In recent years advanced stats have been a hot topic in sports, which adds new ways to view how certain players contribute to (or detriment) their respective teams.
One of the most popular advanced statistics in sports has been wins-above-replacement in baseball, which “measures a player’s value in all facets of the game by deciphering how many more wins he’s worth than a replacement-level player at his same position”. When it boils down to it, sports are a business, and this data helps add context for those making the business decisions determine how they can improve their respective company.
Molly Olsofka of Samford University explained why these analytics are so important in the business setting:
“The amount of data available in today’s world because of technology advancements is seemingly unimaginable. Sports teams are able to use this available data to their advantage. When many people think of sports analysis, the movie “Moneyball” often times comes to mind, but the movie only shows a glimpse what it all entails. The sports industry uses sports analysis to increase revenue, improve player performance and a team’s quality of play, prevent injury and for many more enhancements.”
MLB: Wins Above Replacement
As mentioned previously, “Wins Above Replacement” (often referred to as WAR for short), indicates how much better a player is than the average replacement for that position. This includes many factors such as how effective a player is at batting, fielding, and baserunning, to give a score that tells how many wins that player is worth to their team.
Applying this to the sales space, we can look at how each sales representative in business development performs all-around. Categories that a sales “WAR” might be based off are things such as effectiveness on the phone, email contact percentage, quality of research, and lead conversion rate. These are all things that would help indicate who is doing quality work for the organization and pushing them to “win”, in terms of bringing business in. There are outside factors that can be worked into this as well, in terms of fits. Just like some batters may fare better against pitchers in a certain division in the MLB, certain sales reps may perform better in certain industries. The better the fit, the better the “WAR”.
NHL: Corsi
A popular advanced statistic in hockey in recent years has been Corsi, which helps indicate the defensive and possession effectiveness of a team or player. If a player takes a shot on goal, it will be counted as “Corsi For”. If a shot is taken on that players goal, it’s a “Corsi Against”. This helps show whether players are actively playing both sides of the ice effectively, offensively and defensively. In sales, possession of the flow of a conversation is important. There will be both propositions and rebuttals as the representative tries to steer the conversation towards a meeting. We can equate this to the aspects of “Corsi For/Against”, as we score the effectiveness of the salesperson to drive the conversation in the right direction as they “take shots on net” (For), and also actively re-direct the rebuttals that come up along the way (Against). Overall, it is important for the representative to be well-rounded on both offense and defense to be able to be effective for their respective organization.
NFL: Passer Rating or “QBR”
Stats analysts in football are obsessed with dissecting quarterback play, and with good reason. The quarterback is on display exclusively on offense as they work their craft, trying to hit their receivers to gain yardage and eventually score. Passer rating, or QBR, is measured by “completion percentage, yards per passing attempt, touchdown percentage, and interception percentage”. This stat gives an idea of how efficient the quarterback is not only in driving the ball, but also ensuring that the ball is not turned over and that they are being accurate. When you think of offense in a sales environment, your first thought may be the sales representatives on the frontline trying to get the sales, but in this instance, we believe that the research department relates best to the quarterback. Their role is to be facilitating high-quality contacts, press releases, and new companies (among other things) to the representatives to give them a better chance of finding the right contact or fit for a deal. Touchdown percentage can equate to closed deals for contacts added by the research team, and completion percentage is like contacts that the team adds that result in a lead. When we end up in the endzone, everyone wins. Touchdown.
NBA: LEBRON
Yes, you read that right. There is an advanced stat in the NBA with the acronym LEBRON. It stands for Luck-adjusted player Estimate using a Box prior Regularized ON-off, and it has become increasingly popular in the last year or so to measure a player’s efficiency per 100 possessions on-court. This kind of stat is easily transferrable to a sales role because of its “per 100” format, where we could substitute basketball possessions for outreaches. The unique thing about this stat is that it factors in luck, through complex “Nylon Calculus” developed by basketball statisticians. Luck is also a part of sales sometimes, so it seems reasonable to think LEBRON would be a very transferable statistic to the sales world. All-in-all this advanced statistic is great for a full-scale grading of a player or salesperson, as it weighs multiple factors in its grading system.
