If you’re running a sales team (or just trying to hit quota yourself), you’ve probably heard promises from every tool on the market about “unlocking insights” and “supercharging revenue.” Most of it’s noise. What you want is simple: to know which sales activities actually move the needle.
This guide is for sales managers, reps, and revops folks who want to cut through the fluff and use Rhetora to get real answers about what’s working—and what’s a waste of effort. No magic bullets, but a clear, actionable way to find what gets deals across the line.
Step 1: Get Your Rhetora Analytics Set Up Right
First things first: if your data’s a mess, your insights will be too. Rhetora pulls activity data from calls, emails, and CRM notes. But it can’t read minds—so you need to be sure it’s connected to the right places.
Checklist: - Make sure Rhetora is integrated with your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.). - Connect your email and call tools (Gmail, Outlook, Zoom, etc.). - Double-check user permissions—everyone who books meetings or logs calls should be syncing data. - Tag opportunities and activities consistently (e.g., “Discovery,” “Demo,” “Negotiation”).
Pro tip: If your team isn’t logging activities in the CRM, fix that first. No tool, Rhetora included, can give you insights from thin air.
Step 2: Define What “High-Converting” Means for Your Team
Don’t let the software define success for you. Decide up front what counts as a “conversion.” Is it a meeting booked? A proposal sent? A closed deal?
Questions to ask: - Are you tracking initial meetings, pipeline creation, or actual closed-won deals? - What’s your typical sales cycle? (If it’s three months, don’t expect last week’s activities to show results yet.) - Do you care about deal size, speed, or just conversion rate?
Why this matters: If you’re not clear on what a “win” is, Rhetora will just give you a firehose of activity data—most of it not helpful.
Step 3: Find the Activities That Correlate With Conversions
Here’s where Rhetora actually starts to earn its keep. Its analytics dashboards can surface which activities tend to show up in successful deals.
How to do it: 1. Open the “Activity Analysis” dashboard. - Look for filters by team, rep, deal stage, and time period. 2. Sort by conversion outcome. - Focus on deals that moved to your defined “win” status. 3. Compare activity patterns. - How many calls/emails did these deals get? - What was the average time between first contact and next step? - Were there specific touchpoints (e.g., product demo, technical Q&A) that showed up more in wins than losses?
What to ignore: Vanity metrics. Lots of emails or calls don’t mean much if they’re not tied to actual progress. Don’t get distracted by “busy work.”
Example: If you see that deals with a technical validation call close 30% faster, that’s a hint. If most closed-won deals had a follow-up within 24 hours of the first demo, that’s another.
Step 4: Dig In—Segment by Rep, Product, or Segment
Blanket insights are nice, but most sales teams have different motions for different products or customer segments. Rhetora lets you slice the data—use it.
Break it down by: - Rep: Who’s consistently converting, and what are they doing differently? (Don’t just reward “activity volume.” Look for patterns.) - Product or service: Are certain activities more effective for one line of business? - Customer segment: SMB vs. Enterprise, or by industry.
How to spot B.S.: - Outliers: One superstar rep might just be good at closing, not following the process. Look for trends, not just the top performer. - Small sample sizes: If only two deals went through a “new process,” don’t hang your strategy on it yet.
Step 5: Build a Short List of High-Impact Activities
This is the part everyone skips: actually deciding what you’ll do differently.
What to look for: - Activities that appear in a high percentage of closed-won deals, but not in losses. - Steps that seem to shorten the sales cycle (e.g., running a technical call early). - Touchpoints that drive next-stage movement (e.g., personalized video walkthroughs).
Keep your list short. Three to five activities is plenty. If you try to overhaul everything, nothing will stick.
Example shortlist: - Always schedule a follow-up within 24 hours of a demo. - Introduce a technical resource by the second call for deals over $50k. - Send a personalized summary email after every discovery call.
Step 6: Test and Track—Don’t Assume
Don’t expect overnight results. Roll out your shortlist with a pilot group, or for a specific segment. Use Rhetora to track if conversion rates actually improve over the next month.
How to do it: - Set baseline metrics (current conversion rates, deal lengths, etc.). - Implement the new activities for a set period. - Check Rhetora’s dashboards for real changes, not just more activity.
If it’s not working: That’s normal. Sales is messy. Tweak, drop what’s not helping, and double down on what is.
Step 7: Avoid the Common Pitfalls
Here’s what trips up most teams using analytics tools like Rhetora:
- Overcomplicating: Don’t chase every metric. Focus on the few activities that actually move deals forward.
- Assuming causation: Just because two things happen together doesn’t mean one caused the other. Use common sense.
- Ignoring context: What works for one segment or deal size might not for another.
- One-and-done: This isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it thing. Keep checking back every quarter.
Summary: Keep It Simple, Iterate Often
Rhetora can be a solid tool for surfacing what matters in your sales process—if you use it with a clear goal and a skeptical eye. Don’t let dashboards lull you into thinking you’ve “optimized” sales. Pick a couple of promising activities, run real tests, and keep tuning as you go. The teams that win aren’t the ones with the fanciest analytics—they’re the ones who act on what works, toss what doesn’t, and stay curious.