How many times have you heard that sales is a numbers game? In other words, if you do the numbers you can reach your goals. Sales actually is a science, and it's true that if you simply do enough activity, you can reach your new account, revenue and income goals.

While there is a formula to help simplify the necessary evil of doing the numbers, it does require some work on your part and, although the formula is universal, your success in applying the formula will depend somewhat on your individual skill level.

While most, if not all, sales organizations set quotas for their salespeople, many do not outline the activities required to reach quota. Unless and until you know what activities are required to reach your goals, there is no way you can reach quota consistently.

Regardless of your sales skill level, a big part of sales simply is doing the numbers, that is, making enough contacts that the required percentage will result in sales. The formula, therefore, is made up of activities that can be tracked to create ratios that illustrate your current sales skill level and show areas that need improvement. Where your skill level comes into play is the actual numbers required in each phase of the doing-the-numbers formula.

The elements of the formula are calls, connects, voicemails, callbacks, appointments, proposals, sales and value. Each of these elements represents the activities required within the sales process to reach your sales quota. Begin by creating a worksheet that lists the above eight elements horizontally across the top of the page.

Start by tracking the number of outbound calls you make each day. A call is defined as dialing the phone, whether you reach the decision maker or not. Next, track the number of times you actually connect with the decision maker. Leaving a voicemail message is not considered a connect; however, you will want to track the number of voicemail messages you leave for decision makers as a part of your activities tracking exercise.

Then, track the number of times decision makers call you back, based on the voicemail messages you leave, in the callbacks section of the worksheet. Also, track the number of appointments that result from connecting with decision makers. Next, track the number of proposals that result from the appointments you have with decision makers. Finally, track the number of actual sales and the dollar value of those sales that result from the proposals you present to decision makers.

Ratios are calculated by adding up the total numbers from each column and then dividing the appropriate activity. For example, if you want to know how effective you are at converting connects with decision makers to appointments, you would divide the total number of appointments by the total number of connects to get a percentage that represents the ratio of how effective you are at getting appointments.

If you want to track the ratio of calls to sales, divide the total number of sales by the total number of calls to get your calls to sales ratio. You can follow this process for any number of combinations to get a percentage that represents your effectiveness at each point in the sales process.

Completing the numbers worksheet on a daily basis will tell you how many calls, connects, appointments and proposals you need to reach your account, revenue and income goals.