The sales process consists of various stages and factors. Therefore, it is important to review your activities and learn from them in order to minimize future mistakes as much as possible and continuously improve every procedure. That's why you need to analyze them in detail, and sales reporting only wants to help you in this task.
What exactly sales reporting is and why should you take advantage of it? Let's find out!
Table of Contents:
- What is sales reporting?
- Why is sales reporting so essential?
- When do sales reports come in handy?
- 8 essential metrics for sales reports
- Sales reporting step by step
- Wrapping up
- Sales reporting Q&A
What is sales reporting?
To put it simply, sales reporting tracks sales activities over a specified period, such as a day, week, month, quarter, etc. Therefore, in order to optimize your sales process and growth strategy, it is the most crucial element.
Sales reporting provides a company with insight into its processes and operations related to sales. Such analysis can reveal many insights, for example, a summary of:
- sales volume,
- fresh leads,
- brand-new accounts,
- revenue,
- and costs.
In addition, it can reflect the sales trends. It also reveals how the sales funnel progress or provides data regarding the sales cycle length.
The result of sales reporting is a document called a sales report. It provides a thorough analysis of a company's sales activities using different parameters and indicators. Generally speaking, this document summarizes a business’s sales activities.
Why is sales reporting so essential?
You already know that sales reporting allows management to stay on top of sales activities and understand the factors that determine the business's success. But there are many other reasons why sales reporting is important.
First, it will allow you to increase your sales.
Businesses often experience a decline in profits. With sales reports, however, you can stay on top of all the sales activities taking place within your business, so when a decrease in profits occurs, you can locate the cause and remedy it. In addition, you can quickly spot when and why the issue arose using a detailed and intuitive sales analysis.
Second, sales analysis allows you to make some forecasts for the future.
Do you want to know how sales will fare in the next few weeks? Use accurate data and draw conclusions from, for example, a monthly sales report. This will minimize your misconceptions based on your own suspicions.
What's more, such data shows how your company is doing in the market.
They highlight your company's overall performance and show how each process contributed to the results. Thus, sales managers can pinpoint the exact thing that sales reps need to improve in order to close more deals.
Next, sales reporting allows you to get answers to many questions.
How looks sales conversions? What factor the most determines customers to buy? How did sales compare to last month? With all the information and data that sales reporting generates, you may finally understand repetitive patterns.
Last but not least, knowing how your company's sales are going motivates the whole team to keep working.
If it turns out that the sales are great, your sales team may feel the wind blowing in the wings and will keep trying. However, if the results are not as optimistic, your team will also be motivated to continue to improve their performance.
When do sales reports come in handy?
There are a number of brief insights and metrics in a sales analysis. Such a document can give you the information you won't get anywhere else.
Sales reporting should be performed any time you need fresh insight into your brand’s sales activities.
That means that you can conduct sales reporting:
- when you see your sales funnel is doing wrong,
- when you want to compare current sales rep performance to another period in the past,
- when you want to know if you are getting closer to achieving your goals,
- when you want to know if your sales forecasts are correct,
- when you want to check how a new sales strategy is performing,
- when you want to find out if a new advertising campaign is more successful than the previous one,
- when you want to find out what the current buying trends are
- when you want to find out how much volume of a product group was sold in a particular time frame,
- when you want to know how your sales cycle is doing,
- when you want to know what your company needs to improve.
8 essential metrics for sales reports
If you're wondering what metrics to consider for sales reporting, we recommend you pay attention to these 8 examples for your team to consider.
#1 Revenue delivered vs. plan
The entire organization needs to see that the plan is crucial and not just a piece of paper. That's why this metric is fundamental. Not just for your sales department but the whole business. It can tell you whether or not you are following the plan.
You need to be evaluating it regularly, for example, by using:
- daily sales reports,
- weekly sales reports,
- and monthly sales reports.
#2 Pipeline value
It is a great way to monitor your company's sales performance and see what the future can look like for the business.
It's not enough to look at how much your team delivers to get a good sense of their performance. For this reason, you ought to examine the case more closely. In addition to tracking your sales team's performance, you can also use the pipeline value to understand the potential deals' total value and expected value.
#3 Sales cycle length
It measures the average number of days or months it takes for a deal to close. You can use this metric to measure how long it takes you or your team to go from an opportunity to complete the sale. Furthermore, you can use it to forecast what will happen in the future. Finally, it is a reliable indicator of how trustworthy your pipeline is.
It is better to have a shorter sales cycle. Many companies use this metric to evaluate the effectiveness of their sales strategy.
#4 Status changes
It’s vital to see movement in your pipeline as soon as possible, right? Status change metrics track the progress of all tasks and categorize them based on their actions. Since it includes information related to specific sales activities,, the data may be presented in many different ways. In addition to monitoring sales performance, this metric can also include more detailed information.
To move forward in your business, you need new qualified leads, new opportunities, and new opportunities. You'll discover later that your pipeline is a mess if you get stuck on stages.
#5 Opportunity to deal with conversion
Healthy pipelines have conversions higher than 50%. But notice that it isn't about having the highest number of opportunities in your pipeline. Instead, it's about being better and better and maximizing conversion rates while exceeding limits.
You should investigate why there are not enough good opportunities if your revenue is low or your pipeline is insufficient. You should also examine the performance of your sales representatives. Are they able to discuss complex topics and turn a big opportunity into a deal?
#6 Qualified meeting to opportunity
This is another metric you should pay attention to. How many meetings are your sales reps having? How many of these meetings end in success and how many in failure? How many new meetings are logged every month/week in the CRM? Do you want to see an increase in sales due to a positive meeting end?
To determine if your sales reps are missing opportunities to hit the target, examine the number of meetings they have.
Do they have too many meetings? Or not enough? Maybe you have the wrong target group?
Even though there have been enough meetings, they haven't been converted into opportunities. So just take a look at this metric and check whether your sales representatives can figure out how they might be able to help the potential customer.
#7 Qualified lead to meeting
If you've found that you're not doing enough meetings or your sales representatives are ineffective, you need to go back to the beginning, which is prospecting activities.
Ask yourself: Are you actively seeking new customers? Are you taking care of your existing ones? Have your competitors snatched up your old customers? How many unique companies did you contact? Do you have any leads from a group that was never your target?
It's not about your offer when attracting new leads. Suppose you want to generate high-quality leads for your company. In that case, you also need to consider other factors, such as producing appropriate content for your audience and making your communications coherent as well.
Analyze your company's situation with this indicator and start counteracting the destructive tendencies.
#8 CHURN RATE
In any business focused on sales, it is essential to pay attention to how many customers are abandoning your services. For this, we also have the right indicator to help you answer a few questions.
Do you know for what reason they abandoned your services? For example, did they move on to a competitor? If so, what factor caused them to do so? For example, do you have more loyal customers, or has their number become slimmer?
You should strive to create a healthy customer base so that your business can base its operations on a reliable audience and one that it can trust. If you lose more of your customers, your business will be in serious trouble. You need the opposite - for your current brand fans to buy more and recommend you to others.
This indicator is an excellent first step.
Sales reporting step by step
#1 Select metrics
To begin, think about what your sales report should look like and what you want to include in it. To do this, pose some questions. What metrics to consider and what research to conduct? Do you really need a comprehensive report, or do you want to see the most important variables? Answering these questions will help you run a sales review that shares excellent and relevant information.
#2 Choose software that meets your needs
Doing sales reporting in the traditional, stand-alone way is no longer effective anymore. It consumes a lot of time, effort and resources. Therefore, if you are an actual sales professional, consider software that streamlines sales tracking. If you already know what metrics you want to include in the analysis, find a tool that allows you to do so. Such programs are beneficial because they can provide you with many features, sales reporting templates, and more data in a much shorter time.
#3 Let the software do its work
After selecting the software, start generating your sales reports! It's time to get valuable sales information.
#4 Track your result
Generating reports is not the end of the job. Now it's time to analyze the results, make changes, develop new analyses, compare them, make further changes, etc. For the sales in your company to be really improved, you need to keep your hand on the pulse. Sales reporting will help you in this if it is done regularly.
How can Raynet help you?
Sales reporting is a significant part of your business. You already know that it is crucial to have good technical support to streamline the entire sales tracking process.
That's why we want you to meet RAYNET CRM.
RAYNET is a cloud-based software that helps especially salespeople and managers. The program provides sales reps with the tools for sales reporting and managers with the tools to monitor their business and forecast future results.
Managing the sales team and operations of the entire company can be better with RAYNET. Data management is located in one place, facilitating the flow of information. Thanks to many features, you have your business under control and have a complete view of what's at play.
You can also find here many sales reporting templates and use them for your needs. That means even sales analysis can be done much easier than before.
Feel free to try for free and see how RAYNET performs in your company.
Wrapping up
In conclusion, it is clear that the importance of sales reporting extends far beyond the boundaries of the sales department.
It's not just a report that will soon be lost in a pile of other documents. Instead, it's an incredible mine of data and insights that can really improve sales in your company.
That is why it is so important to use the right software, such as RAYNET, to make sales reporting more effective. So take advantage of the free trial period and enjoy insights that will change the face of your company!
Sales Reporting Q&A
How often should sales reports be generated?
Sales reports can be generated on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis depending on your needs. However, most businesses find that generating reports on a weekly basis is sufficient.
What information should be included in a sales report?
A typical sales report includes data on revenue, expenses, and profit. However, you may also want to include information on the number of sales made, the average transaction size, or the types of products sold. Furthermore, you may want to segment your sales data by region, type of customer, or salesperson.
What are common mistakes made when creating sales reports?
One common mistake is failing to include all relevant information. Another mistake is including too much information, which can make the report difficult to interpret. Finally, some businesses generate reports that are not tailored to their specific needs. As a result, they may end up with not useful or actionable data and this can ultimately lead to lost sales.
Why are sales reports important?
Sales reports are important because they provide businesses with insights into their performance. By tracking revenue, expenses, and profits, businesses can identify areas of improvement and make informed decisions about where to allocate their resources. Sales reports can also help businesses track progress towards their goals and objectives, but also help you detect any early warning signs of trouble.
How should you tackle sales reporting?
Sales reporting can be a complex and daunting task, but there are a few simple tips that can help make the process easier. First, start by creating a list of all the information you need to include in your report. Next, decide how often you need to generate the report. Create a template or use software to automate the generation of your sales reports.
By following these simple tips, you can ensure that your sales reports are useful and actionable. Remember to include all relevant information, segment your data, and tailor your reports to your specific needs. With sales reports, you can track your progress, identify areas of improvement, and make informed decisions about where to allocate your resources.
