As a sales manager, you may have identified the areas most
important for your sales team’s focus. Through an effective sales reporting
tool, you can track these measures and determine with some accuracy where your
sales team, and therefore your business, is heading.
Deciding what to measure is the first step. While not every
industry and individual business is the same, there are some sales
indicators that are reliable tools for measuring the success of a sales
team, no matter what you sell.
Total Sales Dollars
While not a foolproof measure, getting a picture of your
total sales dollars is a part of understanding how your sales team is
performing. On a team where sales territories are largely variable, this
measure will need to be balanced with other indicators of sales success.
Closing Ratios
Getting an idea of which sales reps are excelling at closing
will help you replicate those skills throughout your sales team. If you
identify a particularly adept sales rep that always turns a cold call into a
face-to-face meeting, you can have that sales rep share their best practices
with the rest of the team.
Per Prospect Sales
Amount
To get a picture of how your sales are spread across various
customers, track the per prospect sales amount in your sales reporting tool. It
will help you identify sales reps that have over-leveraged business into a few
key accounts and allow them to spot opportunities to grow additional business.
Closing Rate vs.
Sales Cycle
Having an accurate understanding of closing rate vs. sales
cycle may help you identify at what step you may be losing opportunities. If a
rep is consistently getting to a second meeting but cannot seem to close on a
contract, it may be time for some training. This information can position your
management into a more proactive style instead of reacting to a deal that has
fallen through.
Pipeline Accuracy
If your sales
reporting tool is tracking the pipeline of your sales reps, you can
correctly forecast their sales and, in turn, their income. This measure
benefits both the sales manager and the sales rep because everyone involved is
working with accurate numbers. The sales rep can count on their expected income
and the sales manager can bank on the number of new accounts coming online.
Activities
Tracking activities is likely the most unpopular task
required of a sales rep. Many feel micro-managed when they have to log cold
calls, meetings and emails. However, measuring activities helps identify strong
and weak points in the sales process. When a sales team is provided with a
user-friendly sales reporting tool, logging activities is efficient and easy.
At Front Row Solutions,
you can access a sales reporting tool that provides the best sales tracking
available. Give Front Row Solutions a call to talk about your reporting needs
and you will be shown how to launch your sales team into a new level of success
with innovative mobile solutions.
