Metrics and quotas matter to anyone concerned with sales performance.
Sales reps get paid when they hit targets, which is why almost every aspect of a salesperson’s job can be tracked, analyzed, quantified and measured.
Sales managers and sales leaders around the world make key decisions based on data – or at least they should.
That’s because insights pulled from sales tracking tools can help you pivot your sales strategy and sales activities, conduct more accurate sales forecasting, optimize sales training initiatives and workflows, make key hiring decisions and more.
You and your sales team should be doing more than just tracking calls, appointments, wins and losses. These individual sales tasks are just table stakes. That said, mountains of data from tracking sales can be a blessing and a curse for your small business.
In this article, we’ll share how to leverage sales tracking to your advantage and avoid overwhelm so you can work smarter, not harder.
Why sales tracking can be both a blessing and a curse
Technology should be an enabler, not a disabler.
Data management and tracking sales should not be a time-consuming and frustrating burden in your sales team’s day-to-day life. That’s why when it comes to figuring out how to track sales, choosing the right customer relationship management software (CRM) and sales tracking software that makes life easier is vital.
Your CRM software or sales tracker should take your data, arrange it effectively and analyze the information you’ve gathered to help your sales reps sell more products and services.
That said, while sales tracking software helps with data-gathering and analysis, which should theoretically make life easier, the added stress that comes from the responsibility of managing and analyzing data to optimize your performance can take its toll. The expectation of managing data effectively can seem like an added chore rather than a helpful aid.
It’s a fine line to walk, but it’s worth the effort to get it right, as the rewards far outweigh the drawbacks. Here is a basic diagram of how you can track sales through the sales process.
How your CRM sales tracking can help you turn data into sales
Sales tracking should be a sales manager’s best friend.
A quality sales CRM will allow you to use sales tracking to closely examine what's working and track where you may need help or improvement.
This simple sales tracking tool presents many golden opportunities.
Get the right insights
So many sales and marketing teams miss out on key insights because they aren't making the best use of their sales tracking system.
With a powerful CRM and pipeline management system, sales tracking can be automated. Simple sales tracking means critical performance insights are just a couple of keystrokes away.
With automation, there aren’t any complicated formulas that need to be created in a spreadsheet when you and your team members are struggling to figure out where you stand on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis.
If you can develop effective sales tracking as opposed to focusing only on basic metrics (like how many calls you make and emails you send), you have the power to learn how to measure things like sales stage ratios and deal velocities.
Plan the right activities
Data can help you get a handle on the specific activities your salespeople need to complete to have the best chance of achieving your sales goals.
You can’t afford to miss out on important metrics or underestimate the insights from sales tracking. Nor can you afford to miss out on qualified new leads or a hot prospect because it’s buried in your CRM data.
When you’re figuring out how to track sales, you need a quick, clear and customizable way to ensure all of your data is ready for you to make use of. Then you just need to analyze and feed back your learnings to optimize your sales process in the next sales cycle.
Proper use of this sales tracker data can help you gain a competitive advantage over your competition to capture future sales, boost team performance and lift up the company’s bottom line.
4 types of sales tracking metrics (and their critical components)
Real-time sales tracking can help you uncover a prospect sooner than your competitor, or you can use those numbers to avoid unqualified leads before they drag you down in a time suck.
Trying to figure out which sales tools are useful for proper sales reporting and forecasting can be a challenge.
Let’s break this down to the practical essentials:
Activity based sales metrics
What are the tasks you can control to make sure you hit your targets?
Number of calls made
Number of proposals sent
Number of conversations
Number of follow ups scheduled
Pipeline-based sales metrics
Is your sales pipeline effectively converting prospects into customers each sales cycle?
Average length of sales cycle
Total open opportunities
Total closed opportunities
Win rate
Sales lead generation sales metrics
Are you talking to the right people at the right time and do you know when to lose a cold lead? These are the key Sales lead generation questions to ask yourself.
Volume of new opportunities added to pipeline
Percentage of leads followed up
Percentage of qualified leads
Sales productivity-based metrics
Are you planning your day correctly?
Time spent selling
Time spent on customer data entry
Time spent lead prospecting
Download your sales tracking spreadsheet
A sales tracking spreadsheet or dashboard is a powerful tool that allows businesses to monitor and analyze their sales performance. It provides a centralized platform to record sales data, track progress and generate insightful reports.
A sales tracker template, such as a sales monitoring Excel template, is a pre-designed sales tracking dashboard that simplifies the process of organizing and visualizing sales data, making it easier for businesses to stay on top of their sales goals and make informed decisions.
Discover the power of effective sales tracking. Explore strategies, tips and insights to optimize your sales process. Enhance your workflow by downloading the comprehensive sales tracking spreadsheet.
Free templates to track sales
Final thoughts
You’re missing opportunities if you’'re not tracking sales properly. Analyzing metrics to define new ways of improving the customer experience or identifying problem areas is needed to avoid time wasters, tire kickers and unqualified prospects.
Leverage specific sales metrics that you and your team need to track to understand where you can improve your sales process in the next sales cycle.
If sales organizations can develop a structured, repeatable sales process and use a sales-specific CRM to automate sales tracking, they can regularly analyze team performance. This way, decision-makers can come up with improved or new sales and marketing strategies to optimize the buying experience for potential customers.
With the right keyword sales tracking tools and clever analysis, you’re on your way to better performance and sustainable revenue growth.
