Are You Investing the Right Amount in Sales & Marketing?

Published: Thu, 04/02/26

Updated: Thu, 04/02/26

Are You Investing the Right Amount in Sales & Marketing?

Every salesperson wants to earn more. But how much should salespeople make? Is there a benchmark?

What about a sales team? Is there a certain number of people in a team that is necessary for it to profitably support a manager?

What about the company as a whole? If you are constantly besieged by advertising agencies and marketing firms, all wanting a piece of your budget, what should you invest? Are there some guidelines?

Other than sales and gross profits, is there anything else you should be tracking to keep your sales and marketing costs in line?

The answer to all these questions is the same: YES.

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Before we mention any benchmarks, let’s make sure we are using accurate measurement. 30 years ago, in order to create a standard measurement, I developed a measurement we call “Kahle’s Kalculation .” We describe it, with same calculations and spread sheets, in a free E-book here.

Basically, it is a measure of productivity, focused on sales and marketing costs. It compares the contribution of the unit,(salesperson, sales team, company as a while) to the direct costs of that unit, and calculates the ratio. The result of the calculation is a percentage which expresses the measurement of how productive the measured unit is. The smaller the number, the more productive. So, if you are measuring a salesperson, a KK measurement of 25% indicates a more productive salesperson than someone with a measurement of 35%.

Once you are equipped with that measurement, you can compare one salesperson to another, and you compare a salesperson’s recent performance to the same person’s performance last year.

Not only can you measure the performance of a salesperson, but you can also measure the performance of a sales team. So, for example, if you have multiple branches, you can calculate the KK of each branch and compare them.

Finally, you can use the measurement to... READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

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