they would spend time away from their family, invest their own money in gas to drive to the appointment and get dressed up to go on each of the appointments they set. If their answer is “No,” then we tell them not to send the OSA either.

One of the ways we gauge if an ISA is setting good appointments is to add another a layer of accountability by looking at the percentage of listing appointments they set that actually turn into listings taken. If an ISA sets appointments and they turn into listings taken on a consistent basis, then they are good. If the opposite is happening and listings aren’t getting taken, we get to work on helping them improve their phone game.