TIME WASTER #15 of 15: Not Knowing Your Wins and Losses
Christopher Tuttle
(Reporting and Analysis)
The marketing department almost always wants the sales department to report results, link campaigns to toll free number and track the search engine keywords that bring in the most sales but it rarely happens. However, knowing the sources of your successes and failures will help you streamline your marketing and ultimately tap your most profitable sources of prospects and profits.
Very few companies track a lead from capture to conclusion or interview prospects and customers to find out why they do or do not buy. However, a sales team that fails to track why it wins or loses each sale is like a sports team that refuses to watch film of its competition before a game to prepare and then film of the actual game to improve for future wins: real progress is impossible unless it takes the time to learn from past successes and failures.
Best Practices: This time-waster covers nearly every area of the lead management and sales processes but it is also very simple to eliminate. The key is to start simple: pick 5 to 10 Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to track for 30 days. Once you have a baseline to work with, begin making changes and tracking them to see how they affect performance and profits.
You can begin be picking the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) such as:
Internet-based Leads
Counts: Impressions, Clicks, Leads, Prospects, Customers
Ratios: Impressions to Clicks, Clicks to Leads, Leads to Prospects, Prospects to Closes.
Cost per: Click, Lead, Prospect, Customer
Cold-Calling Leads
Counts: Dials, Contacts, Presentations, 1st Appointments Set, 1st Appointments Held, Demonstrations, Proposals, Closes
Ratios: Contacts per Dial, Closes per Proposal, etc.
Cost per: Dial, Contact, Demo, Close
Revenue
New Revenue per month, Revenue lost per month, Average Revenue per Account, Average Revenue per Sales Rep.
Ranking and Dispositions (from surveys)
Top 10 reasons why: people click on your site/ad, people bought, people didn’t buy, people called your support team, people quit your service.
Top 20 Accounts
Top Sales Representatives
Author: Ken Krogue | Google+
Summary of Ken Krogue’s Forbes articles