Let me start by saying, even though I’ve
been in sales leadership for a long time, I am not a fan of over-reporting.
Given all of the ways in which we obtain consumer data today, we can be
inundated with reports, analytics, metrics, data, data, data, and more data.
So, I’ve long been a believer in the key data points, profit & loss, and
keeping it simple and straight forward.
With that said, please don’t get me wrong,
data and data analysis are extremely important for the sales person / team, and
something each and every sales person needs to embrace. And, once a sales
person does embrace this level of reporting and information, it will become
second nature.
Of course, there are the standard
reports that every sales person needs to read and evaluate if not daily at
least weekly. Their own customer sales stats and the company P&L broken
down by account. Every good sales person wants to, or should, know where they
stand year-to-date, and how their accounts (customers/clients) are doing. But,
with the vast amount of data available, here are a few other key reports I
strongly suggest the ‘A’ level sales person jump on.
Website Performance – How is your
company’s website performing? Is the website ranking well? Can your customers
and prospects find you easily through Google search? Sales people have insights
into their individual customers behavior and the website should be helping them
not hindering them.
Inbound Leads – Does your company
receive inbound leads through the website, social media, telephone, etc.? How
does your territory or market segment stack up against others within the
company and against the competition? What is the average turnaround time for
responding to these leads?
Competitor Positioning – Are you aware
of how your company fairs in the marketplace against the competition in areas
of pricing, performance, responsiveness, customer support, etc.?
Your Marketing Team – Are you engaged
with your marketing team? Do you know what initiatives they are working on? Do
they know what is happening in the area of sales? Have you taken anyone from
marketing on a client engagement?
These are not time consuming concepts,
rather these are areas of information within your company (and market space)
that should give you the insight you need to advance in sales performance
whether on a per client basis or overall in your area of responsibility.