Most sales professionals are measuring the wrong thing. They track the scoreboard: closed deals, monthly revenue, commission earned. And then wonder why motivation crashes when the numbers aren’t moving.
The scoreboard isn’t the problem. The obsession with it is.
In his Sales Institute webinar, Jean Barnard introduces a concept that shifts how high-performing salespeople think about goals, effort, and time. It’s called the Principle of Lag, and once you understand it, it changes how you approach your calendar, your pipeline, and your sense of progress.
What Is the Principle of Lag?
The results you see today, the deals that closed this month and the commission hitting your account, are not a reflection of the work you’re doing right now. They’re a reflection of the work you did three, six, or even twelve months ago.
Closed deals are lagging indicators. They confirm that past activity produced a result. But they tell you nothing about where your next result is coming from or when it will arrive.
This is the trap that derails good salespeople. They set targets based on outcomes (“I want to close R2 million this quarter”), and when the results don’t arrive on schedule, they lose confidence. The timeline between effort and reward in sales is rarely linear, and using outcomes as your primary motivation means you’ll spend a lot of time feeling like you’re failing when you’re actually just waiting.
Shift Your Focus to Leading Indicators
Jean’s framework encourages salespeople to build their goals around activity, the inputs they can actually control.
How many discovery calls are you booking each week? How many written proposals are you submitting each month? How many industry events are you attending each quarter?
These are leading indicators. They’re the upstream activity that produces downstream results. By setting goals based on volume of effort rather than volume of income, you give yourself something concrete to achieve every day regardless of what the market is doing.
When your goal is 50 written proposals this year, a “no” stops being a setback and starts being a data point. You’re one step closer to the “yes” that the Principle of Lag says is coming, because you’ve done the work, and the lag is simply time.
Your “Why” Has to Be Personal
Activity goals are sustainable when they’re connected to something meaningful. Jean argues that sales targets which aren’t anchored to a personal “why”, whether that’s financial freedom, family security, or a specific life goal, will eventually run out of fuel.
When you’re clear on what your daily sales activities are actually building toward, the work takes on a different quality. Each call you make, each proposal you send, each event you attend is a brick in something real. The hustle stops feeling like noise and starts feeling like progress.
This isn’t motivational language for its own sake. It’s a practical framework for maintaining consistency over time, which is ultimately what separates the top performers from everyone else.
Stop Watching the Scoreboard
Sales success isn’t a single event. It’s the accumulated result of consistent, intentional daily activity carried out over months and years. The professionals who understand the Principle of Lag stop chasing the scoreboard and start protecting their habits.
They show up, they do the work, and they trust the lag.
