Do you track sales for your company? If not, you should definitely start!
It doesn’t matter if you’re a small local business or a national corporation, sales tracking is incredibly important.
In this article, we’ll outline three reasons you should start tracking sales immediately, the specific metrics you should pay attention to, and how SPOTIO can assist your efforts.
3 Reasons You Should Be Tracking Sales
Why is sales tracking important? While the process of tracking sales may seem tedious—maybe even unnecessary—it’s a valuable activity. It will help you identify potential patterns, close more deals in less time, and better forecast future sales.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the benefits.
Identify Potential Problems
Sales tracking will give you real-time insight into your team’s efforts. Because of this, you’ll be able to identify potential problems and remedy them before they become massive issues.
For example, if you notice that one of your reps is bringing fewer leads this month than last, you can investigate why. Maybe they started using a new email template that isn’t converting, or have been so busy making in-person visits they haven’t had time to send follow ups.
Whatever the case maybe, sales tracking will help you pinpoint the issue immediately so that you can take steps to “right the ship” as quickly as possible.
Close More Deals in Less Time
When you’re able to easily identify and remove sales process issues, you’ll be able to close more deals in less time. Let’s return to our previous example:
You notice that one of your reps is generating far fewer leads this month than last month. You look into the problem and realize they’ve started using a new email template. It’s obviously not working, so you set them up with something better.
Moving forward, they’ll be able to engage with potential leads in a more effective way and convert them into prospects at a faster rate.
We’re not starting a revolution when we say it’s much easier to sell to someone in the prospect stage than a complete stranger who’s never heard of your company before.
Better Forecasts Future Sales
Lastly, sales tracking will help you better forecast future sales.
Think about it: when you have your thumb on the pulse of your sales team, you’ll know how many leads they contact on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. You’ll also understand your department’s average conversion rate.
You can use these two pieces of information to better project the sales your team will generate in the future.
Accurate sales forecasting leads to better decision making and resource allocation. In other words, it’s essential to the success of your company.
The Sales Metrics That Matter
Can we agree that sales tracking is important? Great!
Now the question is, which sales metrics should you focus on? There are plenty to choose from. But the 10 listed below should be considered high priority to most organizations:
Sales Rep Activities
We’ll start with sales rep activities because they are completely within your control.
You don’t get to decide how many leads respond to your emails, for example, though there are plenty of things you can do to increase your response rate.
But you DO get to decide how many initial emails you send, follow-ups you mail, etc.
Calls Made: Your team can’t make sales if they don’t contact leads. And when it comes to sales, the phone is still a useful tool. Make sure you track how many calls each individual rep on your team makes every single day.
Emails and Texts Sent: Not every prospect wants to receive a sales call. That’s one of the reasons why email marketing has an ROI of 4,200% and why 64% of consumers want companies to contact them via text more often. Keep a tally of the number of emails and texts your team sends to prospects.
In-Person Visits: If you manage an outside sales team you should also keep track of the number of in-person visits your reps make. Technology gives you the ability to reach anybody, anywhere. But nothing can replace face-to-face interaction.
Number of Follow Ups: Did you know that 80% of sales require five follow ups? Unfortunately, 44% of sellers give up after just one follow-up? To improve sales, make sure your team is following up with calls, emails, and texts on a regular basis.
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Sales rep activities are 100% in your team’s control. Because of this, they’re the easiest to improve upon.
Simply make more calls, visit more prospects, and send more follow up emails. As long as you have a solid outreach strategy in place, more effort should yield better results.
Sales Process Statistics
You’ll also want to track metrics related to your team’s sales process. While you don’t have direct control over these KPIs, there are things you can do to move them in the right direction.
Length of Sales Cycle: This metric measures the average length of time between first contact with a potential customer and a closed deal. It can be used to improve sales forecasting efforts. The shorter your company’s sales cycle is, the better.
Revenue Generated: At the end of the day, your team needs to generate revenue. If they don’t your company won’t be able to operate. That’s why it’s important to track the amount of money your sales team brings in, not just the number of deals they close.
Year Over Year Growth: This metric compares current sales over a specific period of time to sales made in the same period of the previous year. You want to make sure that your year over year growth is continually improving.
Like we mentioned earlier, you don’t have direct control over these metrics. But you can do things to help move them in the right direction.
For example, an optimized email sequence could help you shorten your sales cycle and generate more revenue year after year.
Target Audience Behaviors
Finally, we have target audience behaviors.
Once again, you and your team don’t have direct control over these metrics. But there are tactics you can use to improve them, which is why they should still be tracked.
Here are three important ones to keep an eye on:
Response Rate: How often do leads respond to your team’s outreach efforts? The higher this number is, the more success your company is likely to have. To discover the response rate of each of your reps, simply divide the number of communications sent by the number of responses you receive.
Conversion Rate: You need people to respond to your outreach efforts. But if none of these folks take the next step and convert into paying customers, your company will be in trouble.
To find your team’s conversion rate, divide the number of deals your team has closed by the number of leads they’ve reached out to.
Average Length of Contract: Every company is different. But in general, longer contracts are preferred by sales teams because they guarantee higher revenue numbers.
Analyze your deals to determine your company’s average length of contract.
It’s always helpful to know how your specific audience behaves. Proper sales tracking will give you the insights you need to engage potential customers successfully.
SPOTIO For Sales Tracking
We’ve covered the metrics you should track. But you’re probably thinking, “how do I actually find this information?”
SPOTIO can help! Use our tool to monitor:
Multichannel Communication
Analyze rep communication efforts to see exactly who they’re in contact with, how they’re contacting them, and how often they’re sending messages and/or making calls inside SPOTIO.
The best part is your reps don’t have to waste any time logging these kinds of details. SPOTIO will automatically capture them and update your CRM tool of choice.
91% of CRM data is inaccurate. With SPOTIO, you’ll always have accurate, real-time communication info.
Rep and Territory Performance
SPOTIO makes it easy to assess rep and territory performance. Who’s your top performer? What area do they work in? More importantly, why are they more successful than their colleagues?
SPOTIO gives you clear insight into team success so that you can repeat it.
While we’re on the topic of territories, we should also mention that you can easily cut them based on geographic boundaries and assign them to the most qualified rep inside SPOTIO.
This will help ensure top-notch efficiency for your department.
Accurate Sales Forecasting
Because SPOTIO gives you real-time and in-depth sales tracking information, it’s the perfect tool for sales forecasting purposes. Dive into our tool’s analytics dashboards to learn about team performance so that you can accurately predict future results.
SPOTIO will give you access to individual rep and team activity metrics, conversion rates, revenue generated information, and a whole lot more.
Build a Better Business With Sales Tracking
It’s extremely difficult to grow a business without tracking sales.
Fortunately, you now know exactly what metrics to monitor to achieve success! By focusing on sales rep activities, sales process statistics, and target audience behaviors you’ll be able to gather the information you need to drive revenue and move your company forward.
If you’re looking for a software tool to simplify sales tracking, give SPOTIO a try. Our platform is specifically designed for outside sales teams and will help you monitor every aspect of the sales process so that you can make better business decisions.
