Sales are the cornerstone of success for a business as they keep the revenues and profits churning. If your sales team fails to match the expectations, your organization may get into trouble. Not surprisingly, businesses of all sizes and scales go the extra mile with tracking activities like opportunities, leads, and deals.
The goal is to identify the bottlenecks in the funnel and address them before they become dire issues. The sooner you tie the loose ends, the better for your business. But activity tracking may seem cumbersome, specifically if you run with a big team. Moreover, you may end up with metrics that do not serve real value. Let us share some best practices to track your sales activities effectively.
Table of Contents
Decide on the activities you want to track
Since the selling cycle involves multiple activities, tracking all of them can complicate things and increase your workload. The best way to address the concern is by being selective. Start by creating a list of activities that lead to a conversion for your business. The second stage of the tracking process is mapping out the people and steps involved in the journey. Once you have the data, list the activities each employee must complete to reach the next step.
Create a tracker
Picking the pieces of information, and analyzing them randomly is not the right approach. You need to get more organized with a sales activity tracker, a system that puts everything in an appropriate order. The good thing is that you can use a software solution for the task instead of struggling with metrics and numbers. Choosing a data-driven tool also gives you an advantage from accuracy and usability perspectives.
Involve your team
Breaking up the sales activity into steps and creating a tracker give you a good start. But you cannot accomplish the task without involving your team. Share the tracker template with your reps to ensure they know what they need to focus on to hit their targets. Having everyone on the same page will push the overall sales figures and prevent communication bottlenecks in the process. At the same time, it gets you buy-in from the team. They may even have better suggestions to fine-tune your tracking strategy.
Keep an eye on the big picture
Another best practice you must stick with while tracking sales is to keep an eye on the big picture instead of focusing on insignificant details. The best way to do it is by following the actual sales. Steer clear of getting caught up in leads, email responses, and follow-up activities. The bottom line matters the most, so you shouldn’t be too happy with a spike in email responses. The real win is about converting them to sales as they bring revenue to the company.
Tracking your sales is crucial as these are the numbers that determine the success and growth of your business. But you should take a strategic approach to the task instead of counting the figures randomly. Following these best practices gives you a great start.
I’m a writer, artist, and designer working in the gaming and tech industries. I have held staff and freelance positions at large publications including Digital Trends, Lifehacker, Popular Science Magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly, IGN, The Xplore Tech, and others, primarily covering gaming criticism, A/V and mobile tech reviews, and data security advocacy.