How to Optimize (Not Just Increase) Your Sales Call Volume
5/7/2025
In an equipment market riddled with uncertainty, tightening margins, and rising input costs, sales managers can’t afford to let their teams waste time chasing after small fish. And yet, it’s a problem veteran dealership consultant George Keen sees all too often: Sales reps working the wrong accounts, putting equal effort into low-revenue customers as they do into those driving the bulk of profits.
Speaking on a Beyond the Hood podcast episode that highlights strategies to enhance sales management, Keen lays out the numbers: “Forty percent of the potential revenue out there is maybe done by 1% to 2% of your accounts.” If that statistic gives you pause, you’re not alone. The question for you is, do your reps know which accounts are driving that 40%?
If your team is spending the same amount of time on infrequent buyers as they are on multi-thousand-acre operations, your sales strategy isn’t just inefficient—it’s costing you growth.
It’s not about the county – it’s about the account
As every sales manager or sales leader in charge of a book of business knows, every sales call matters. But it’s clear that not every call has equal priority. George Keen asserts that dealers need to make a fundamental shift in how they approach territory coverage: Move away from strict geography and toward intelligent account segmentation.
Geography still matters, but only after you have assessed the value of the accounts within the given territory and the time and personnel resources available. “You’ve got to look at how many calls the salesperson can actually do in a year,” he explains. “If a salesperson has about 1,000 calls available annually, how should those calls be allocated across A, B, C, and D accounts?”
Keen breaks down accounts into several “tiers” according to their overall value to your business and includes some rough numbers on how many calls to make per period.:
- A accounts (top revenue generators): Monthly calls, roughly 400 per year
- B accounts (mid-level customers): Every other month, about 300 calls
- C accounts (lower volume): Quarterly, around 200 calls
- D accounts (minimal opportunity): As-needed, with 100 calls reserved for emergencies and walk-ins
Structuring your accounts in this way gives a salesperson the capacity to cover roughly 130 meaningful accounts per year, factoring in a similar daily and monthly call capability. “Once you do the math,” Keen says, “you realize that assigning three or four counties to a rep might be too much. Coverage has to be based on what’s actually manageable.”
Know the farm before you assign the sales rep
Unfortunately, many dealerships still don’t know how many pieces of equipment each account owns, let alone their replacement cycles, past quotes, or buying preferences. As Keen starkly points out, “I think the number of dealerships that have good information is limited.”
Missing data can make strategic account management all but impossible. Instead of prioritizing the farms that buy twelve tractors a year, sales teams often get bogged down by servicing the ones that only buy one every decade.
Keen raises a specific example where this kind of information matters in decision-making. “If the customer has bought new in the past,” he says, “but now you have well-maintained late-model used equipment, is that something you should push instead – especially with tariffs driving up the cost of new equipment?”
That’s the kind of tactical thinking that comes from knowing your accounts, not just making guesses about them.
The sales manager needs to set the strategy
This isn’t just a sales rep problem – it’s an issue for leadership as well. Keen is clear on this, noting that the first question any sales manager should ask is, what’s our goal? Are we in customer retention mode, or are we trying to grow our market share?
The answer to this question should shape everything from account assignment to call frequency to how inbound leads are handled.
“In some dealerships,” Keen says, “an unsolicited phone call might go to an in-house salesperson first, then get handed off to a territory rep. Others might route it immediately based on geography. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. The key is having a clearly defined strategy that everyone follows.”
Data, CRM, and the spreadsheet trap
But even the best strategy falls apart without data. “You’ve got to use the CRM,” Keen insists. “Otherwise, your reps will just keep using spreadsheets, Outlook, or their day timers.”
And if leadership isn’t reinforcing the value of the CRM? Sales reps won’t bother with it.
“At one dealership I worked with,” he recalls, “we held Tuesday morning sales calls with all branches. The manager would review open quotes, contact activity, and call notes straight from the CRM. It sent a clear message: what you put into the system matters.”
When you start using an equipment dealer CRM like that included in a dealer intelligence platform like Anvil Pro, it becomes easier to implement the structure Keen describes. Anvil Pro helps dealers integrate customer, inventory, and market data into one system, allowing for more strategic account assignments and better time management. No more toggling between spreadsheets and siloed systems – just a clear picture of who’s worth your time.
It also gives managers access to the very data Keen says most dealers are missing: historical purchase behavior, equipment ownership trends, and call activity across the team.
The bottom line: Spend time calling where it counts most
At the end of the day, success doesn’t come from simply increasing call volume—it comes from optimizing it.
“Do you want your salesperson calling weekly on a prospect with a 25-horsepower garden tractor?” Keen asks. “Or do you want them focusing on a farm with 14 tractors and a fleet of implements?”
You know the answer. But until your dealership’s strategy, CRM usage, and account assignments reflect it, your sales reps may still be spending time in all the wrong places.
Want to make a change? Start by auditing your current accounts, defining your A-B-C-D tiers, and working backward from your reps’ actual call capacity. Then invest in tools like Tractor Zoom’s Anvil Pro that help you put that plan into action, as well as track the data you need to keep improving.
Because in a market where every dollar matters, it’s not about calling more accounts. It’s about calling the right ones.
For the full podcast segment with George Keen on enhancing sales strategies, watch the video on YouTube or listen from the Beyond the Hood podcast episode page.