The One KPI That Sales Teams Ignore: Health
Sales success isn’t just strategy. It’s stamina.
The TL;DR (Executive Summary)
Sales teams measure everything… except the one factor that fuels every result: health.
Physical and mental energy directly influence consistency, focus, and authenticity.
Leadership sets the tone by modeling sustainable habits, not just demanding high output.
A healthy culture isn’t a perk. It’s a performance system.
The data is clear: when your people have more energy, they have more conversations, better judgment, and stronger results. (Read for the receipts!)
The One Metric That’s Missing from Your Dashboard
In sales leadership meetings, we track everything that moves: revenue, pipeline velocity, conversion ratios, activity counts, content engagement… the list goes on and on.
But there’s one metric we rarely talk about, even though it drives every number on the board: energy, as in, our energy as human beings.
Energy, both physical and mental, is the hidden KPI behind every deal closed, conversation started, and problem solved. When your people have it, they show up sharper, listen better, and connect deeper. When they don’t, every number downstream suffers.
And yet, most organizations treat health as a mere afterthought or ignore it completely. They invest in tech stacks, training, enablement… but not in the one resource every seller depends on to do their job well: their own well-being.
Let’s change that.
From Burnout to Baseline: Why Energy Drives Performance
The best sales reps often come from athletic or disciplined backgrounds. I’ve seen it myself in previous corporate sales jobs. Why? They understand the compounding effect of small, consistent actions… in training and in selling.
The salesperson who moves regularly handles rejection better.
The one who sleeps consistently makes sharper, more informed decisions.
The person who manages stress with intention communicates with more empathy.
Those aren’t lifestyle perks, and a lot of companies treat them as such. They need to regard them as business advantages.
Recent research backs this up. A 2023 meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials found that structured physical activity improved executive function in sedentary adults, including inhibitory control and working memory. Those are the same skills that govern judgment, focus, and real-time call quality. Effects were more substantial with programs longer than 12 weeks, too.
Broader evidence supports this as well: an umbrella review of randomized trials reports reliable improvements in general cognition, memory, and executive function with exercise. This reinforces the mechanism underlying better decision-making at work.
And sleep is a measurable performance lever. RAND’s 2023 analysis ties chronic insomnia to 45–54 lost workdays per person per year through absenteeism and presenteeism, with macro-level losses exceeding $200B annually in the U.S. alone.
Leadership Sets the Health Culture
Sales leaders can’t preach performance without modeling sustainability. You can tell your team to push harder, or you can show them how to push smarter. (Guess which one works better?)
This starts with small, visible actions driven by leadership:
Taking walking meetings.
Encouraging recovery after big sales pushes.
Acknowledging mental breaks as part of productivity, not a pause from it.
Culture doesn’t start with just a wellness program. It begins with permission, and by example.
Workplace evidence points in the same direction: physical-activity-based wellness programs are associated with improvements in workability and work performance and can reduce absenteeism, though program design and quality matter. (National Institutes of Health)
Simple environmental shifts help too. A recent study shows reallocating desk workers’ sitting time toward standing or stepping is associated with better presenteeism, absenteeism, and engagement scores.
My Wake-Up Call
I learned this the hard way.
Years ago, I was the kind of person who powered through fatigue with caffeine and deadlines. At the time, I told myself it was discipline. It was actually denial.
When I finally focused on my health, everything changed. I lost more than 120 pounds. My clarity improved. My writing and performance sharpened. My decision-making got faster, and my patience deepened.
That transformation not only changed how I lived, but also improved how I performed at work.
Now, when I coach sales professionals, I emphasize health not as a personal story, but as a professional strategy. When you prioritize your energy, and when your team does, too, every client conversation gets better.
The Sales Equation We Don’t Talk About Enough
We say sales is a numbers game. And it’s true. But sales is also a health game.
You can’t convert if you’re constantly depleted. You can’t engage if you’re exhausted. And you can’t connect (well) if you’re running on fumes.
Healthy teams don’t just perform better… they sustain better.
Even brief movement can help. Experimental work shows short bouts of aerobic exercise can boost cognitive flexibility and creative ideation shortly afterward. You and your team can use this before big calls or brainstorming sessions.
How Leaders Can Start Managing the Health KPI
Normalize energy conversations. Ask how people are managing their day… not just their deals.
Celebrate recovery. Reward balance, not burnout. (No more joking about “you’ll sleep when you’re dead.)
Integrate movement. Walking 1:1s, quick stretch breaks, stand-for-strategy sessions. It’s all low friction, but with high payoffs.
Share your story. Vulnerability drives change. And if, as a business leader, you don’t have a story? Start building one and share your journey as you (hopefully) travel along with your people.
The ROI of Health in Sales
Wellbeing investments tend to return value primarily through productivity gains from lower absenteeism and presenteeism. One 2024 analysis (PDF direct download) estimated ~$1.47 returned per $1 spent, with benefits compounding over multi-year horizons.
Sales teams are made of humans, not machines… even in today’s world where we’re starting to lean harder into AI. When people have the physical and mental capacity to perform, every metric improves: pipeline, productivity, profitability.
Wrapping It Up
The best leaders don’t just track performance. They cultivate it. If your team is hitting the numbers but running on empty, that’s a countdown to failed health in the long term.
So the next time you review your dashboards, remember: the most important KPI doesn’t appear in Salesforce or Sales Navigator.
It’s the energy your people bring to the work.
What do you think? Have you implemented health-forward solutions in your workplace (and are you participating in them)? How’s it going? Or do you think that implementing such strategies would be like approaching a 350 lb. barbell waiting to be deadlifted? Let me know in the comments section.
Heath, especially good health, is a habit. Another thing that’s a habit? Getting good conversations started from LinkedIn.
If your team isn’t getting results from LinkedIn, don’t blame the algorithm. It’s the absence of a strategy that fits how buyers want to be approached today. And they need a system and strategy that makes it easier to do the right things, consistently. So they become, you know… a habit.
Download this FREE eBook to help them get those conversations started.
NOTE: The hero image for this post was generated with AI.