{"id":2218,"date":"2021-01-19T08:49:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T08:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/?p=2218"},"modified":"2021-01-19T22:06:53","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T22:06:53","slug":"sales-reports-to-guide-your-company-to-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/sales-reports-to-guide-your-company-to-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Sales Reports to Guide Your Company to Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we’ve said before, closing lots of deals is the goal to make your sales team successful.\u00a0How can you use data to better support your sales team to\u00a0gain and keep customers<\/a>,\u00a0if it\u2019s critical for you track the information that has led to wins or losses?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>If you don\u2019t know the data behind those deals, you will have trouble replicating and scaling your results as your business grows. Knowing the specific factors that impact the success of your sales team can help with your company’s longevity. That\u2019s where sales reports come in.<\/p>\n

So, what do you need to know about sales reports to use them to your business’s advantage?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What Are Sales Reports?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

They\u2019re a record of sales activity over a specific period of time. Thus, they help your sales team review what reps have been doing, track progress towards quotas, and find potential issues ahead of time<\/strong>. In short, they\u2019re a powerful tool to add to your sales process<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sales reports allow businesses and their sales teams to answer the most important questions about their sales growth and progress on a regular basis. To ensure the success of your sales team, you need to understand the factors that affect your team\u2019s performance – the goal of sales reports.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What Should Sales Reports Contain? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sales reports for every business will look different \u2013 the key is to include sales metrics that have the biggest impact on your <\/strong>sales process<\/a>. You don\u2019t need to include every single potential data point in your sales reports. Doing so might make it harder to find and understand the key information.<\/p>\n

Instead, target the sales metrics that most closely reflect your team goals and business objectives.<\/p>\n

Here are a few metrics you may want to include in your sales reporting<\/strong> process:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. Sales Pipeline<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This is a must-have. You need to know exactly which deals are about to close, which ones are in jeopardy, which ones are early in the sales cycle and the overall number of deals in progress. And you\u2019ll want to know the impact each potential deal would have on your quota and bottom line too.<\/p>\n

2. Conversion Rates<\/strong><\/h3>\n

How often are you converting your prospects into leads, and those leads into customers?<\/p>\n

These numbers are vital to understanding your sales performance. If there\u2019s one point in your sales cycle where leads are often dropping out, you can look at ways to fix the underlying issue.<\/p>\n

3. Sales Cycle Length<\/strong><\/h3>\n

How long does it take a typical rep to close a deal?<\/p>\n

What are the key drivers of sales cycle length<\/strong> for your business \u2013 size of the deal, kind of customer, size of the prospect, etc.?<\/p>\n

Knowing this metric will help you track the performance of sales reps and the effectiveness of your sales process.<\/p>\n

4. Typical Deal Size<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This number will help you predict revenue and the health of your sales pipeline, because you will know how many deals you need to close in a quarter or a year to meet your targets.<\/p>\n

5. Customer Churn<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This goes beyond closing the deal to understand how many customers are churning after they purchase your product. High rates of churn can indicate there\u2019s a mismatch<\/strong> somewhere in the sales process \u2013 are you overpromising, underdelivering, or simply targeting the wrong customers<\/a>?<\/p>\n

6. Analysis of Won\/Lost Deals<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Tracking the deals you win and lose can be very illuminating.<\/p>\n

Are there competitors to whom you often lose deals, or features that win you deals almost all the time?<\/p>\n

Pay special attention to deals that fall out unexpectedly or at the last minute, key deals and deals of a certain size that are important to you.\u00a0 This info will also give you insight into your individual sales reps. Who is winning deals often and helping the team at the same time, and who is relying on others to win only an average amount of deals?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sales reports can be compiled on any timeframe that works for your business. You may want to have a brief weekly report so you can track your real-time progress<\/strong> and pipeline, while also adding in monthly, quarterly, and\/or yearly reports as well to see trends over time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why Are Sales Reports Important? \u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sales reports are vital for one major reason \u2013 you can\u2019t improve what you don\u2019t measure.<\/strong> Just looking at your sales quotas and revenue isn\u2019t enough to ensure your sales strategy<\/a> is succeeding. Sales reports will help you measure a few key areas of your sales activity to gauge the most important information in your process to see where you can increase efficiency.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When they\u2019re done the right way, sales reports help you record how your team is doing at each step of the sales cycle<\/a> \u2013 what are the places where prospects are dropping out or moving forward more often?<\/p>\n

This data will help you find the strengths and weaknesses of both your sales team and<\/strong> your overall sales process. Maybe your lead strategy<\/a> is bringing in too many unqualified leads that waste time, or your process for closing deals has a lower-than-ideal conversion rate.<\/p>\n

Smart sales reports will also help you look at the sales activity of individual sales reps and see if there are best practices (or practices to be avoided) that can be translated to the whole sales team to improve sales.<\/p>\n

In addition, sales reports will give you a view of how your sales team is performing<\/a> this quarter versus the previous one. And finally, they will help with your sales forecasting efforts<\/strong> so you can look ahead to upcoming potential deals in the sales pipeline.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tracking Your Sales Performance <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sales reports are a critical part of your overall sales infrastructure<\/a>. They pull together valuable data on your sales process, sales reps, and sales team performance in one place so you can track it all and improve your sales strategy in 2021<\/a>. And for busy sales leaders<\/a>, anything that helps you keep track of all this information and provides critical insights into what\u2019s going well and what\u2019s going wrong is invaluable.<\/p>\n

If you need help deciding which information you need in sales reports, how to set the right sales goals, or how to significantly increase your sales win rate, you could use some expert guidance and outside perspective. That\u2019s exactly what we offer at 360 Consulting.<\/p>\n

Let us help you build a sales process and team your business can count on with results you can measure.<\/strong> We\u2019ll work together to create a custom action plan for get incredible results, and get you on the right path to success. Schedule your free consultation<\/a>\u00a0to find out how we can help you shatter sales records.<\/p>\n

Image Attribution<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we’ve said before, closing lots of deals is the goal to make your sales team successful.\u00a0How can you use data to better support your sales team to\u00a0gain and keep customers,\u00a0if it\u2019s critical for you track the information that has led to wins or losses?\u00a0\u00a0If you don\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[283,284,285,282],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2218"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2242,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218\/revisions\/2242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c1mdevsite.com\/360consultingdfw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}