That said, every time in my career when I’ve experienced real sales success, there has been a process behind it. And somewhere inside that process was some very important sales math. If you want to consistently hit your sales goals, you need to understand two numbers: your meeting-booking rate and your closing rate.

Sales Math #1: How Much Prospecting Does It Take to Book a Meeting?

Start with a simple question: How many prospecting touches does it typically take you to book one sales meeting?

That might include emails, phone calls, voicemails, text messages or LinkedIn outreach. For example, maybe you discover that your typical pattern is five emails, five phone calls or voicemails and two text messages before you finally book a meeting. Great. Now you have something valuable. You have a repeatable process.

The mistake many salespeople make is operating in the land of “probably.” They say things like, “I’ll probably book a couple of meetings,” or “I’ll probably hear back from them.” Unfortunately, probably is not a sales strategy.

Instead, track your activity across a large enough group of prospects to understand what your actual numbers look like. Maybe you learn that every 50 prospecting touches generates five qualified meetings. Once you know that number, you can begin working backward from your sales goal. That is where sales math becomes powerful.

Sales Math #2: Know Your Closing Rate

Once you understand how much activity it takes to book meetings, you need to understand what happens after those meetings. What percentage of your qualified sales conversations actually turn into closed business?

This is where salespeople often make another big mistake. Let’s say you need 10 new customers. You cannot simply prospect 10 companies and expect 10 deals unless your closing rate is 100%. And I hate to break it to you, but Jesus of Nazareth didn’t have a 100% closing rate, and he was pretty good at his job.

In the sales teams I work with, I often see closing rates somewhere around 30% for good, qualified sales conversations. That means roughly three out of every 10 qualified meetings might become customers. Your number may be higher. It may be lower. That’s OK. The important thing is knowing the truth.

If your closing rate is 30% and you need 10 sales, you are going to need roughly 33 qualified sales meetings. Now we can connect the two pieces of sales math.

Work Backward From Your Goal

This is where the magic happens. Suppose your goal requires you to close 10 deals. Your closing rate tells you that you need approximately 33 qualified meetings to close those deals. Your prospecting math then tells you how much activity is required to generate those 33 meetings.

Suddenly, your sales goal stops being a vague number hanging on the wall. It becomes a process. You know how many prospects you need to work, approximately how many touches you need to make, how many meetings you need to book and how many deals those meetings should produce.

That is a lot more useful than simply telling yourself, “I need to sell more.”

You Can Control More Than You Think

Obviously, sales math isn’t perfect. Customers don’t always respond when we want them to. Prospects disappear. Deals get delayed. Budgets change. Decision makers go on vacation. There will always be pieces of the sales process that you cannot control.

But you can control your activity. You can control how many people you prospect, how consistently you follow up, how many meetings you attempt to book and how much work you put into improving your closing skills.

That becomes especially important during periods of political or economic uncertainty. I am experiencing this myself right now. I’m prospecting more. I’m working more opportunities. I’m booking more meetings because I recognize that the marketplace may require more activity to produce the same results.

The answer isn’t always to complain that sales are harder. Sometimes the answer is simply to adjust the math.

Know Your Numbers

If you’re serious about hitting your sales goals consistently, start tracking two numbers: your meeting-booking rate and your closing rate. How much prospecting activity does it take to create one qualified sales meeting? And how many qualified meetings does it take to produce one sale?

Then work backward from your goal.

Your numbers won’t be exactly the same as someone else’s, and they shouldn’t be. This is your sales math. Relationships still matter. Trust still matters. Your sales skills still matter. But when you combine great relationships with a repeatable process and accurate sales math, your chances of consistently hitting your goal go way up.

And while I may never call math the most exciting part of selling, I’ve learned to respect it. Because in sales, knowing your numbers can make the difference between hoping you’ll hit your goal and knowing exactly what you need to do to get there.